One of six diocesan priests now serving in the United States came from abroad, according to “International Priests in America,” a large study published in 2006. About 300 international priests arrive to work here each year. Even in American seminaries, about a third of those studying for the priesthood are foreign-born.
I join my voice to … those of many others around the world, challenging the Israeli government to call a halt to this wholly disproportionate escalation of violence. I challenge the Palestinian forces to end their rocket attacks on Israelis.
“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”
If a Martian were to look at a map of the Earth’s religions, what he might find most surprising is the fact that such a map can be drawn at all. How strange–he might say to himself–that so many of the world’s Hindus are to be found in one place, namely India. And how odd that Muslims are so very numerous in the Middle East.
The run-up to Christmas, with its street-corner Salvation Army kettles and church food drives, would seem a lousy time to find out that Christian charity in America is not what it’s supposed to be. But in the recently released Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money, sociologists Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell argue that too many American Christians—”the most affluent single group of Christians in two thousand years of church history”—are guilty of Scrooge-like stinginess.
Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them. And they didn’t stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go.
In Craigslist’s random ocean of housing swaps, motorcycles for sale and vegan discussion forums, a tiny tide began a few days ago with these words: “Want to volunteer with me on Christmas in D.C.?” With that, Sally Smith, a 27-year-old Texan who this year for the first time couldn’t afford to go home for the holidays, found herself unexpectedly commanding a little holiday army of do-gooders.
The Rev. Michael O’Donnell said he wanted to leave before the start of the Feb. 10 trial over who owns the $7 million North Tejon Street church property: the Episcopal Church, or the breakaway group led by the Rev. Donald Armstrong, which then affiliated with the conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
The sixth-rated radio station in the Washington D. C. market is a tiny shop run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Is there a lesson in this for the Episcopal Church? Heck, is there a lesson in this for Episcopal Cafe?
…I would sit down with Rick Warren this morning if I had the opportunity. I would love to engage him. In some ways he’s a very brave person, but he’s woefully wrong about the issue of homosexuality. He needs to be confronted about the lies he told about gay people to the people of California. ~Gene Robinson