Internet blogs are having an impact both on institutional religion and the ways in which it is being covered by the media, reports an article in RNA-Extra, (July/August), the newsletter of the Religion Newswriters Association. Religion reporter Yonat Shimron writes that bloggers are becoming important new sources for the media. For instance, Rocco Palmo, a 23-year-old […]

Catholics are increasingly being viewed as an influential swing vote that could help determine the next election, according to Religion Link (July 17), a news service for religion reporters. In the 2004 elections, Catholics surprised analysts by backing a Republican evangelical Protestant over John Kerry, the first Catholic candidate since John F. Kennedy Jr. But a Gallup […]

Along with developments in Iraq, the recent events in Lebanon may reinforce the Sunni-Shiite rift in Islam. According to Stratfor (July 19), a publication of Strategic Forecasting, condemnations of Hezbollah for threatening everyone’s future are as strong as condemnations of Israel in countries such as Saudi Arabia. Stratfor emphasizes that the issue is not only theological, but geopolitical, with […]

In June, 56 Indonesian MPs – including members of Muslim political groups – called upon the President to abolish sharia-inspired decrees and ordinances adopted in recent years in various districts and towns around the country, reports the French Catholic monthly Eglises d’Asie (June 16). Following Suharto’s fall in 1998 and decentralization, 22 districts and municipalities have introduced […]

While much of Europe is suffering from a shortage of priests, Poland’s burgeoning seminaries and rectories are playing a crucial role in supplying clerics throughout the continent, reports BBC News (June 2). About a quarter of all young men training to become Roman Catholic priests in Europe are Polish. There are 7,131 seminarians preparing for the priesthood […]

Although Pope Benedict follows John Paul II in his devotion to conservative Catholic renewal groups carrying out the “new evangelization,”–from Opus Dei to the Legion of Christ — it is particularly the Italian-based movement, Communion and Liberation (CL) that has inspired the current pontiff. The Tablet (June 17) reports that CL’s influence on the pope, then Joseph […]

Among post-communist countries, Eastern Germany has the lowest level of church affiliation and an unexpected persistence of rituals devised during the communist period as a substitute for Christian ones. However, this may be changing: in various parts of the former communist region of Germany as the Jugendweihe, or “youth consecration,” has experienced a decline of […]

The attempted terrorist attacks in Canada in May revealed a small but radical segment of disaffected yet “homegrown” young Muslims in the country, reports the Christian Science Monitor (June 6). The planned massive terrorist attacks using powerful explosives were to be carried out by 17 males, including five juveniles, targeting Canadian buildings and institutions. Terrorism experts see […]

The Pensacola revival lives on only in memory as the church and leaders that hosted the phenomenon have moved on or burned out, reportsCharisma magazine (July). The Pensacola revival, starting in 1995 and based at the Brownsville Assembly of God in that city, drew hundreds of thousands of people to its ecstatic services. The revival, which […]

The denominational conventions held so far this summer have not yielded dramatic results. But elections in the Episcopal and Southern Baptist bodies and rulings passed in the Presbyterian Church (USA) do signal shifts and impasses that will likely become more visible in the months ahead. The choice of Katherine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop of […]