Fifty years ago this fall, Catholic bishops gathered in Rome for a council that would bring the church “up to date” by making it speak more directly to the modern world. After three years of deliberation, the bishops voted on and accepted statements that permitted the faithful to attend mass in their own languages, encouraged…
The Vatican crackdown on nuns in America has provided a fascinating window on gender, religion, and power — specifically, on how groups of women become scapegoat for religious conflicts. Reuters reported: A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns group said Thursday that it was “stunned” that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty…
The recent controversy over Roman Catholic Cardinal Kurt Koch?s statements at a meeting at Seton Hall University in October with scholars and clergy offers Jews an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of wading into disputes with other religious groups. Koch, the Vatican?s emissary to the Jews, responding briefly to a question about the push…
The Vatican’s new chief liaison to world Jewry met mixed reviews during his debut visit to the United States, thanks in part to statements on the pending canonization of Catholicism’s World War II-era pope. In what turned out to be a bumpy start, Cardinal Kurt Koch angered some Jewish and Christian leaders when he told…
Coming soon to hashtags everywhere: Pope Benedict XVI has taken a new role within the Catholic Church. The pontiff’s jurisdiction now evidently extends to micro-blogging. In his very first tweet, he proclaimed the launch of the Vatican’s new website — and praised Jesus in the bargain. It is unclear as to whether or not his…
A new blog post by John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, routinely described as the most authoritative English-language journalist covering the Vatican, reports on a seldom-discussed irritant in Catholic-Jewish relations: Haredi youth spitting on robed Catholic clerics on the streets of Jerusalem. Here’s an excerpt: Jews move to halt spitting at Christians in Jerusalem…
A very intriguing piece by Politico’s David Gibson in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook section claims, much as I argued in a column back in August (but in greater depth), that Pope Benedict XVI is engaged in a sweeping campaign to remake the church. In large part what he’s trying to do is to roll…
Sarah Silverman has really done it now. She’s moved from the gentle humor of “I’m f***|ing Matt Damon” and the cerebral politics of the “Great Shlep” to shameless self-promotion of her site, Sell The Vatican. On that site you can see her flaunt her ideas, call herself a “genius” and show a soft-focus picture of…
די ווילנער דאָקטוירים יעקבֿ וויגאָדסקי און צמח שאַבאַד זענען אויך געווען געזעלשאַפֿטלעכע טוער.
יעקבֿ פֿינקלמאַן באַשרײַבט אויך זײַן לאַנגיאָריקן פֿאַך — ווי ער האָט צוגעשטעלט וויסן אין טעלעקאָמוניקאַציע איבער דער וועלט
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