Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich has decried the apparent targeting of gays and lesbians in the Orlando nightclub massacre and called for greater efforts on gun control, the first senior U.S. Catholic churchman to identify a likely reason the victims were singled out and raise the controversial issue of access to weapons.
President Barack Obama called the deadly shooting at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub early Sunday morning "an act of terror and an act of hate" in remarks Sunday afternoon. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told reporters that 50 were killed and 53 injured in the shooting at Pulse Orlando, a gay club near the city's downtown.
Union Theological Seminary in New York City will no longer ask applicants to check a box indicating whether they have a criminal history, reports TheBlaze.
Union also signed onto the White House’s “Fair Chance Pledge,” which encourages businesses and schools to eliminate unnecessary barriers to people with criminal records. Many of the other institutions who have signed on have similarly “banned the box” on their applications.
Mel Gibson is hoping for a hit with a sequel to his 2004 blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, this time with a film focusing on the resurrection.
Gibson will direct the movie based on a screenplay by Randall Wallace, Wallace confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter June 9.
The Vatican has signed a new deal with international accountants, weeks after the unprecedented audit of the Holy See’s finances came to an abrupt halt.
PricewaterhouseCoopers will advise the city-state’s auditor general, the Vatican said on June 10.
The Scottish Episcopal Church may become the first major church in the United Kingdom to allow its clergy to conduct same-sex weddings in churches.
The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church, meeting in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, passed on first reading a change to its canon law definition of marriage June 10.
Speaking at the Faith and Family Coalition’s Road to Majority conference this morning, Senator David Perdue (R-Ga.) referenced a psalm while speaking about President Obama. The beauty of the Book of Psalms is that it covers the broad range of human emotions, giving us words to hold close whether we’re angry, peaceful, grieving, scared, joyous, thankful, or any combination thereof. So it’s particularly troubling, then, that a powerful public official would use his platform to quote the particular verse he did. It’s especially troubling that it was directed at our highest civic leader. So what did he say, exactly?
Though some may see martial arts as counterintuitive for peace-loving people of faith, Ali embraced both elements of his identity with conviction — something Cloninger said she’s been thinking about a lot recently.
“For me, as a female martial artist and a person of faith, Ali represents what we should all be striving for: alignment of the mind, spirit, and body, and the greatest for ourselves and our community,” Cloninger said.
Maines joined the ranks of the great singer-prophets standing and singing against the war in Iraq, but her vocal commitments extend to many important causes including criminal justice reform, domestic violence, and LGBTQ rights. In 2013, she told USA Today, “I'm pro-gay marriage. Pro-gay everything,” and took on the NRA in a series of tweets. She has as many political opinions as #1 country singles, and has shown no signs of slowing down: She recently added Ted Cruz to the list of people she’s ashamed are from Texas.
1. Behind the Photos That Changed How America Saw Domestic Violence
How one photographer documented the epidemic of hidden abuse inside our nation’s homes.
2. How Lin-Manuel Miranda Could Transform the Supreme Court
“ … How judges imagine the original meaning of the Constitution depends on their intuitions—half historical, half mythical—about the Founding narrative. If you can change the myth, you can change the Constitution. Hamilton is changing the myth.”
3. McDonald’s Is the Glue That Hold Communities Together
No, really. “It is that way in many poor and middle-income neighborhoods, where McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers and reflections of the surrounding neighborhood.”