Benedicta Cipolla
Benedicta Cipolla is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Benedicta Cipolla
Ruth Graham: The silent rock behind a famous evangelist
By Benedicta Cipolla — February 22, 2018
(RNS) — 'Your counsel, advice, encouragement and prayer have been my mainstay and at times I have almost clung to you in my weakness, in hours of obsession, problems and difficulties,' Billy Graham wrote in a 1963 letter to his wife, Ruth.
`Faith without works’ emerges as Democrats’ favorite Bible verse
By Benedicta Cipolla — June 20, 2008
c. 2008 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly (UNDATED) When Sen. Barack Obama turns to talking about faith on the campaign trail, he sometimes invokes the New Testament book of James and its admonition that “faith without works is dead.” As she competed for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton frequently did the same _ often more […]
9/11 families sue for right to religious burials
By Benedicta Cipolla — May 23, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ After the memorial Mass on Oct. 26, 2001, for her son Christian, a probationary firefighter who died in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Sally Regenhard didn’t proceed to a cemetery. There was no cemetery because there was no body. Christian’s remains were never […]
What’s the big deal about the pope anyway?
By Benedicta Cipolla — April 10, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In case you’ve missed the countless news articles, blog posts and television segments, the leader of 1.13 billion Catholics is coming to America. When Pope Benedict XVI makes his first trip to the United States April 15-20, with stops in Washington and New York, he will claim one in […]
Muslim leader decries American `bigotry’ against Islam
By Benedicta Cipolla — February 21, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Don’t ask Anne Rice about “The Da Vinci Code” unless you want an earful. Rice, who returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 and abandoned vampires, her former stock in trade, soon after, calls it a “load of nonsense.” Her latest novel, “Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana,” […]
We Three Kings of Orient Are … mostly unknown
By Benedicta Cipolla — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) They came. They saw. They gifted. That’s about all we know of the foreign visitors who traveled to Bethlehem to see the infant Jesus. The scene ingrained in the public imagination _ a stately procession of three kings in turbans, crowns, elaborate capes and fancy slippers, with an entourage […]
We Three Kings of Orient Are … mostly unknown
By Benedicta Cipolla — November 29, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) They came. They saw. They gifted. That’s about all we know of the foreign visitors who traveled to Bethlehem to see the infant Jesus. The scene ingrained in the public imagination _ a stately procession of three kings in turbans, crowns, elaborate capes and fancy slippers, with an entourage […]
Pope’s plays find new life on off-Broadway stage
By Benedicta Cipolla — October 30, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ In 1987, Peter Dobbins wandered into a Christian bookstore in Dallas and picked up the collected plays of Karol Wojtyla, the Polish playwright-turned-priest who went on to become Pope John Paul II. Someday, Dobbins thought, he’d like to bring them to life on stage. After percolating for […]
Reinhold Niebuhr is Unseen Force in 2008 Elections
By Benedicta Cipolla — September 28, 2007
c. 2007 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly (UNDATED) Thirty-six years after his death, Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr seems more alive than ever. Perhaps not since President Jimmy Carter acknowledged Niebuhr’s influence in his 1976 campaign has the name been on so many people’s lips. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama told New York Times columnist David […]
Some Ask if Atheists Are the New Fundamentalists
By Benedicta Cipolla — May 16, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Despite its minority status, atheism has enjoyed the spotlight of late, with several books that feature vehement arguments against religion topping the bestseller lists. But some now say secularists should embrace more than the strident rhetoric poured out in books like Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and Sam Harris’ […]
10 Minutes With … Sam Harris
By Benedicta Cipolla — September 21, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In a country where a recent study showed that nine out of 10 Americans are affiliated with some sort of religious group, a book that takes an uncompromising stance against religion _ all of them _ has a good chance of getting relegated to the remainder pile. Sam Harris’ […]
Billboard Campaign Urges Drivers to `Use Your Common Saints’
By Benedicta Cipolla — July 20, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Monday morning. You’re crawling along at 20 mph, slurping coffee and avoiding calls from the office. You drive by the usual billboards hawking beer and condo developments, when suddenly there appears a message from St. Jude. Yes, St. Jude. No, it’s not a vision. On Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway, the […]
RNS Exclusive: Queen of Darkness Sees the Light in New Book on Christ
By Benedicta Cipolla — October 19, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The queen of darkness has seen the light. In her latest book, “Christ the Lord,” novelist Anne Rice turns away from the doomed souls of her best-selling tales about vampires and witches in favor of a first-person account of the 7-year-old Jesus. “I was sitting in church talking to […]
NEWS STORY: What’s in a Name? For a New Pope, Quite a Bit
By Benedicta Cipolla — April 3, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When Karol Wojtyla was elected pope in 1978, he took the name of John Paul II. Legend has it that the first Pole to become pontiff had considered choosing Stanislaus during the conclave, presumably to pay homage to the 11th century saint from his homeland. But Cardinal Franz Koenig […]
NEWS STORY: Conclave Process Has Changed Over Time
By Benedicta Cipolla — April 3, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When the 117 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new pope, they will follow a millennium-old tradition in the Catholic Church that has been modified over the centuries. The conclave process that will be followed by those princes of the church was ordered by Pope […]
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