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Guess what? The Baltimore Sun had a nice news story today about the renovation of the 200-year-old Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is about to reopen after two years and $32 million worth of work.
You see, this is what I get for hiding in the basement and watching old movies — you know, innocent things like Singing in the Rain and Bringing Up Baby — on Halloween night, with all the lights in the house turned off and the front door locked tight.
Thank you, thank you, to all the readers who made sure that I knew about the Los Angeles Times news feature by William Lobdell and Stuart Pfeifer about Matthew Crouch and his Gener8Xion Entertainment, which is one of the most controversial players in the emerging Contemporary Christian Cinema industry.
For more than a week now, I have been trying to remember to let GetReligion readers know that the digital team at USA Today has created a website that makes it easier for people interested in religion news to read the analysis pieces that run every Monday on the op-ed page. The feature is called “Monday: On Religion,” which only slightly freaks me out since my weekly Scripps Howard News Service column has been running for 17 years and it’s called “On Religion.”
It’s hard to deal with life in the faith-based-politics era without running into the work of researcher John J. DiIulio Jr., the Democrat (and Roman Catholic) who briefly headed up President Bush’s faith-based outreach to religious groups that try to help their neighbors.
It isn’t news when the officially edgy Style section of The Washington Post prints a lengthy feature story that opens like this:
My fellow Godbeat scribes, I come to you today to ask a question that has been bothering me for several weeks.
I’m not sure this is quite the direction I want to see religion coverage veer in mainstream media, but I have to admit that I enjoyed The Dallas Morning News’ “Take our ‘Faith of the Famous’ quiz” feature this weekend. I also learned a few things and, I have to admit, this funny little celebrity feature does show how wacky the modern religious marketplace has become in what I call the age of Oprah America.
