by Joan Chittister National Catholic Reporter The story is an old one and I’ve told it before, but never has it felt so ominous as it does right now.It happened this way:About 15 or 20 years ago, I gave a series of conferences in a parish in Canada.I like Canada a lot — its beauty, its pace, its seeming patience with conflict and its apparent calmer approach to otherwise disruptive subjects — subjects that lead to almost immediate choosing up... Read more

by Amy Jill-Levine and Douglas Knightfor the Huffington Post The culture wars over family values have yet to reach détente and will not until the messiah comes (or returns, depending on the reader’s affiliation). Battles continue over women’s equality vs. a wife’s graceful submission, no-fault divorce vs. attempts to strengthen marital bonds, the ordaining of gays and lesbians and the legalization of “gay marriage” vs. exhortations to “love the sinner but hate the sin,” birth control and abortion, private sexual... Read more

Research suggests that Herman Cain may have found his way to the front of the GOP presidential primary race because his political and religious views, when compared with the other candidates, most closely match those of Republican voters. “The sources of Cain’s strength are Romney and Perry’s weaknesses,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the study. “Romney is strong on political affinity, but weaker on religious affinity. Perry is weaker on political affinity... Read more

by Harold BloomNew York Times THIS fall, we behold omens that will darken a year hence in the final phase of President Obama’s campaign for a second term. His likely opponent, the Mormon Mitt Romney, will be a pioneer figure whatever the outcome, since no previous member of that very American church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has ever secured a major-party nomination. Even should Mr. Obama triumph, a crucial precedent will have been established. Mr. Romney,... Read more

By MARK OPPENHEIMERNew York Times The old leftist dream was for everyone to abandon regional and ethnic allegiances to play for a common team, the working class. But as anyone attending a demonstration knows, many activists demand to be counted as representatives of smaller groups: home teams. At Occupy Wall Street and the allied events, there are police officers in the symbolic 99 percent, wearing uniforms. There are self-proclaimed mothers in the 99 percent. There are Marines. There are Muslims... Read more

By Andrew Hartman The Chronicle American punditry, it seems, needs to make sense of Occupy Wall Street in familiar terms. Highlighting the differences between the movement that started in New York City in September and the Tea Party that has engrossed the nation since 2009, The New York Times recently proclaimed, “It’s a culture war, young versus old, left versus right, communal food tables versus ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags.” Rush Limbaugh’s mean-spirited labels for the Wall Street demonstrators—”pure, genuine... Read more

It’s hard enough to get young people out of bed and into the pews on a Sunday morning, but two leading black seminaries think they have found a way to grab the next generation: hip-hop. “If we’re going to take young people seriously, we have no choice,” said Alton B. Pollard III, dean of the Howard University School of Divinity. “When we talk about what’s happening in the lives of young people, that’s a subterranean culture that some of us... Read more

A new grassroots group is organizing Republican presidential candidates and members of the Hispanic and African-American communities around economic issues in the hopes of drawing disenchanted minorities away from Barack Obama in 2012. Since Obama picked up 96 percent of the African-American electorate in 2008, support for the president in the black community has dropped to 81 percent thanks to disproportionate unemployment rates. Hispanics, who are also suffering from the high unemployment rate, have also expressed disappointment with the current... Read more

In his recent study of the faith of Australian prime ministers, John Warhurst has concluded that, between Federation in 1901 and the overthrow of Labor leader Kevin Rudd in 2010, four prime ministers were “articulate atheists or agnostics,” while a fifth’s atheism or agnosticism, though not explicitly articulated, could be inferred from his statements and actions. Warhurst classified eight prime ministers as observant Christians (understood as attending church at least monthly during their prime ministership), two as conventional (occasional churchgoers)... Read more

Louisiana state prisons can’t justify banning inmates from receiving copies of a newspaper published by the Nation of Islam, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. A three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s ruling that the David Wade Correctional Center must deliver copies of The Final Call newspaper to Henry Leonard, a convicted murderer. The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana backed Leonard’s claims that the Homer prison violated his right to free... Read more