Roman Catholicism

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A genetic history study of Spain by Gonzalo Oteo-Garcia et al. in Genome Biology eloquently confirms the story of the great seventeenth-century ethnic cleansing of the remaining crypto-Muslims of Spain. As Mar Jonsson writes in his 2007 “The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain in 1609–1614: the destruction of an […]

Featured

From Gaza to America and Vietnam, the Prospect of a Peacemaker Pope

Richard Penaskovic

Auburn, Al. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It’s not surprising that Pope Leo XIV took the name Leo in honor of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903). Why so? In 1891, Leo XIII wrote the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, that stated Capital and Labor must cooperate and there should be a just wage for workers. Leo also […]

Christianity

Supreme Court Upside Down, Driven by Christian Theocracy

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The US Supreme Court has an integrity problem, freshly illustrated by their decision to allow a clearly racially motivated South Carolina re-districting map to stand. Led by Justice Sam Alito, they argue that the redistricting map gives Republicans an advantage, but is NOT racially motivated! Have they […]

Christianity

Pope and Pastor: “Prince of Peace rejected by the futile Logic of War;” “Christ in the Rubble”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My mother was a Lutheran and the Coles were Catholics, though my grandfather fell away when he married a woman from the Brethren peace church. So it was striking to me that on this Christmas a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac, and Pope Francis both made headlines with their […]

Christianity

A Merry Palestinian Christmas in Bethlehem: Tourism and National Resistance

Juan Cole

Palestinian Christians Israeli Occupation

Authoritarianism

The MAGA Golden Calf: The Christian Right’s dangerous Flirtation with Political Violence and Far-Right Extremism

Matthijs Kronemeijer

By Matthijs Kronemeijer | – Toronto (Special to Informed Comment) – The November edition of First Things, a magazine of the Christian Right, features a lengthy statement from a group of theologians called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. The church friend who spontaneously sent me a link indicated that the statement is about Christian citizenship and […]

Bill of Rights

Justice Alito Laments Disrespect for Religion as Americans Abandon Faith – Will his Dobbs Push them Further Away?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN’s Ariane de Vogue, reports that Justice Samuel Alito, a right wing Catholic, gave a speech in Rome for Notre Dame last week, which has finally become public. Alito posed as a defender of religious freedom, but what he seemed to mean by that was the religious people who are […]

Evangelicals

Who is More Advanced? 29 Muslim-Majority States will Have more Liberal Abortion Laws than much of America if Roe Falls

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The American Religious Right as a political force is in some ways a creation of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion a woman’s right grounded in Americans’ constitutional right to privacy. Opposition to abortion and to a right to privacy united previously divided factions within […]

Christianity

Could Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Satan’s Controlling” the Catholic Church Stance Break up the Republican Party?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an interview with a far-right Roman Catholic pundit, conspiracy theorist and extremist white nationalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) discussed those church groups, such as Catholic Relief Services, who seek to help resettled undocumented immigrants and refugees as satanic. She said, “What it is, is Satan’s controlling the church. […]