Cardinal Keith O’Brien has always had a knack for making headlines, and he recently explained why he likes to use “colourful imagery” in pronouncements on issues such as abortion and stem-cell research, as he has done lately: “Churchmen have been speaking out against things which they feel are immoral for years but nobody pays a blind bit of…

According to a new genetic survey, DNA tracing indicates Eden–and the first humans–emerged somewhere along the border between what is today Namibia and Angola in southwestern Africa (pictured above). Maybe it didn’t look like that eons–or 6,000 years–ago. The New York Times has the story: The origin of a species is generally taken to be…

The relevant text of Obama’s 100-day newser (excerpt below, from HuffPo) indicates that the dreaded FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) is not in the offing, at all. When many of of suggested that was the case (as I did here) we were cast into outer darkness. FOCA was too good a wedge for the anti-abortion,…

In a powerful editorial just up on their website, the editors at America magazine decry the “sectarian Catholicism” that seems to be emerging, with the Notre Dame furor epitomizing the drift toward the insular self-righteousness of the Donatists of Saint Augustine’s day: “The clouds roll with thunder, the House of the Lord shall be built…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners