Texas A&M

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Plug-In: Another week, more death in U.S. spiritual crisis with guns and mental health

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Plug-In: Another week, more death in U.S. spiritual crisis with guns and mental health

ALLEN, Texas — Nine killed, counting the gunman.

Seven wounded.

Hundreds traumatized by what they experienced while simply trying to shop or eat and enjoy a leisurely weekend afternoon.

In other words, more of the same in America, where mass shootings have become a way of life — and too much death.

I wrote a column about how I ended up in this suburb north of Dallas after the nation’s latest massacre. That’s where we start our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

Prayer and protest: Predictably, Saturday’s shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets reignited the debate on gun control — with President Joe Biden and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on opposite sides.

Thousands — including Abbott — gathered the next day at a community prayer service, while a few dozen protesters outside carried signs such as “Thoughts and prayers are useless” and “We have an epidemic of gun violence.”

Read my report on the clashing messages.

Investigating the motive: Online activity by the 33-year-old shooter, identified as Mauricio Garcia, “betrayed a fascination with white supremacy and mass shootings, which he described as sport,” according to The Associated Press.

“Photos he posted showed large Nazi tattoos on his arm and torso, including a swastika and the SS lightning bolt logo of Hitler’s paramilitary forces,” adds the story by AP’s Jake Bleiberg, Gene Johnson and Lolita C. Baldor.


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Save this New York Times Sunni-Shiite conflict backgrounder while awaiting Trump's moves

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Save this New York Times Sunni-Shiite conflict backgrounder while awaiting Trump's moves

The New York Times -- still outclassing its Americans rivals in Middle East coverage -- has served up a valuable historical overview of the Saudi-Iranian proxy war conflict. It's not only worth reading, it's worth saving for those deadline moments when a quick history check is in order.

I've posted here before about the Saudi-Iranian competition for Middle East domination. I've also posted on the ongoing, multi-angled coverage of Saudi Arabia at the Times.

Why so much attention to this topic? And how might President-elect Donald Trump handle the situation?

 First question first.

Why, because the conflict, at its root a continuation of Islam's historic, internal holy war between the religion's majority Sunnis (read, Saudi Arabia) and minority Shiites (read, Iran) is at the core of today's seemingly endless Middle East bloodshed.

(Yes, it's the Sunni-Shiite contest, inflamed by political maneuvering by a coven of authoritarian dictatorial governments, and Russia, that's at the root of the chaos. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as central as it may be to these two actors, long ago took a backseat to the Islamic sectarian war.)

Here's how the Times historical overview explains it, starting with the lede:

Behind much of the Middle East’s chaos -- the wars in Syria and Yemen, the political upheaval in Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain -- there is another conflict.


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Campus ministry: Last shot at focusing on Catholic 'nones' before the exit door?

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Campus ministry: Last shot at focusing on Catholic 'nones' before the exit door?

On one level, this week's GetReligion "Crossroads" podcast is about young Catholics, Confession and campus ministry, using my Universal Syndicate column from this past week as a starting point.

But "campus ministry," narrowly defined, is not what this podcast is about.

What host Todd Wilken and I ended up discussing (click here to tune that in) was a much broader topic. The key is that my column grew out of a very specific statistic that I saw in a blog post by Marcel LeJeune, who is assistant director of the massive campus ministry program at St. Mary's Catholic Center across from Texas A&M University. He wrote:

We know that of those that no longer identify as Catholic 79% do so by the age of 23 (Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples, Page 33). So, young adults should be the focal point of our efforts and if we want to get even more narrow, then the best way to influence young people is to start with the most influential ones in their age group, the leaders. Most who end up becoming influential leaders will go to college. Finally, since 90% of Catholic college students go to non-Catholic schools, we MUST focus our energies on continued growth and dynamic evangelization in campus ministries at non-Catholic schools (mostly public).

Now, that reference to young Catholics leaving the church by age 23 made me, as a journalist, think -- yes, here we go again -- about one of the interesting wrinkles in that "Nones on the Rise" study back in 2012, by the Pew Research Center. Let's jump back in time to a column I wrote about that:


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