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A fire caused extensive damage to the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago this morning. There’s a really long, interesting and thorough article about the blaze and its repercussions over at Chicago Breaking News, which is a composite site for WGN, the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets:
For our fifth anniversary, we’re picking our top five posts from the last year. So I’ve reviewed all of my posts, a fruitful exercise that reminds me I’m still partial to stories about doctrine, the liturgical calendar and unlikely stories of how faith changes religious adherents. Even though these are my favorite topics to write about, they rarely elicit as much feedback as political posts. I normally dislike writing about politics but this last year was a huge exception.
Not just a religiously rich, important and awesome movie, Groundhog Day is also a great secular holy day. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, meaning six more weeks of winter. Slate took the occasion of running a previously published piece on the origins and meaning of the day, written by Timothy Noah.
One of the big stories of last year was President Barack Obama’s religious outreach efforts. And yet the rise of politically liberal religious groups was horribly undercovered. Instead we saw a lot of stories about how evangelical Christians were broadening their areas of interest. It’s a weird blind spot considering that the religious groups supporting President George W. Bush and Republicans in general are always well noticed by the media.
John Updike, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist known for his detailed portrayals of life — the mundane and the ecstatic — died this week. I didn’t get the chance to read him until about 10 years ago when one of my best friends introduced me to his prolific work. But I really enjoyed his prose and also what seemed to be a distinctly Lutheran approach to sin and justification.
The California Lutheran High School Association, which owns and operates a private religious high school in Riverside, expelled two students on the grounds that they had a homosexual relationship in violation of the school’s “Christian Conduct” rule. The girls sued the school and its principal and alleged, among other things, that the school had discriminated against them on the basis of their sexual orientation, in violation of a California Civil Rights Act.
I’m not sure if a single person in Washington knows what all is in — or will be in — the $825 BILLION spending bill about to be passed by the Democratic-led Congress. There might not even be a current copy of the bill for taxpayers or journalists to peruse. It makes it a very difficult story to report – not that many reporters are known for in-depth budget reporting.
I’ve been under the weather for a few days but didn’t want to overlook some news coverage from the end of last week.
CNN is featuring a story headlined “Haggard faces new sex allegations.” While Haggard’s former church disclosed a pattern of immoral behavior at the time it let Haggard go, the specifics are somewhat new.
