April 2, 2008

BENEDICT XVI
Pope to Meet with Catholic Colleges and Universities
Renuka Rayasam/U.S. News & World Report (04/02/2008)
When Pope Benedict XVI meets with Catholic school officials on his U.S. visit in April, he is expected to single out colleges like Christendom as institutions that represent the clarity of religious principles that he has been promoting.

ISLAM
U.S. Muslims and Mormons share deepening ties
David Haldane/Los Angeles Times (04/02/2008)
The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews. One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims.

ABORTION
Antiabortion Ballot Initiative Appears Likely
Kari Lydersen/Washington Post (04/02/2008)
CHICAGO -- Abortion opponents in South Dakota filed petitions this week that are likely to put an initiative on November's ballot calling for a near-ban on abortion, renewing a contentious fight over a similar proposal in 2006.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Study: Theology Impacts Protestant Bank Accounts
Brittani Hamm/Religion News Service (04/02/2008: pewforum.org)
Lisa Keister has scanned the Bible and found nearly 2,000 verses in the New Testament that touch on the topic of money. It's those very verses that may be keeping many conservative Protestants from building up long-term wealth, she says.

U.S. Episcopal Church urges action on climate change
Ed Stoddard/Reuters (04/01/2008)
The Episcopal Church has been riven by the issue of ordaining gay clergy and the broader issue of gay rights. Now Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has taken a stand on an issue which is probably not as divisive, at least in Episcopal and Anglican circles: climate change.

MLK's Generation of Pastors Makes Way for New Vision
Greg Garrison and Val Walton/Religion News Service (04/02/2008: beliefnet.com)
Forty years after the violent death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, the generation of pastors whose passion and commitment to civil rights rang from pulpits, stirred marches and rallies, and even filled jail cells, is fading. In the post-civil rights movement years, activist preachers have set their sights on different kinds of injustices -- crime, education and the gap between the rich and poor.

CONGREGATIONS AND FAITH GROUPS
Gov staff accused of 'stonewalling' on church fire grant
Jeffrey Meitrodt/Chicago Tribune (04/02/2008)
SPRINGFIELD---Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters spent more than an hour dodging questions Wednesday morning from a House committee investigating a $1 million grant that wound up going to a private school instead of Pilgrim Baptist Church because of what Gov. Rod Blagojevich has called a "bureaucratic mistake."