pope john paul ii

Beyond a growing distaste for the rancor around hot-button issues like human sexuality, gender equity, and reproductive choice, people seem to be put off church because they are able to do the kind of work—tending the sick, advocating for the oppressed, caring for the earth, comforting those in trouble or need—that was long the stock in trade of local churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, but which, through the modern corporatizing of mainstream religions, was largely outsourced to separate agencies. This is why you’ll probably find more people volunteering in any given week at Martha’s Kitchen food pantry in downtown San Jose, California than at Sunday services at the church across the street. If Facebook is killing the church, that is, it’s probably more accurate to call it an assisted suicide.

RD would like to see a tallit on the basketball court.

“The preschool teacher used to say to the kids, ‘Close your eyes, and ask God to give you a piece of candy,’[…] When the children opened their eyes, and saw there was nothing there, the teacher said, ‘See? God doesn’t exist.’”

Glenn Beck’s efforts to become a religious leader for Tea Party America has a lot of commentators discussing the feasibility of a Mormon convert leading a wary evangelical and Catholic right in a faith-driven cause.

Lost in (and sullied by) the sexual scandals is the Church’s investigation into an apparition of Mary.

At the same time as we learn of a new depth to the pedophilia crisis in the Church, we hear from a Vatican official that Pope Paul II had a regular practice of flagellation: chastising the body for the sake of the soul. What can we learn from this irony?

A passionate call for reform from a scholar of religion and cradle Catholic. When does an institutional theology become so rotten that it needs to be taken out at the roots? It’s time for a new reformation, with justice for victims of sexual abuse.

The Vatican’s Web site considers a patron saint of the internet, Muslims debate divorce by text, and Jews pray by email; How does the inevitable transition to the virtual realm affect religious experience across the world?

The Pope’s anti-modern critiques should not be waved off so easily, as many allegedly life-promoting institutions actually foster death. There is much in it that a progressive secularist could agree with—apart from feminism and sexual ethics.