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The Question: Jeremiah Wright's sermons continue to be an issue in the presidential campaign. Why? What do you think of his preaching style? What do you wish you understood better about it?
Some of the things that Jeremiah Wright said to his congregation were obnoxious and untrue even when seen in context.
The Question: What can Pope Benedict XVI say and do to repair the growing rifts between the Vatican, the clergy and the laity in America?
Pope Benedict XVI is coming to the United States to preach the Gospel. Like any good pastor, he will attempt both to inspire and to challenge his congregation.
He is not coming to wag his finger at American Catholics. In fact, he has great admiration for them and knows they attend church much more regularly than European Catholics. European churches are morbid in comparison with American parishes. American Catholics embraced the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, especially putting the liturgy into English and encouraging ecumenism. The U.S. church also has strong Catholic institutions, including 236 colleges and universities, 556 hospitals and 1,673 local Catholic Charities agencies and institutions. These institutions serve members of all faiths.
The Question: Pope Benedict's recent baptism of a well-known Italian Muslim has prompted criticism in much of the Islamic world. Has Benedict done enough to build bridges to Islam?
There is no question that Pope Benedict has a great respect for religious faith of Muslims. In fact, he wishes European Catholics were as devout as Muslims. He supports interreligious dialogue with Muslims in the hope that Muslims and Christians can work together for justice and peace in the world.
The Question: What does the Eliot Spitzer scandal say about our public and private morality? Should he have resigned?
The Eliott Spitzer scandal is not about sex, it is about crime. If prostitution were legal, he would be a sinner, but there would be no reason for him to resign.
Approximately one-third of the Pew survey respondents who were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic. Catholics should take no comfort in the fact that this number is less than the national average—44% of Americans have switched their religious affiliation since childhood or dropped out of any formal religious group.
Up through Super Tuesday, Catholic voters were strong supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
The Catholic vote helped her win in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. In these states she won the Catholic vote by 15 to 40 percentage points. On Super Tuesday, she only lost the Catholic vote in Missouri and Georgia. If she had won the Catholic vote in Missouri, she would have won the state.
Experts are divided on why Catholics voted for Hillary. Most scholars believe that once the number crunchers get a hold of the exit poll data and control for income, gender, age, education and issue concerns, the “Catholic factor” will disappear. For example, in New Hampshire Catholics tend to be working-class ethnics, while in California, many are Hispanic.
In a dense 6,200-word address to the Royal Courts of Justice, Archbishop Rowan Williams hoped to initiate a scholarly discussion of the relationship between Islamic law and the statutory law of the United Kingdom. Instead, the archbishop of Canterbury found himself in the middle of a firestorm as pundits quoted him out of context and called for his resignation.
The problem with secularism is that it means different things to different people. To many religious conservatives, secularism means banning religion from the public square. To many liberal secularists, secularism means keeping religion from imposing its doctrines on others. That is why I find myself at times agreeing with both sides of this debate.
The Catholic Church approaches visionaries with a great deal of skepticism. Belief in visions or any post-apostolic revelations is not required of churchgoers. In most cases, the church actively discourages the faithful from getting involved in them.
Despite the official skepticism, there has always been a great deal of interest in alleged appearance of Jesus or Mary and in private revelations to visionaries. Some of them are fraudulent, many are delusional and a rare few may actually be legit.
For example, the “revelations” of Anne Catherine Emmerich, used by Mel Gibson in “The Passion of the Christ,” were found to be “devout fiction or, to put it more harshly, as well-intentioned frauds” created by Clemens Brentano, a German Romantic poet. (See “A Movie, a Mystic, a Spiritual Tradition” by John O’Malley, S.J., America, March 15, 2004.) The revelations were not used by the church in judging her sanctity.
Our expectations of religious leaders are often unrealistic. When describing the characteristics desired in a Catholic bishop it often sounds like Jesus Christ with an MBA from Harvard. I am afraid that he is unavailable.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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