Tucked away just off a rocky road is a small community of women who have chosen to retreat from the world and spend their days working in silence — except for when they are singing sacred music.
They are cloistered nuns, the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. Their days consist of prayer, work, and song. And when they sing, people listen. Four albums have topped the charts. Their latest, “Adoration at Ephesus,” was issued April 26.
I’m a Christian, but I’m not a natural evangelizer. Talking about my faith has never come easily to me, and I prefer to quietly live my beliefs rather than speak about them. Even as a legislative advocate for the Episcopal Church, I am more at ease discussing policy ramifications than quoting scripture. Still, one urgent policy issue in particular has forced me to reconsider my distaste for religious language and challenged me to voice my faith. Galvanized by the urgency of this challenge, I’m ready to evangelize — about climate change.
Invoking the call of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, more than 50 faith leaders from across the political spectrum joined together today to speak out on the current state and alarming rhetoric of the 2016 election cycle, which they say, “threaten[s] the fundamental integrity of Christian faith and the well-being of society itself.”
The statement, “Called to Resist Bigotry — A Statement of Faithful Obedience,” names the racial and religious bigotry of Donald Trump and his disrespect of women as gospel issues, and not merely political matters, saying: “… while Donald Trump certainly did not start these long-standing American racial sins, he is bringing our nation’s worst instincts to the political surface, making overt what is often covert, explicit what is often implicit."
Former Speaker of the House John Boehner visited Stanford on April 27 to chat about his time in Washington, D.C., but the conversation quickly turned to what he thinks of the current Republican presidential candidates.
How to respond to such pain? With action. Seated with others, in an unfinished building we visited in Dahook, was a young Yazidi man who is studying in the university. He plans to reach out to about 5,000 children on the mountain with hopes of educating them. I shared the story of my friends, the Afghan Peace Volunteers in Kabul, and the fruits they are reaping from their literacy program with street children.
What criteria do we use to pick a president?
We hear the daily stats and buzz, but presidential elections are about the big picture — where we want to go and the best way to get there. This means looking not only at political options but also at the way we humans are set up — how we’re wired. When public policies don’t account for that, we have reduced horizons, diminished resources, and polarization.
A German Catholic leader’s defense of religious freedom has triggered a backlash following anti-Muslim statements by far-right politicians in the country.
Editor-in-Chief Ingo Brueggenjuergen of the Catholic broadcaster Dom Radio, which ran the interview with Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne earlier this week, said in a commentary April 27 that some critics are claiming the cardinal is out to destroy the Catholic Church.
An airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, has killed at least fourteen patients and staff at a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders. Among the dead is one of the last pediatricians in the city.
Neither the Syrian air force nor Russian military are currently taking responsibility for the attack. The United States and Russia agreed to support a truce between warring parties earlier this year, but those talks have largely broken down in recent months, according to The Washington Post.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has said repeatedly that he isn’t running for president, but that hasn’t stopped him from making numerous public appearances to talk about his vision for the Republican Party and the United States.
Liberty University’s board of trustees voted last week to allow students with concealed-carry permits to bring handguns into residence halls, reports NBC Washington.