The Rev. Gerald Fogarty decided not to go to the pope’s mass in Washington because he’s busy teaching that day at the University of Virginia. The Rev. John Dufell considered joining him at Yankee Stadium, but he’s got a couple of weddings to do, so he also passed. Paul Kane, a retired lawyer who goes to church in Georgetown, actually […]
Why This Pope Doesn’t Connect Read More
The little book, with the camouflage cover, is everywhere. There are more than 50,000 copies with the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s on military bases across America. It’s in the homes of military families, who are praying their dear ones come home. It’s circulating at the Pentagon. Even the president has allegedly read it. “An aide to President Bush
A Good Book in Camouflage Read More
Place: New York City. Time: 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. It’s fair to say that many, if not most, of the inhabitants of Manhattan
Rick Warren, the influential pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County, Calif., invited eight presidential candidates to speak at his third annual “Global Summit on AIDS and the Church,” but only Hillary Clinton came. (Five other candidates made appearances via pretaped video.) Clinton’s speech at the church on Thursday
The Myth of the Evangelical Voting Bloc Read More
On Nov. 14, in the enormous ballroom of the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel, hundreds of black-clad bishops were called to prayer-and then they got down to business. After a long debate, 221 of 224 members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the document, called “Faithful Citizenship.” The goal: to encourage American Catholics to use their faith as
Campaign Soul Searching Read More
In his new book “The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus” the Rev. Peter Gomes pushes Christians to see beyond what he says is the “domesticated” view of the Christian Lord and embrace instead the gospel message of radical good and radical justice. Gomes decries the slogan “What would Jesus do?” as superficial and self-justifying, preferring instead “What would Jesus have me
Reverend Gomes’s “Scandalous Gospel” Read More
It would seem at first blush to be hubristic to write yet another biography of Billy Graham, especially one that focuses on his relationships with American presidents. At 88, Graham is, and has been for more than five decades, one of the most celebrated men in history, the subject of dozens of biographies and one excellent autobiography. And the evangelist’s
The Pastor to the Presidents Read More
Carole Pizzolante, from Ontario, Canada, is standing in a historic church in New York City, and she is trying not to cry. Before her is a wall, plastered with the faces of people killed on 9/11. “It’s all so bloody senseless, I can’t get through it,” she says with a wave of her hand, and then her composure falters. She
Mornings were chaos. “Four full-blooded little Grahams,” the young mother wrote in her journal. ” I feel this a.m. it’s gotten quite beyond me. They fight, they yell, they answer back. Breakfast is dreadful … Now they’ve gone off to school looking nice enough (for once) and with a good breakfast but with the scrappiest of family prayers … Grumbling,
A Family’s Heartbreak Read More
Who was Jesus, really? It has become acceptable, even fashionable, lately to speak of the Christian Lord in casual terms, as though he were an acquaintance with a mysterious past. Pope Benedict’s trip to Brazil last week revived an old retelling of the Christian story in which Jesus is cast as a social revolutionary determined to overthrow the established order.