Religion

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Monday, November 20, 2006

By TERRY MATTINGLY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
It's the kind of devil's advocate question that Roman Catholic priests discuss when no one else is listening.

How short do you have to make a Mass to appeal to parishioners who don't want to get out of bed to go to Sunday Mass in the first place? Would more people attend if Mass was 40 minutes instead of 50?

"There are priests who can do a weekday Mass in about 22 minutes and the people know that father has left his car running out back and his golf clubs are in the trunk," said Father John A.

By DAVID YOUNT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
As America's population reached 300 million, it was revealed that for the first time in our history only a minority of us are married. The decline of marriage has been a long time coming.

Revolutions, like wars, leave victims in their wake.

By DAVID WATERS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
American history was made last week when Minnesota's Keith Ellison was elected to Congress.

Ellison, who converted to Islam at age 19, will become the first Muslim to serve in Congress.

By TERRY MATTINGLY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
It's no surprise that Victoria Jackson watches "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the latest slice-of-elite-life offering from Aaron "West Wing" Sorkin.

After all, one of the main characters in this drama set inside a late-night sketch comedy show _ a fictional West Coast version of "Saturday Night Live" _ is Harriet Hayes, a blonde, female, singing comedian who is a born-again Christian.

This got Jackson's attention real quick.

"I'm the only blonde, female, singing, born-again Christian comedian in the history of 'Saturday Night Live.' I'm pretty sure there's only one of me," said Jackson, in the high, childlike voice that is her trademark.

By DAVID YOUNT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
On the occasion of an audience with Pope Paul VI during the Second Vatican Council, I was accompanied by a fellow American who had arranged the safe shipment of Michelangelo's Pieta from the Vatican to New York and back.

By DAVID WATERS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
I'm going to miss this past congressional election.

The dignity with which candidates conducted themselves, especially when referring to their opponents.

The restraint candidates showed in refusing to drag their opponents' families and their own families into the fray.

The discipline candidates displayed by rejecting the temptation to use religion, race, class or gender to divide us.

The frugal spending habits exhibited by each campaign (no wonder we elect people who are so good at balancing budgets).

The way the candidates ignored the pleas of high-paid consultants to go negative, insisting that this election be contested with high-minded ideals and appeals to our better angels, not cheap, below-the-belt, if-you-can't-beat-'em-destroy-'em attack ads.

Oh, wait.

By DAVID YOUNT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The first book I was assigned to read as a college freshman half a century ago was "Unpopular Essays" by the English earl, Bertrand Russell. His book bore that title because Lord Russell was the most devoted and articulate atheist of his time, with a self-imposed mission to persuade readers that there was no God.

Our philosophy professor, himself a Christian, assigned the book to challenge the comfortable complacencies of a classroom full of Christians and Jews not yet out of our teens.

By TERRY MATTINGLY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Talk about bad timing.

On the day after former Congressman Mark Foley entered an alcohol rehab program, his beleaguered staff received a package.

With reporters watching, they unpacked a framed copy of one of his most famous pieces of legislation _ a bill requiring a crackdown on sexual predators, including those who exploit minors online.

And all the people said: "Hypocrite!"

"It's hard to talk about the Foley story without talking about hypocrisy," said journalist Jeremy Lott, referring to the congressman's spectacular fall after discovery of his explicit digital messages to teen-aged male Capitol pages.

"I mean, Mark Foley's a hypocrite, the Republicans are hypocrites, the Democrats are hypocrites and lots of journalists are hypocrites, too.

By DAVID WATERS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
It starts with an inadvertent bump or shove in the hallway or lunch line. The "offender" doesn't say sorry or excuse me. The "victim" feels disrespected.