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My journalism career has included reporting for the Republican-American, a daily newspaper in northwest Connecticut. Though surrounded by sweet Gilmore Girls-inspiring towns, Waterbury is a somewhat gritty place — my car was keyed in the company parking lot on my first day, though the perpetrator was promptly caught and forced to pay for the damage — but I…

There’s been lots of good news for gay marriage supporters lately, in the United States and around the world. Some recent stories, including negative reactions from conservative Catholics, Protestants and Mormons: Defying church, Argentina legalizes gay marriage (Time) Spain to get church for same-sex marriages (AFP) Polls finds shifts on Calif. gay marriage ban (Religion…

I’ll be visiting family in New York for the next few weeks, and I plan to check out the progress at Ground Zero while I’m there — and the proposed site of Cordoba House, a Muslim community center and mosque a few blocks from the fallen towers. Given the emotional debate over this proposal, I…

In the days since the Vatican released its long-awaited revised canon law standards addressing how clergy abuse cases should be handled, the uproar has shifted from disappointed victims groups (who feel the revisions don’t go far enough) to outraged feminists and others offended that the ordination of a woman is included among the church’s most serious crimes — along with…

Three months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, BP seems to have gotten oil to stop gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Assuming all those prayers have been answered and the cap holds, the faith-based focus seems to be shifting to the clean-up process, regarding the region’s envrionmental and economic recovery and how America’s energy policy should proceed. Some links:…

I’ve found a working YouTube link, so that’s fixed for now. (Please post in the Comments section if it stops working, and I’ll find another one again.) It’s a matter of global Jewish blogosphere debate whether this YouTube video of a Holocaust survivor triumphantly dancing to “I Will Survive” with his grandchildren at central European concentration camps and other Nazi…

(My toddler somehow deleted my first post on this, minutes after it went live, but I’ve managed to resurrect most if it from my iPhone. Apologies if you’re reading this twice.) Members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have elected a new president — the Rev. Matthew Harrison, the conservative choice compared to defeated incumbent Rev. Gerald Kieschnick. The LCMS…

Updated at 3:30 p.m. EST to add reaction roundup links. The Vatican has issued its revised church guidelines, clarifying how clergy abuse should be handled (along with other forbidden acts, such as ordaining women). Based on the Associated Press, The New York Times, On Faith, and a few other outlets I’ve checked this morning, the guidelines are a step in the right direction, but…

Bristol Palin, the famous Alaskan teen-mom-turned-abstinence-advocate, and Levi Johnston, her baby’s father who has carved out his own niche in the spotlight (posing for Playgirl, giving salacious interviews about Sarah Palin, etc.) – those crazy kids are trying to make it work again. And, of course, they’ve announced their wedding plans by talking to US Weekly, supposedly before informing…

It’s been six months since the earthquake devastated Haiti, and as I had cynically predicted back in February, the story has all but disappeared from the headlines. (Though, to our credit, it did take the monumental Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one of the worst man-made environmental disasters on record, to eclipse it.) Recent reports…
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