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Commentary and links to news of the wonderful, weird, interesting and cutting edge through the lens of our Catholic faith. Updated daily by Our Sunday Visitor staff. Email us with question or comments or link suggestions: feedback@osv.com.
The Economist
An English woman volunteering her services as a teacher in largely Muslim Sudan has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for “insulting religion” after allowing her young students in Khartoum to name a teddy bear Muhammad. To observers who know Sudan, the affair seems to have become entangled with the broader stand-off between the government in Khartoum and Western countries, including Britain, that have pushed for the United Nations to intervene in the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. More info>
Catholic Online
Pro-life advocates are mourning the loss of Henry Hyde, former congressman and champion of life issues who authored the Hyde amendment in 1976, which forbids use of federal funds for abortion. He died Thursday in Chicago, just a few weeks after being awarded the Presidental Medial of Freedom. Hyde, who was Catholic, was considered one of most distinguished layman in the U.S. Church. More info>
Breitbart.com
Pope Benedict XVI invited a delegation of senior Muslim personalities, who signed an appeal for greater dialogue between religions, to a meeting at the Vatican, according to a letter released Thursday. The pope praised the "positive spirit" behind the Oct. 11 message signed by 138 top Muslims from around the world and sent to Christian leaders, said Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in the letter sent in Pope Benedict's name. More info>
The Daily Nation
Those who knew him well describe Archbishop Nicodemus Kirima, who died Nov. 27, as a jack of all trades and a master of many. Apart from being a man of the cloth, Archbishop Kirima was known to be at home with accounting, communication, agriculture and philosophy, among other professions. The archbishop chaired a commission to investigate devil worship in Kenya and was a member of the Rome-based Alliance of the Two Hearts International Movement. More info>
The New York Times
Federal regulators have given permission for a company to resume a gene therapy study in which a woman died. The company, Targeted Genetics, said the decision by the Food and Drug Administration is effectively an acknowledgment that the gene therapy did not cause the woman’s death. The death had threatened to be another black eye for gene therapy, a field that has not had much success in treating disease. More info>
WNEM.com
Charles Dickens might have called his famous book “A Christmas Carol,” but a Mount Pleasant, Mich., festival named after him is opting for the word “holiday” instead. In order to get more bang for its buck out of a thinning advertisement budget, the city is changing its Dickens Christmas Festival to the Dickens Holiday Festival because the city wants to put fliers in public schools. For that to happen, the word “Christmas” had to be removed. More info>
LifeNews.com
This week, a national conference sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Archdiocese of San Francisco is highlighting the pain men feel as a result of their partners’ abortions. "There are three victims of every abortion, the child and both of his or her parents, and it is our hope that this conference will be the beginning of a ministry within the Church to these fathers, who grieve the death of their unborn child in isolation and silence," Supreme Knight Carl Anderson told LifeNews.com. More info>
The Times of London
British author Philip Pullman, author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, has attacked leading American Catholics as "nitwits" after they called for a boycott of the movie adaptation of “The Golden Compass,” which had its world premiere in London on Tuesday. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has urged parents not to take their children to the film, which is to be released Dec. 7, because of the trilogy’s anti-Christian message. The author denies that his agenda is anything other than attracting readers and urging people to be able to make up their own mind about his books. However, as Our Sunday Visitor reported in its Dec. 2 In Focus, Pullman has clearly stated in the past that he is trying to undermine Christian beliefs with his books. More info>
Reuters
A few days before World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Pope Benedict XVI used his weekly general audience to call for stepped-up efforts to stop the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS, to care for those afflicted and "to combat ...
Time magazine
Some atheists are beginning to think they might need something for their children to do on Sunday mornings, when their religious classmates and friends are attending worship services. Enter Sunday school for atheists, Time magazine reports. At such schools, youngsters learn at an early age how to respond to people who believe in God. “It’s important for kids not to look weird,” says Peter Bishop, who leads the preteen class at the Humanist Community Center in Palo Alto, Calif. More into here»
Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected. The New York Times reports that this development has led the the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of hospice providers are bracing for a new round that they fear may shut their doors. More info here»
BustedHalo.com
Men don’t want to marry women who are too smart or accomplished, right? Social historian Christine B. Whelan says that assumption is dead wrong, even though it is still being perpetuated by major media outlets. She also writes on BustedHalo.com that people with good educations and big paychecks do well in the marriage market, regardless of their sex, while those without degrees or good careers are finding it harder to find love and marriage.
Mercator.net
American television programming promotes a singles lifestyle, an Italian professor told the XVII International Congress for the Family in Rome last week. Paolo Braga argued that many TV shows, such as “House” and “CSI,” are aimed at perpetuating and reinforcing the singles culture while ignoring traditional families. The reason? TV networks consider the largest and most attractive market is that of singles with typically high disposable incomes, low commitments and with a culture open to change — one most likely to try new products. More info>
Chiesa
The letter from the 138 Muslims addressed last month to Pope Benedict XVI and to the heads of other Christian churches received a spectacular collective reply in a message signed by 300 scholars and published in The New York Times, but Pope Benedict appears to be more reserved about the significance of the correspondence. Instead, the pope is asking Islam to make the same journey that the Catholic Church made under pressure from the Enlightenment. Love of God and neighbor must be realized in the full acceptance of religious freedom. More info>
Christian Today
Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican’s council for relations with other Christian faiths, has called upon the Catholic Church to critically self-examine itself in view of the “exponential” rise of Pentecostal groups. The cardinal was speaking at Saturday’s ordination of 23 new cardinals, including the Archbishop of Armargh Sean Brady. Cardinal Kasper said to Pope Benedict and the 143 gathered cardinals that “self-critical examination of conscience” was necessary for the Church. He continued by saying, “We must not ask first what is wrong wit ...
