Posts Tagged catholic
Video of Pope Benedict’s Ordination
Posted by Jeremy in Other Posts on April 7, 2011
This video has been making its rounds through some Catholic folks on my twitter feed. So, I thought I’d share it here. Check out between 4:52-4:55 (HT – Taylor Marshal – and, be sure to check out his blog, it looks really good).
New Report: Catholics Strongly Support Equality
Posted by Robert J. Wilson in Homosexuality, Religion and Politics on March 24, 2011
Image by Kansas Sebastian via Flickr
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), “a non-profit, nonpartisan research and education organization specializing in work at the intersection of religion, values and public life,” has issued a surprising new report that found Catholics to be more supportive of gay rights issues than any other Christian denomination, and more supportive than the general public.
New Report: Catholics More Supportive of Gay and Lesbian Rights than General Public, Other Christians
See link between negative messages from churches and high gay and lesbian youth suicide ratesWASHINGTON, DC – Catholics are more supportive of gay and lesbian rights than the general public and other Christians, according to a new report released [March 22, 2011]. The new report, which is the most comprehensive portrait of Catholic attitudes on gay and lesbian issues assembled to date, also finds that seven-in-ten Catholics say that messages from America’s places of worship contribute a lot (33%) or a little (37%) to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth. [emphasis added]
“It may come as a surprise to many that rank and file Catholics are more supportive of rights for gays and lesbians than other Christians and the public,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “But the best data available paints this consistent portrait across a range of issues, including same-sex marriage, workplace non-discrimination, open military service, and adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples.”
The study’s key findings included the following:
Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Catholics favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people against discrimination in the workplace
63% of Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly in the military
60% of Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children.
• < 4-in-10 Catholics give their own church top marks (a grade of an A or a B) on its handling of the issue of homosexuality; majorities of members of most other religious groups give their churches high marks.
Perhaps most interesting from a doctrinal standpoint is this:
• A majority of Catholics (56%) believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender is not a sin. [emphasis supplied]
The press release continues:
“The strong evidence of Catholic support for gay marriage highlights the growing acceptance in American culture of the normalcy of same-sex relationships, and further showcases ordinary Catholics’ dissent from official church teaching on sexual morality,” said Dr. Michelle Dillon, a panelist on the call releasing the report and chair of the Sociology Department at University of New Hampshire. “Most American Catholics believe that one can be a good Catholic and disagree with the Vatican and the bishops on issues of personal conscience; gay-marriage has clearly become another issue, along with artificial contraception and divorce and remarriage, which Catholics believe is not core to what it means to be Catholic.”
The report was released today in a national press teleconference that included Dr. Robert P. Jones, PRRI CEO; Daniel Cox, PRRI research director; Dr. Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic University of America; and Dr. Michelle Dillon, author of Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power (Cambridge University Press, 1999). The report draws on original analysis of existing data from PRRI and other sources, and includes previously unreleased data from PRRI’s monthly Religion and Politics Tracking Polls.
“These data demonstrate that the momentum for legal recognition for same-sex unions is strong among American Catholics and likely growing with generational change,” said Dr. Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic University of America. “Even among Latino Catholics, long supposed to be a group supportive of traditional social values, the numbers point to growing support for same-sex marriage. The question facing the American bishops, who oppose same- sex marriage on doctrinal grounds, is how they will choose to address this momentum”
To read the full report or to listen to the teleconference, click here.
Thoughts on the NLT Catholic Reference Bible and a Request to Tyndale
Posted by Joel in Deuterocanon, NLT on November 11, 2009
As many of readers may suspect, I greatly enjoy the New Living Translation and I make use of the Deuterocanonical books in certain aspects of my studies and in daily readings. Recently, I purchased a copy of what Tyndale billed as the Catholic Reference Edition (I’ll call it NLT:C), which was geared towards Catholics.
No, I’m not a Catholic, but like the wide majority of people who claim the name of Christ, I like the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha for various reason. (The Anglicans, Protestants for now, actually use it in their liturgy.) For me, I have yet to fathom a 400 year span in which God was silent, so reading some of the books currently hidden, is refreshing and indeed, adds greatly to the New Testament.
