The quest for safe, generic, ‘ceremonial’ prayers
As the members of the Town of Greece Board prepared for business, a local Catholic priest rose to offer a short prayer. “Heavenly Father, you guide and govern everything with order and love,” said...
View ArticleBritish rabbi stands to defend America’s first freedom
When Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks arrived in America recently representatives of the United States government did not greet him with a demand that Great Britain’s former chief rabbi remove his yarmulke...
View ArticlePope, patriarch, primacy and the press
The Holy Land pilgrimage by Pope Francis contained plenty of symbolic gestures, photo ops and sound bites crafted to slip into broadcasts, ink and Twitter. There was his direct flight into the West...
View ArticleAnn B. Davis was much, much more than ‘Alice’
Soon after its birth, the MTV network tried to branch out with “Remote Control,” a hipper than hip game show. Contestants were quizzed on media trivia including a category called, “Alive or dead?” The...
View ArticleA wry case for using beer in evangelism
While he knows that millions of teetotalling Christians disagree, Father William Miller believes he can make a theological case for the moderate consumption of beer through a simple use of evangelistic...
View ArticleSobering words define a young priest’s life
As sermons go, it was not the kind of pulpit performance that — when it was given — created a buzz in the pews. The young Catholic priest’s voice was flat and subdued, his face calm but not expressive....
View ArticleClergy, temptation, sex abuse and the law
Surely one of our world’s most endangered species — right up there with the Mountain Gorilla or the Sumatran Tiger — is the church “ministerius youthii.” That was the conviction of the late Louis...
View ArticlePain, hope and schisms in the long Anglican wars
Anglicans seem to be hopeful about their flocks in the United States, even if the warring factions in their Communion keep moving further and further apart. That was a common theme in two upbeat recent...
View ArticleReligious leaders struggle to reach ‘emerging adults’
When leaders of traditional faith groups think about reaching out to Millennials, religious seekers, unaffiliated “Nones” and other postmodern young Americans, this is the voice that many keep hearing...
View ArticleGrowing tensions on the Faith and Family Left
It was one of those symbolic questions that pollsters toss into the mix when probing fault lines inside political coalitions. The Pew Research Center recently asked, as part of its “Beyond Red vs....
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