No one in the Episcopal Church hierarchy knows what will happen at Christ Church in Accokeek, Md., once push really comes to shove. But everyone knows the bitter battle for control of the 303-year-old Colonial parish is a big story, perhaps even a pivotal one in the global Anglican wars over sex, salvation and the Bible. But it’s getting hard to pin down the precise details. What happened last week when parish leaders denied Washington, D.C., Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon... Read more

Soon after the Episcopal Church voted to offer “pastoral care” for those in “life-long committed relationships” outside of Holy Matrimony, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey met with some American bishops who were worried about the future. Once upon a time, views aired in a private Lambeth Palace gathering such as this may have been discreetly shared with other bishops or edited into a safe, uplifting press release. Today? Forget about it. “My motto is ‘Take no prisoners,’ “said evangelical David... Read more

As every movie buff knows, condemned prisoners always get to say a few final words. Some apologize, while others protest. Some repent. Some rant. All have a last chance to confess to an eternal judge. A decade ago, an infamous killer in South Carolina quietly offered words of thankfulness and acceptance. When Rusty Woomer died in the electric chair, he was not the man whose Quaaludes-and-whiskey fueled binge had left four tortured and dead. “I’m sorry,” said Woomer, whose prison... Read more

Few moments are as precious to mothers as the hushed rituals of bedtime. Kristin Madden’s memories include watching her 3-year-old son use the first personal altar he built on his father’s old ironing board. He covered it with a blue cloth and added rocks, a baby tree, an earth flag and his hatching-dragon sculpture. Then the two of them would snuggle and talk about magic and the travels he would take in his dreams. Finally, they would say a favorite... Read more

Dr. Warren Hern had “just finished performing an abortion for the last patient of the morning” when he heard that James Kopp had been arrested in France for the 1998 murder of a Buffalo, N.Y., abortionist. Readers of the New York Times learned this symbolic detail in an op-ed piece entitled “Free Speech that Threatens My Life” in which Hern attacked the fiercest critics of his late-term abortion practice in Boulder, Colo. His column followed an editorial restating the paper’s... Read more

When scribe Jonathan Tobin selected his all-Jewish baseball team, it was tempting to pencil in Rod Carew at second base. This would have given his fantasy Maccabees squad its third Hall of Famer, with Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg and southpaw Sandy Koufax. When you’re talking baseball holy writ, it’s impossible to overlook Carew’s 3,053 hits and seven American League batting titles. The Baseball Online Library took a leap of faith and put Carew in its Jewish All-Star Team. After all, he... Read more

Anyone strolling through last year’s National Funeral Directors Association convention could catch glimpses of Baby Boomer heaven. The Baltimore exhibits included “fairway to heaven” caskets for those especially devout golfers and NASCAR models for true fans that have seen their last race, at least in this life. The goal, said a convention spokesman, is to offer dying consumers the same kinds of choices that they demanded in life. What’s next? Allowing people to defray some funeral expenses via product-endorsement logos,... Read more

The weeks before Easter are rich with ancient images of suffering, sacrifice, death and hard choices. One of the biblical texts focused on martyrdom, during a Mass two years ago at Saint Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Littleton, Colo. The visiting preacher tried to make this concept come alive. Imagine that a spiritual war is raging, said Bishop Sam Jacobs of Alexandria, La., as he paced among the pews. What if someone burst into the church with a gun? What... Read more

It was a “slack day” in the confessional, with “only 88” parishioners receiving the sacrament of penance, a New York City priest recorded in his diary for 1899. Another day was even slower, when he heard a “few” confessions — 71 at one sitting. Several generations later, National Opinion Research Center surveys in 1965 and 1975 found that monthly confession among American Catholics fell from 38 to 17 percent during that interval, while those who never or almost never went... Read more

The clear plastic egg rack is empty right now and it mocks me whenever I open the refrigerator door. The drawer that usually contains bacon, sausages, lunchmeat and chicken is full of flour tortillas. I still haven’t thought of what to put in the three cheese slots. The butter has gone AWOL, too, unless you count apple butter. This is Great Lent and in million of homes the cooks are in a state of shock. For Eastern Orthodox believers, Lent... Read more