Access Spirituality: Chestnut Hill

Pew poll on religious differences

2010-01-21T04:05:00.000-08:00

In a new poll released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life, it is shown that for Americans, the best predictor of anti-Semitic sentiment is a person's level of anti-Islamic sentiment. That's probably not too surprising...they're just different manifestations of the same root phenomena.

Haiti earthquake

2010-01-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

All our thoughts and prayers are with the survivors of the horrific earthquake in Haiti this week. Anyone who wishes to contribute to the relief effort should consider Partners in Development, an NGO based in Ipswich, MA, which works directly in Haiti. Their website is http://www.pidonline.org/Home.html.

Meditation on College Campuses

2009-12-20T07:59:00.001-08:00

The article below describes how more colleges are offering meditation to reduce students' stress levels, and focuses on Transcendental Meditation in particular, a technique which was also popular at my undergrad college (AU). Though I haven't tried it, I know a few people who have and said it played a transformative role in their lives. For myself, meditation has become an important part of my daily schedule, helping me unwind after busy days and refocusing my sights on what's truly important in life. The GSA Spirituality Committee will be conducting a 'meditation week' next February, with traditions from various faiths and spiritual practices. More info on that to come.

Colleges use meditation to cut rising stress among students

By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 20, 2009; C04

Amid the stress-inducing madness of finals, two Georgetown University seniors kick off their shoes and settle into wooden chairs. A soft gong fills the room. They close their eyes and clear their minds of everything but a four-syllable mantra.

The session, held in a tiny brick building nestled between dormitories, is part of a movement to provide college students more opportunities to relax and reflect through meditation. A study of D.C. college students published this month found the benefits can include lower blood pressure and reduced anxiety and depression.

"Stress is definitely on the rise at college campuses," said Sanford I. Nidich, the lead author of the study and a professor at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, which was founded by the yogi who popularized Transcendental Meditation. "It's a major problem, and it's getting worse. . . . More and more we are seeing students with elevated blood pressure."

At Georgetown, students and others can attend general meditation sessions twice a day at the John Main Center for Meditation and InterReligious Dialogue. On Wednesday afternoon, the two students sat quietly along with two university employees and tried to put aside what they needed to accomplish before Christmas break.

Then a buzzer went off. The gong sounded again. Everyone opened their eyes and stretched their arms.

"It has taught me the skill of stepping back," said Bradley Pollina, 21, a senior history major from Long Island, N.Y., who started meditating a year ago. "You teach yourself to slow down."

Still, it's difficult to persuade agenda-packed, competition-driven students to take time to slow down, said Marco Svoboda, the volunteer director of the center, who quit his accounting job in California five years ago to focus on meditation. Of the half-dozen people who typically show up to the sessions, only one or two are students.

"These students have been conditioned since kindergarten to evaluate their performance. Anything they do, they're comparing to their friends and even competing with their friends," Svoboda said. "When you come in here, you don't have to do that."

Georgetown isn't the only college to offer meditation: The University of Maryland at College Park offers sessions one night a week at its recreation center. At U-Md.'s campus in Baltimore County, the women's center has a meditation room stocked with tapes and guides. George Washington University's Mindfulness Meditation group meets weekly in the counseling center.

In most cases, leaders of these groups follow common meditation techniques -- sitting quietly, clearing the mind, focusing on a mantra, breathing slowly and deeply. The style of meditation used in the study was Transcendental Meditation, a trademarked technique taught through a series of lectures and meetings with a certified teacher who presents each student with a secret, personalized mantra.

Although the 298 students in the study attended these classes for free, they typically cost $750 for college students and $1,500 for everyone else. The Maharishi University and a foundation dedicated to Transcendental Meditation have done hundreds of studies on the technique's benefits.

To recruit test subjects for this study, the researchers decided to look in the District instead of on their campus, where everyone meditates twice a day. With the help of David A.F. Haaga, a psychology professor at American University who had never meditated, they recruited nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate students.

The students were split into two groups, one that was immediately taught Transcendental Meditation and another that was taught the techniques later. After three months of practicing on their own, the students were reevaluated.

Many students reported that they enjoyed the experience and felt better, but the most substantial finding was that students who were at risk for developing hypertension often saw their blood pressure drop significantly, Haaga said.

