There has been no shortage of recent media stories bound to embarrass the Roman Catholic Church. There has been no end of reports about priests abusing boys and girls under their care (more boys than girls, it seems), culminating in the criminal conviction of an ecclesiastical official for protecting abusive priests. And there have now […]

Charles Darwin published his culture-shaking Origin of Species in 1859. It immediately provoked a passionate controversy. This is hardly surprising. The Darwinian culture shock can be compared to an earlier one: the Copernican one. Copernicus made people see the earth as one of several planets circling the sun, rather than as the center of the […]

A while ago on this blog I commented on a judgment by a Texas court which ruled that so-called “imprecatory prayer” (that is, prayer that asks God to inflict harm) is protected speech under the first amendment of the US constitution.  The court asserted that there was no evidence that the prayer had actually harmed […]

In May 2012 Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, proposed a ban on the sale in public places of large-sized containers (over 16 fluid ounces) of sugar-sweetened drinks. Most soda beverages will be affected. The ban will have to be promulgated by the city’s public health agency, which is controlled by the mayor—so […]

The New York Times, which many years ago (when I came to America as a young man) was known as the Grey Lady of political and cultural conservatism, has more recently become an icon of progressive virtues. Its coverage of events dealing with homosexuality is extensive, possibly compulsive. One may expect, sometime between Labor Day […]

As a social scientist with broad cross-national interests, I subscribe to a number of periodicals that provide reasonably reliable information on what goes on in different parts of the world. But every couple of weeks or so I go to Harvard Square and browse for what looks interesting in the kiosk that sits in the […]

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) was founded in 1880 as an association of Biblical scholars with a Protestant theological commitment. Since then it has developed into the largest professional association concerned with Biblical and related studies; it is now strongly committed to a theologically neutral methodology of modern historical scholarship. The SBL has just […]

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced a “Fortnight of Freedom” to last from June 21 to July 4. The event, based on the presupposition that religious freedom is endangered in this country, is planned as a very visible demonstration. The “Fortnight” not only ends with the celebration of the major patriotic holiday, […]

On June 13, 2012, The Boston Globe gave ample space to the coverage of an event that took place in federal court here. Judge Douglas Woodlock sentenced Catherine Greig to eight years in prison for the crime of harboring a fugitive. The fugitive is James “Whitey” Bulger, who was once a prominent figure in the […]

On June 1, 2012, The New York Times carried a story by Ellen Barry about the Russian Orthodox Church giving moral support to the Russian policy in the current crisis in Syria. That policy has been marked by persistent vetoes in the Security Council against all attempts to take strong steps against the Syrian regime. […]