Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
What’s Next for Robert Finn, The First Catholic Bishop Convicted in Sex Abuse Cover-up?
posted on September 10, 2012A spokesman for Robert Finn says that the bishop plans on remaining the leader of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, this despite the bishop’s recent criminal conviction for shielding an abusive priest. Daniel Gibson reports for Religion News Service that “Pope Benedict XVI is the only one with the authority to force a bishop from office.” And so far, the Vatican has not weighed in on Finn’s conviction.
Colbert Mocks Democrats’ God & Israel Gaffe At DNC
posted on September 10, 2012The Huffington Post reports that Stephen Colbert satirized the recent controversy over the Democrats’ decision to omit “God,” as well as a reference to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, from their presidential platform, a decision that was reversed. “Oh Jersualem, where the temple once stood, where the walls still echo with the impassioned arguments between Rav Hillel and Rav Shammai, where you can get a Phish yarmulke at a store right next to the McDonalds,” Colbert declared on his show, The Colbert Report.
A Push to Caffeinate BYU’s Campus
posted on September 10, 2012Fox 13 News’ Ben Winslow writes that some students at BYU want caffeinated sodas sold at the LDS Church’s flagship university. This effort follows recent LDS Church statements in which the church attempted to clarify its position on the consumption of caffeine. “In response to a national TV report about Mormonism, the LDS Church reiterated that the faith’s guidelines for healthy living — known as the Word of Wisdom — do not specifically prohibit caffeine,” writes Winslon. “Only hot drinks, like tea and coffee, are forbidden.”
Read at Fox 13 News (Salt Lake City)
Bill Protects Religious Garb, Grooming in the Workplace
posted on September 10, 2012Patrick McGreevy reports for The Los Angeles Times about California’s new law restricting employers from “shunting Sikh and Muslim workers out of public view for wearing turbans, beards and hijabs.” Rajdeep Singh, the director of the national Sikh Coalition based in New York City, says that the law clarifies what employers can and cannot require of their religiously observant employees. “It’s needed because Sikhs and other religious minorities continue to experience job discrimination on account of their religion,” says Singh.
Six Days After 9/11, Another Anniversary Worth Honoring
posted on September 10, 2012Samuel G. Freedman writes for The New York Times about another important anniversary coming up in the next two weeks. As the nation remembers the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Freedman writes that we should remember the visit President Bush made to a Washington D.C. mosque just six days after 9/11. “This act of leadership and statesmanship, however, has all but vanished from the national collective memory,” Freedman writes. “It deserves, instead, to be noted and heeded and esteemed.”
The 2008 Messiah Has Left the Building
posted on September 10, 2012At Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin compares President Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech from last week to those he delivered in 2008 and 2004. “It is perhaps unfair to judge Obama’s speech by the high standard he set at the last two Democratic conventions,” Tobin writes. “Yet what he produced in Charlotte was not so much a statement of vision as a rerun of some of his less than exciting State of the Union speeches.”
The Ultimate Hybrid
posted on September 10, 2012Tiffany Owens reports for World Magazine about the emergence of “co-ops” in the homeschooling movement. “Homeschool co-ops provide an attractive option for homeschooling parents,” writes Owens. “By partnering to create classes and activities that supplement their children’s at-home curriculum, they combine the flexibility and privacy of traditional home education with the structure and socialization found in typical school settings.”
Holy Rollers
posted on September 7, 2012At The American Prospect, Clare Malone chronicles the “progressive dissidents challenging the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.” While Network’s “Nuns on the Bus” campaign has garnered the most media attention, the Catholic sisters are just one example of “what some call a ‘civil-rights movement’ within American Catholicism—an expanding coalition of activists bent on reforming the church from within and changing the public’s perception of it as a solely conservative force on social issues.”
DNC 2012: Cory Booker Calls Jerusalem Omission ‘Unfortunate’
posted on September 7, 2012The co-chair of the Democratic National Cenvention’s platform committee, Newark Mayor Cory Booker said that the decision to remove a plank calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel was an “unfortunate omission,” reports Politico’s Ken Robillard. Booker insisted that any “mistakes” that he and the other leaders of the platform committee made should not detract “from the point that we have a president of the United States who believes both in God, we all know that, but also believes in that plank [supporting Jerusalem].”
American Exceptionalisms
posted on September 7, 2012At The American Conservative, Richard Gramble takes on the idea of unbridled, and unchallenged, American exceptionalism. Today, Gramble writes, “Hardly a trace of humility survives among the boasts of collective excellence we encounter with numbing predictability from neoconservatives and their allies.” But Gramble finds fault with both major political parties. “Obama and Mitt Romney do not speak from separate traditions but from within the same ideological construction of the purpose-driven nation,” writes Gramble.
Read at The American Conservative