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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.
As you would expect, I spend a very high percentage of my time surrounded by religious believers of various kinds — especially academic leaders from the middle of the evangelical Protestant world (and Eastern Orthodox folks from my own parish).
That was sort of my reaction to a Dallas Morning News story on a Southern Baptist church “making history” by adding women deacons.
There is a truly shocking journalistic development in the Los Angeles Times report about the sudden and surprising early retirement of one of the world’s most famous bishops — Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the leader of the tiny Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He was, of course, the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop enthroned in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Pope Benedict XVI dedicated the Basilica of the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family in Barcelona this past Sunday. I was traveling from Denver yesterday and following a bunch of Catholic bloggers as they described the mass as one of the most exquisite and inspiring they’d ever witnessed. And the church itself is considered a feat of architecture, engineering and art. Though largely completed, it won’t be totally done for another 15 years or so. It will be the tallest church in the world. Designed by Antoni Gaudi, it’s replete with Christian symbolism.
Just after 7 a.m. today, I found myself driving a minivan full of middle-school students. This still-dark-outside carpool duty frustrated me for two reasons. First, I was up late last night watching my suddenly vintage Texas Rangers throw batting practice to the San Francisco Giants. Second, a school bus that my children could ride for free stops just down the street from my house.