The discovery by scientists in Japan and Wisconsin that skin cells can be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells is likely to transform the sticky political debate over the science, The New York Times reports. The findings have put people on both sides of the stem cell divide — those who oppose developing embryonic stem cells by killing embryos and those who support the method — on nearly equal political footing. Each side can now say it has fruitful research to pursue. More info>
The Washington Post
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now has more members outside the United States than inside it. The church's rise from its roots in Utah to a steadily growing global faith in 176 countries and territories has been aided by the Internet; by a satellite system linking 6,000 of its churches worldwide with the Salt Lake City headquarters; and by tens of thousands of missionaries knocking on doors from Lagos to Lapland. As the world’s largest faiths expand across the developing world, smaller faiths such as Mormonism are gaining strength, The Washington Post reports. More info>
The Chicago Tribune
New celebrations of the Tridentine Mass have reportedly grown in the months following Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to ease restrictions on the rite. To the surprise of many, the rite has attracted priests and parishioners too young to have experienced the Latin Mass when it was the norm. For adherents of the Tridentine rite, the interest of young people is proof of its enduring resonance and offers hope that it may revitalize the U.S. Church. But the groundswell that many backers had pre ...
International Herald Tribune
Mexico City’s world-renowned cathedral, situated near the main square of the capital city, has been closed after leftist protesters stormed the building, scuffled with parishioners and overturned pews. Members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party have accused the Mexican Church of interfering in politics, including the 2006 election in which Felipe Calderon won the presidency. "The cathedral will remain closed as a security measure, and a sign of protest against the fact that these people entered, attacked parishioners and profaned a sacred space," said Hugo Valdemar Romero, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico. More info here»
Wall Street Journal
The pharmaceutical industry continues to blur the line between needs and wants. Drug maker Allergan Inc. is believed to be taking a drug that treats glaucoma in the hopes of making a product available to the cosmetics industry as an eyelash enhancement. More info here»
On Sunday, Sacred Heart Schools in Chicago regained what every Catholic school building should have — a sanctuary. The chapel had been transformed into a library in the 1970s because the school had needed a library to have its high school be accredited. Now, with the high school closed and a new wing that includes a library, the school has restored the chapel to its original use. "In today's culture, students really have to learn how to be quiet, how to be reflective," Sister Susan Maxwell told the Chicago Tribune. "This is a sacred space."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A 6-year-old boy was beaten to death, then buried. A 2-year-old was killed after being thrown across a room. In each case, the alleged or convicted perpetrator was the boyfriend of the child’s mother. Many scholars and frontline caseworkers see the abusive-boyfriend syndrome as part of a broader trend that deeply worries them. They note an ever-increasing share of America's children grow up in homes without both biological parents, and say the risk of child abuse is markedly higher in the nontraditional family structures. "This is the dark underbelly of cohabitation," said Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia. "Cohabitation has become quite common, and most people think, 'What's the harm?' The harm is we're increasing a pattern of relationships that's not good for children." More info>
The Los Angeles Times
The Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church has agreed to pay $50 million to 110 Eskimos to settle claims of sexual abuse by priests and missionaries in some of the world's most remote villages. Attorneys for the plaintiffs announced the settlement Sunday, calling it a record payout by a Catholic religious order. However, officials for the Jesuits — formally called the Society of Jesus — said there were “still many issues that need to be finalized.” An e-mail viewed by the Los Angeles Times indicated a deal was in place, although details need to be worked out. Ken Roosa, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said the settlement does not require the order to admit fault. None of the priests was ever criminally charged. More info>
The New Republic
Making sure that U.S. social services are not available to immigrants is a battle cry that many of the 2008 presidential candidates have taken up.The New Republic, although ignoring moral and faith-based reasons for making health care available to immigrants, makes a reasoned political and practical argument for just such care being available — most specifically, the actual economic impact to all Americans of the current system (though that can be a lengthy explanation). Unfortunately, demonizing immigrants make for sound bites that a distracted culture is more likely to absorb. More info here»
Catholic News Agency
During the week in which U.S. bishops discussed several matters of concern to the U.S. Church, including releasing a document on "Faithful Citizenship," guidelines for Catholic voters, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston added his disapproval of pro-abortion candidates in comments to the Boston Globe, saying that the support of Catholics for these politicians “borders on scandal.” More info here»
InsideCatholic.com
Parents in Prince George County, Maryland, have been told to get their children the chicken pox vaccination or do jail time. Parents of 2,300 families were ordered to report to the courthouse for vaccination or face a $50 fine per day that their child was not vaccination, then face possible jail time. The Washington Post reported on the situation on Wednesday, but for an outraged (emotionally) yet reasoned (intellectually) take by a Catholic writer and mother find