Josh Goulding, 24, participated in the study during his junior year at Georgetown. After three months of meditating daily, Goulding said his high blood pressure dropped significantly and he was able to focus better in class.

"There's no question that it helped me," said Goulding, who continues to meditate. "It's almost like cleaning and dusting your mind on a daily basis."

Atheist Wave

2009-11-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

Atheist student groups flower on college campuses

By ERIC GORSKI
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 22, 2009 1:12 AM

AMES, Iowa -- The sign sits propped on a wooden chair, inviting all comers: "Ask an Atheist."

Whenever a student gets within a few feet, Anastasia Bodnar waves and smiles, trying to make a good first impression before eyes drift down to a word many Americans rank down there with "socialist."

Bodnar is the happy face of atheism at Iowa State University. Once a week at this booth at a campus community center, the PhD student who spends most of her time researching the nutritional traits of corn takes questions and occasional abuse while trying to raise the profile of religious skepticism.

"A lot of people on campus either don't know we exist or are afraid of us or hate us," says Bodnar, president of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. "People assume we're rabble-rousing, when we're one of the gentlest groups on campus."

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics are coming out of the closet, fueling a sharp rise in the number of clubs like the 10-year-old group at Iowa State.

Campus affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance, a sort of Godless Campus Crusade for Christ, have multiplied from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall, providing the atheist movement new training grounds for future leaders. In another sign of growing acceptance, at least three universities, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains meeting the needs of the not-so-spiritual.

With the growth has come soul-searching - or the atheist equivalent - about what secular campus groups should look like. It's part of a broader self-examination in the atheist movement triggered by the rise of the so-called "new atheists," best-selling authors who denigrate religion and blame it for the world's ills.

Should student atheist groups go it alone or build bridges with Christian groups? Organize political protests or quiet discussion groups? Adopt the militant posture of the new atheists? Or wave and smile?

---

As teenagers move into young adulthood, some leave God behind. But not in huge numbers.

More than three-quarters of young adults taking part in the National Study of Youth and Religion profess a belief in God. But almost 7 percent fewer believe in God as young adults (ages 18 to 23) than did as teenagers, according to the study, which is tracking the same group of young people as they mature.

What young adults are less likely to believe in is religion. The number of those who describe themselves as "not religious" nearly doubled, to 27 percent, in young adulthood.

Growing hostility toward religion was found, too. About 1 in 10 young adults are "irreligious" - or actively against religion - after virtually none of them fit that description as teenagers.

At Iowa State, most of the club's roughly 30 members are "former" somethings, mostly Christians. Many stress that their lives are guided not by anti-religiousness, but belief in science, logic and reason.

"The goal," said Andrew Severin, a post-doctoral researcher in bioinformatics, "should be to obtain inner peace for yourself and do random acts of kindness for strangers."

Severin calls himself a "spiritual atheist." He doesn't believe in God or the supernatural but thinks experiences like meditation or brushes with nature can produce biochemical reactions that feel spiritual.

When the ISU club began in 1999, it was mostly a discussion group. But it soon became clear that young people who leave organized religion miss something: a sense of community. So the group added movie and board-game nights and, more recently, twice-monthly Sunday brunches to the calendar.

"It's nice to be around people who aren't going to bash me for believing in nothing," said Bricelyn Rector, a freshman from Sioux City who, like others, described community as the club's greatest asset.

Members also seek to engage their peers at Iowa State, a 28,000-student science and technology school where the student body leans conservative. There's a "Brews and Views" night at a local coffee house and talks by visiting speakers common to any college campus.

"This is not a group of angry atheists. It's a group of very exuberant atheists," said faculty sponsor Hector Avalos, a secular humanist and well-known Biblical scholar who used to be a Pentecostal preacher. "Their primary aim is not to destroy the faith of Christians on campus. It's more live and let live."

The "Ask an Atheist" booth is the club's most visible outreach. On a recent Friday, a handful of members stand ready to intercept students on their way to eat lunch or withdraw money from a nearby ATM.

Traffic is slow. Scott Moseley, a Bettendorf, Iowa, senior, stops for a polite conversation.

He explains that he was raised Methodist, has a Buddhist friend and dates a Wiccan.

"My entire concept of one religion is kind of out the window," Moseley says.

Bodnar, an ex-Catholic married to a Buddhist, recommends the local Unitarian Universalist congregation, a haven for a grab bag of religious backgrounds and a few members of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society.

