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If you live in the Washington, D.C., area and follow things Catholic, you probably know that the shepherd of the nation’s capital — Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl — just became a member of the College of Cardinals, thus becoming one of the “princes” of the church.
“Well, that went well,” writes Amy Welborn, one of my favorite Catholic bloggers. She’s referring to the media maelstrom over “Light of the World,” Peter Seewald’s book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI. Did you hear about it yesterday?
Last week I mentioned that I’d been the unlucky recipient of an intimate encounter with a TSA agent. As many more Americans have undergone the “how’s your father” with the agents, stories have been getting out about Americans wondering how much of this is security versus security theater. Here’s one mom’s story. Here’s Penn Jillette’s account.
OK, this is going to be a story that is buried in online debate about the labeling of the different candidates, including the winner, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York.
Genuinely shocking news out of Baltimore, where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a new president and it isn’t the mainstream progressive candidate, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tuscon, the sitting vice president. The Associated Press already has a short story out on this and GetReligion will be following the coverage.
Once again, a major mainstream news organization has decided to report on the fine folks of Oklahoma voting to ban Sharia law in my home state.
The other day we looked at the excellent Washington Post profile of Zachary Chesser, the American Muslim who threatened violence against South Park creators for not depicting Muhammad. And now we have another intriguing profile of another American Muslim terrorist. This time the report is in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The paper received seven handwritten letters from Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native who shot two men outside an Army recruiting office, killing one. That man, Pvt. William A. Long, is pictured here.
One of the oddities of the current conflict with Islamic radicalism is how one bit player can have such a big effect on things. Take Zachary Adam Chesser, a Northern Virginian convert who threatened the creators of “South Park” for, well, not portraying the Prophet Muhammad. This led to an attempt to defend First Amendment freedoms through the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. And that led not just to Pakistan blocking access to Facebook for a while but also to the founder of the day having to go into hiding, and change her livelihood, name and identity.
A Christian woman in Pakistan has been sentenced to death for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.
