It has been shocking, but not surprising, to arrive in Australia in time to watch religious liberty emerge as a progressive point of attack in the nation’s federal election. Shocking, because religious liberty is a fundamental principle of liberal democracy. Not surprising, alas, because progressives throughout Western liberal democracies have turned “religious liberty” into a Read more
The Gospel commandment to love has led a Catholic school to change its policy on same-sex marriage announcements. Where the prestigious school’s alumnae magazine had never allowed same sex union announcements, the policy has been re-examined and changed recently. Visitation Sister Mary Berchmans, the school’s president emerita, wrote a letter announcing the change. The letter Read more
Brunei plans to implement Islamic criminal laws such as stoning to death for LGBTQ sex, and amputation for theft. Brunei, which is a tiny nation on the island of Borneo, has adopted a more conservative form of Islam in recent years. In 2013 it announced its intention to introduce sharia law, the Islamic legal system Read more
The question of whether to accept LGBTQ Christians into the fold is causing a schism in the United Methodist Church. America’s third-largest religious denomination is likely break apart over its members’ inability to reconcile differing opinions on whether to affirm LGBTQ Christians. Delegates to the church’s General Conference ended a three-day meeting on Tuesday by Read more
Catholic Social Services (CSS) is no longer included in City of Philadelphia’s’ foster care programme. The city says it has stopped using CSS because it does not place children with same-sex couples. Last week one of the Philadelphia Councillors asked for the city’s Public Health and Human Services to investigate Philadelphia’s partnership with organisations that Read more
Jesuit priest Father James Martin has been invited to address Cardinal Blase Cupich’s Chicago archdiocese over two nights during the next Lenten season. The invitation comes after Martin had speaking engagements cancelled and negative comments leveled at him by far-right Catholic groups. The ultra-conservatives disapprove of Martin’s recently published book on lesbian, gay, bi-, transgender Read more
A Jesuit preparing for ordination has left the Catholic Church over the way LGBTQ people are being treated by the Church in the United States. Benjamin Brenkert has written an open letter to Pope Francis calling on him to tell the US bishops to make Catholic institutions not sack any more LGBTQ Catholics. The last Read more