The closest thing to a confrontation comes when another student, a baseball cap pulled tight to his brow, talks briefly about heaven before he mutters, "I can't listen to you guys," and walks away.

---

On most college campuses, secular groups take shape when non-believing students arrive and find a couple-dozen Christian groups but no home for them. It isn't that atheism is necessarily growing among students - surveys show no uptick in the number of atheist and agnostic young adults over the last 20 years.

But the greater willingness to speak out, paired with the diversity within the movement, has resulted is a patchwork of clubs across the country united in disbelief but different in mission.

At Texas State University in San Marcos, a group of freethinkers led by a former Lutheran organizes rock-climbing outings and has co-sponsored a debate with a campus Christian group.

The University of South Florida is home to two active clubs: a freethinkers group that held a back-to-school barbecue and an atheist group that protested an anti-abortion group's campus visit.

Still other clubs embrace rituals. At the University of Southern Maine, a secular humanist organization has celebrated HumanLight, a secular alternative to Christmas and Hanukkah.

Just in the past year, the Iowa State club has evolved in new directions. Some are things churches have traditionally done - like the club's first foray into volunteerism, sleeping outside in cardboard boxes to raise money for homeless youth.

Others get at the heart of tensions within the atheist movement. The club worked with a Methodist church on a gay rights candlelight vigil, a gesture that would make some atheists cringe.

"The trouble is, any time you start working with other groups, religion starts coming in," said Victor Stenger, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and author of "The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason."

"People bring up Jesus, they're trying to proselytize, trying to get people to go to church," Stenger said. "The atheist groups just can't put up with it. They have to argue against it."

More recently, the ISU club's non-confrontational philosophy has been tested by a debate over the fate of a small chapel at Memorial Union on campus.

The club has avoided taking a position because members are divided. Some want the chapel's religious symbols - including an eight-foot wooden cross - removed on First Amendment grounds. Others fear repercussions and don't think a fight is worth it.

"The point of the club is not to make waves or controversy," said Bodnar, adding that she is uncomfortable with "calling out religion as wrong."

Some club members would like to be more confrontational when circumstances merit. Junior Brian Gress was interested in participating this fall in a nationwide "Blasphemy Day," a stick in the eye to religion. But the club passed and the idea fizzled.

"You should always try to make friends, but there are certain things about religion that can't be tolerated," Gress said. "Basically, the intolerance of religion can't be tolerated."

Most affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance fall somewhere between militant and why-can't-we-all-just-get-along, said Lyz Liddell, senior campus organizer for the Columbus, Ohio-based group.

"College students can be a little more susceptible to the more reactionary anti-religion voices, partly because it's so new to them," she said. "My impression is after a couple of years, they mellow out."

Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame and a principal investigator on the youth and religion study, said campus atheist groups are better off without militancy. Young adults are taught their entire lives to be nonjudgmental, that different points of views are OK and that there is no one truth, he said.

"Emerging adults are just not into trying to make other people be or do something," Smith said. "If I were advising atheists and humanists, I would say their long-term prospects are much better if they can successfully create this space where people view them as happy, OK, cooperative, nice people."

At Iowa State, what one club member describes as a band of misfits and outcasts is trying to carve out a space where atheists who raise a fist and atheists who wave and smile can coexist peacefully.

----

Eric Gorski can be reached at egorski(at)ap.org or viahttp://twitter.com/egorski

Savage Religion

2009-11-18T05:56:00.000-08:00

The congressman in the article below has nothing to apologize for. Why would any religion want to claim terrorists as one of their own?

Ill congressman defends 'savage religion' comment

By SOPHIA TAREEN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 8:32 PM

CHICAGO -- An Illinois congressman says his comment that suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay follow a "savage religion" has been misinterpreted.

U.S. Rep. Donald Manzullo told WREX-TV in Rockford, Ill., that alleged terrorists imprisoned at the Navy base are "really really mean people whose job it is to kill people, driven by some savage religion."

The Republican lawmaker confirmed Tuesday those words were his. He said he never specified Islam and apologized for any misunderstanding.

Manzullo's remarks come as federal officials consider buying an Illinois prison to house Guantanamo detainees.

Most prisoners at the base in Cuba come from Muslim countries.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says Manzullo's comments were an attack on Islam.

Peace Poetry in the Plaza!

