News Links

From MSNBC Feb 25 2010:

Spain OKs new abortion law, angers church

Women who undergo the procedure will no longer face imprisonment threat

MADRID – Spain on Wednesday approved a sweeping new law that eases restrictions on abortion, declaring the practice a woman’s right and doing away with the threat of imprisonment, in part of a drive toward liberal policies that has angered conservatives and the Catholic Church.

The new law allows the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks and gives 16- and 17-year-olds the right to have abortions without parental consent. The senate’s passage of the bill Wednesday gives it final approval.

The bill brings the country in line with its more secular neighbors in northern Europe is the latest of a series of bold social reforms undertaken by Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who first took office in 2004 and has ruffled feathers among many in the traditionally Catholic country.

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From National Catholic Reporter

Scholars ask pope to slow Pius XII’s canonization

Nineteen Catholic scholars of theology and history are asking Pope Benedict XVI to slow the process of the sainthood cause of Pope Pius XII.

Saying that much more research needs to be done on the papacy of the mid-20th century pope, the scholars said in a Feb. 16 letter to Pope Benedict that “history needs distance and perspective” before definitive conclusions can be reached on the role of Pope Pius during World War II and the Holocaust.

Leading the effort are Servite Father John Pawlikowski, professor of ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and Holy Cross Father Kevin Spicer, associate professor of history at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

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From Think Progress:

Amanda Terkel, Feb. 11, 2010

Tennessee Mosque Vandalized after Local TV Station Airs Irresponsible Report on ‘Homegrown Jihad’

Last year, the right-wing Christian Action Network and PRB films produced a “documentary” called “Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around U.S.” It claims to expose 35 “Islamic terrorist training compounds” devoted to “radical Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani.” (Watch the trailer here.) In February 2009, CBS News reviewed the film and dismissed it as nothing more than “sensationalistic” fear-mongering:

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From Religion Dispatches:

Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet, Feb. 12, 2010

The Abandoned Orphanage: Hillary Clinton’s Mother Teresa Moment

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Hillary Clinton fondly remembered how Mother Teresa—or perhaps God—compelled her to encourage adoption. The behind-the-scenes story of how The Family brokered a truce between the pro-choice Clinton and anti-choice nun, by moving Clinton rightward on reproductive rights.

On February 4, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the surprise keynote speaker for the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast. The Breakfast is the one public event organized by the secretive Washington network, the Family, a group of elite fundamentalists who minister to DC’s powerful and wealthy who are seen as the divinely “elect,” chosen for leadership by God. With the Family in the news this past year due to the string of sex scandals at its “C Street” house for members of Congress—and later for the role it seems to have played in shaping the draconian anti-gay law introduced in Uganda last year—the speech by Clinton, sandwiched between Family head Doug Coe’s introduction and the traditional presidential address by Barack Obama, was an interesting coda to her strange status as a longtime “friend” of the Family.

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From Politics Daily:

Jeffrey Weiss, Feb. 12, 2010

Is Obama Appointee Harry Knox an ‘Anti-Catholic Bigot’?

Even if you’ve never heard of Harry Knox, you might want to pay attention: He’s the latest nexus in the ongoing politicization of religion. Or maybe it’s the religious-ization of politics?

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From Daily Nation (Nairobi):

Galgalo Bochap, Feb. 12, 2010

Police save men from anti-gay crowd

Police on Friday rescued three men accused of being gays in Mtwapa town in Kilifi district from hundreds of angry youth baying for their blood.

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