An atheist friend of mine is married into a Catholic family, and he attends church with said family every Sunday, being a good sport and a general glutton for punishment. This friend — in fact, let’s call him “GFP” for “glutton for punishment” — noticed a change of tone lately at the church his family attends, and he wondered if the let’s-all-be-nice public persona of Pope Francis (or, as I call him at The Morning Heresy, Pope Fluffy) is trickling down and beginning to genuinely change things in the Catholic Church as a whole. Now, I realize this is all a highly-localized anecdote from one guy, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. Read more
Alaska’s Constitution currently requires that, when it comes to public education, taxpayer funds cannot benefit private or religious schools. Makes perfect sense. Public funds should benefit the public, not help schools that thrive on donors and indoctrination. However, a new bill could eliminate that provision, opening the door to public funding of religious education. Senate Joint Resolution No. 9 would remove the clause forbidding the funding of private and religious schools: Read more
Churches in Kentucky will stop at nothing to prove just how powerful their homophobia can be. This time, they’ve taken $7,000,000 away from a children’s services organization on the basis of a proposed pro-LGBT policy that never made it past the planning stages. The resulting budget shortage has left the organization scrambling — and the responsible churches sitting back and watching. Bill Smithwick, former director of a Kentucky children’s home called Sunrise Children’s Services, proposed last year that the home end its policy barring openly LGBT people from being employed there. He was worried the anti-gay policy would lead to a slash in government funding, but his suggestion backfired. Upon hearing about the proposal, local churches immediately stopped funding the children’s home, and their actions added up fast. Smithwick was forced to resign, the anti-gay policy was never actually revoked, and the organization is now facing a $7 million dollar shortage. Read more
Greg Candelaria didn’t get on the Malaysian airplane that disappeared with all crew and passengers now feared lost. He was too tired from previous trips and decided to cancel his ticket. The Houston-based IBM worker calls the fact that he’s alive the “providence of God”: “The very grace of God and nothing more. It wasn’t a coincidence — it was by design.” Read more
If you’re a mayor, here’s a simple rule: Never use this as your salutation: But “your servant in Christ” are the words Green Bay, Wisconsin Mayor Jim Schmitt used in a letter attempting to get the Pope to visit his city: With this letter, it is my deep and personal honor to extend an invitation to you, The Sovereign Pontiff, His Holiness Pope Francis. During your visit to the United States for the World Meeting of Families in 2015, I invite you to extend your visit to the greater Green Bay community and make pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. … The Blessed Virgin is an expression of the important bonds of family through the joining of herself with her maternal spirit to His sacrifice. We as a community are filled with a generous heart for having this connection to the Virgin Mary. Read more
Over the weekend, anyone who threw cash or a check into the collection plate basket barrel at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church got some very bad news: We were heartbroken to learn today that funds were stolen from the church over the weekend. This includes cash, checks and envelopes containing written credit card information, and it is limited only to those funds contributed in the church services on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9, 2014. If you made a contribution during these weekend services, we would encourage you to pay close attention to your accounts over the next several days and weeks and report any suspicious activity to your financial institution or credit card company immediately. Read more
I’m pretty sure this is the version of ‘Cosmos’ they’ll be showing in Sunday School this weekend: Read more
After a lot of discussion about a mother’s roadside cross in memory of her son, the threat of a lawsuit against her city that compelled her to finally take it down, and the multiple crosses put up in its place (which stain her son’s memory far more than atheists ever could), we’re finally hearing from the woman who initially requested that the cross be taken down. The nurse and mother of three adopted children didn’t want her identity made public, but she spoke to a local news station about how she now fears for her life: Read more
Where do atheists get their morality? Possibly from a better place than lots of people of faith get theirs. I wonder what would happen if you ran this story, devoid of religious identifiers, by 1,000 random adults and asked them whether they surmised that the sledgehammer-wielding landlords were atheists or devout believers. Anyway: Hasidic slumlords Joel and Aaron Israel are accused of having terrorized tenants in Brooklyn in an effort to get them out of their rent-controlled apartments. CBS New… Read more
