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You may wonder, in a few seconds, where this post is going and why it features photographs from recent Soulforce Equality Ride events. Hang in there with me. I have my reasons.
Thank you to all the readers who sent along their favorite or least favorite stories published this past weekend. There are too many to get to, but I’ll begin with The New York Times Sunday Magazine‘s cover story on Pope Benedict XVI. Good timing on that piece, as it ran on Easter Sunday. The author is Russell Shorto, who has written previously for the magazine on people who oppose contraception and people who oppose gay marriage. Both of those pieces took a liberal view not out of place in the Sunday Magazine. But Shorto is a good writer who researches his topics better than, well, the average New York Times Sunday Magazine author. Not that that’s saying much.
It seems to me that the only crime for which there is no forgiveness in our society is child molestation. It is certainly horrible to assault a helpless child, and I’m glad that the practice is shunned. The desire to protect children from any and all harm is understandable and hard to disagree with (though this op-ed in Newsweek shows how the desire to protect children from harm can be overdone).
The Episcopal Church sure generates a lot of news stories. The latest came after the vestry of Colorado’s largest Episcopal parish voted to leave and join the Church of Nigeria’s North American mission. Associated Press reporter Colleen Slevin had a straightforward story about the move, which didn’t make the Colorado bishop very happy:
A few weeks ago we looked at some particularly good religious coverage of a polygamous Muslim family in the Bronx that suffered unimaginable loss in a housefire.
Everyone out there who is tired or reading the following quotation, raise your hand? This is taken from the lede of a Newsweek piece by Eleanor Clift and Sarah Childress:
All together now, let’s repeat the central refrain in the ongoing Anglican Communion wars: “The Africans pray, the Americans pay and the British write the resolutions.”
While working at the Rocky Mountain News, I was able to visit a private facility on the western side of Colorado that specializes in counseling pastors and their spouses whose marriages have hit the rocks. I had a chance to profile the counselors and to talk with some of the people who were there for counseling. A few alumni of the program went on the record.