Back to this edition of the NLT. It is still sold, in some places, and on line, but it didn’t meet with praise from the Catholic Church. Nor was it given approval by either Rome or the U.S. Catholic Bishops, which is needed in Catholicism. This lack of approval no doubt contributed to the lack of acceptance of this edition.
Of course, so did calling it ‘Catholic.’
Senator Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) on Catholicism
Posted by Joel in Religion and Politics on August 26, 2009
By now, everyone knows that the last of the Kennedy brothers have died, and while the nation, some of the nation no doubt, will mourn and some will mock, all should remember the Senator’s fight for the poor and equality. This is not a political blog, but I do like to examine the cross-section between religion and politics. So, in that spirit, I present this:
In 1983, Senator Kennedy spoke at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University on “Faith, Truth and Tolerance in America”.
Newt Gingrich finds Religion
Posted by Joel in Religion and Politics on April 1, 2009
Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, has converted to Catholicism. He has not said publicly why he converted, but his wife, Callista Bisek, is Catholic. Mr. Gingrich has been a Baptist since graduate school.
It was Matt Bai, writing in The New York Times magazine a month ago, who signaled Mr. Gingrich’s conversion and provided some political context:
At a moment when the role of religious fundamentalism in the party is a central question for reformers, Gingrich, rather than making any kind of case for a new enlightenment, has in fact gone to great lengths to placate Christian conservatives. The family-values crowd has never completely embraced Newt, probably because he has been married three times, most recently to a former Hill staff member, Callista Bisek. In 2006, though, Gingrich wrote a book called “Rediscovering God in America” — part of a new canon of work he has done reaffirming the role of religion in public life. The following year, he went on radio with the evangelical minister James Dobson to apologize for having been unfaithful to his second wife. (A Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich said he will soon convert to Catholicism, his wife’s faith.)
The Catholic Crusade Against a Mythical Abortion Bill
Posted by Joel in Religion and Politics on February 19, 2009
The U.S. Catholic Church’s crusade against the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) has all the hallmarks of a well-oiled lobbying campaign. A national postcard campaign is flooding the White House and congressional offices with messages opposing FOCA, and the Catholic bishops have made defeating the abortion rights legislation a top priority. In the most recent effort to stop the bill, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia sent a letter to every member of Congress imploring them to “please oppose FOCA.”
There is only one hitch. Congress isn’t about to pass the Freedom of Choice Act because no such bill has been introduced.
Indulgences Return, and Heaven Moves a Step Closer for Catholics
Posted by Joel in Religious News on February 10, 2009
The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”
In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.
African-American Catholic elected to head GOP
Posted by Joel in Religion and Politics on February 4, 2009
Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele won a sixth ballot victory today to become the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC).
A prominent Catholic lay person, Steele serves on the Administrative Board of the Maryland Catholic Conference — the church’s lobbying arm in the state capitol of Annapolis — and is a member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Landover Hills, MD, where he attends mass regularly with his wife Andrea and their two sons Michael and Drew.
Steele, a native of Washington, DC, spent three years as a seminarian in the Order of St. Augustine, but ultimately chose a career in law instead. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991.
In 2005, President George W. Bush chose Steele to be part of the U.S. delegation to the investiture of Pope Benedict XVI.
Biden becomes first Catholic veep in U.S. history
Posted by Joel in Religion and Politics on January 21, 2009
When the former Delaware senator, Joseph R. Biden, took the oath of office of the vice president of the United States at 11:55 this morning, he became the first Catholic to hold that office in the nation’s history. John F. Kennedy holds the distinction of being the first — and only — Catholic president in history, but until today no other Catholic man or woman has achieved winning the second-highest office in the land.
A handful of others have tried.
Of course, not all Catholics claim Joe as one of their own…
Protestants more loyal to toothpaste than denominations
Posted by Joel in Religious News on January 14, 2009
Remember, the reason that most denominations have started is because of a quest for doctrinal accuracy.
(Original release date: January 12, 2009) Survey findings released today from Ellison Research (Phoenix, Arizona) show that seven out of ten regular churchgoers would be at least somewhat open to switching denominations, with dramatic differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The findings are from a study independently designed and conducted by Ellison Research among a representative sample of 1,007 American adults. The sample is balanced by gender, age, income, race, and geography. The sample included 471 respondents who regularly attend worship services at a church broadly considered to be within the Christian tradition: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, and Orthodox.
