News from the religion desk:
Joe Feuerherd, the editor-in-chief of National Catholic Reporter, who embodied the weekly newspaper’s fierce independence and liberal tilt, died on Wednesday after an 18-month bout with cancer.
In 2004, Feuerherd reported that Deal Hudson, President George W. Bush’s liaison to Catholics, had resigned from Fordham University in 1994 after allegations that he sexually harassed a student. Hudson resigned from his post at the Republican National Committee after the article was published.
Four years later, in a Washington Post column, Feuerherd said he would vote for Barack Obama, “bishops be damned,” after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved voter guidelines that cautioned against casting ballots for politicians who, like Obama, support abortion rights.
“To Catholics like me who oppose liberal abortion laws but also think that other issues — war or peace, health care, just wages, immigration, affordable housing, torture — actually matter, the idea that abortion trumps everything, all the time, no matter what, is both bad religion and bad civics,” Feuerherd wrote.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
It is almost Memorial Day, which means that people are fighting about praying in public. Brude Ledewitz at Religion Dispatches thinks we need to change the fight into a conversation.
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