2009-11-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

Peace Poetry in the Plaza!
December 8th, 2009, 12-3PM, O'Neill Plaza

What is peace? Is it simply submission, or the absence of conflict? Can peace be a means for war, or vice-versa? What is the relationship between peace, morality, and duty? And how does our search for individual peace relate to society as a whole?

On Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 the GSA Spirituality Committee will host an open-mic event to be held in O'Neill Plaza, from noon to 3PM, to explore these themes and other related issues through creative media. We are looking for writers, artists, singers, dancers, poets, and any other creative-minded individuals to showcase their work related to these topics on the 8th. If you have work you'd like to share, or if you'd like to participate in other ways, please contact the Spirituality Committee at gsaspiritualitycommitte@gmail.com.

Please join us on December 8th for refreshments and thought-provoking exhibits on peace: one of the most important and timeless themes of humanity's spiritual journey.

Fort Hood Shootings

2009-11-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday there was a horrific massacre at Fort Hood, TX, in which a Muslim-American soldier, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 and left 30 wounded. His religion wouldn't have anything to do with it, had he not been shouting out "Allahu akbar! (God is great!)" as he killed all these people. The NY Times article below attempts to illustrate the chain of events that drove this man to these actions. What he did is not excusable, but they reveal yet another tragedy about what happened, and it's that this war is still perceived as a war on Islam, both by Muslims like Hasan, and non-Muslims, like those in the military who harrassed Hasan for being Muslim. I don't know if this can ever be changed. We're fighting an enemy so different from us (Americans), an enemy whose actions are always bound up in a mask of Muslim devotion, that when we think of a war against terrorism, we already have a picture in mind of what terrorists look like, and what religion they will say they profess.

Because of this, when we ask Muslim-Americans to serve our country by going to war, it's like asking them to choose between their nationality and their faith, a division that shouldn't exist in America. When you challenge a man's very own sense of self, he can lash out in unpredictable and violent ways. I'm afraid of what implications this shooting might have on the average American's view of Islam and Muslims. And I'm also afraid of what continuing our war on terrorism will do to our country, and what it stands for.

NYT, November 7, 2009

Suspect Objected to Deployment, Cousin Says

By JAMES DAO

WASHINGTON — Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist.

But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., began having second thoughts about a military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier became aware of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan, a law enforcement official said. The postings discussed suicide bombings favorably, but the investigators were not clear whether the writer was Major Hasan.

In one posting on the Web site Scribd, a man named Nidal Hasan compared the heroism of a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers to suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to protect Muslims.

“If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory,” the man wrote. It could not be confirmed, however, that the writer was Major Hasan.

Major Hasan was wounded and taken into custody by the Fort Hood police after the shooting rampage, in which 12 people were killed and at least 31 others were wounded.

Though Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas reported that Major Hasan was to be deployed this month, that could not be confirmed with the Army on Thursday night.

Nader Hasan said his cousin never mentioned in recent phone calls to Virginia that he was going to be deployed, and he said the family was shocked when it heard the news on television on Thursday afternoon.

“He was doing everything he could to avoid that,” Mr. Hasan said. “He wanted to do whatever he could within the rules to make sure he wouldn’t go over.”

Some years ago, that included retaining a lawyer and asking if he could get out of the Army before his contract was up, because of the harassment he had received as a Muslim. But Nader Hasan said the lawyer had told his cousin that even if he paid the Army back for his education, it would not allow him to leave before his commitment was up.

“I think he gave up that fight and was just doing his time,” Mr. Hasan said.

Nader Hasan said his cousin’s parents had both been American citizens who owned businesses, including restaurants and a store, in Roanoke, Va. He declined to confirm reports that they were Jordanian but said the parents, who are both dead, had immigrated from a small town near Jerusalem many years ago.

His mother’s obituary, in The Roanoke Times in 2001, said she was born in Palestine in 1952. It described her as a restaurant owner “known for her ability to keep sometimes rowdy customers out of trouble and always had a warm meal for someone who otherwise would not have anything to eat that evening.”

Records show that Major Hasan received an undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech and a medical degree at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He did a residency at Walter Reed Medical Center and worked there for years before a transfer to the Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood this year.

Major Hasan had two brothers, one in Virginia and another in Jerusalem, his cousin said. The family, by and large, prospered in the United States, Mr. Hasan said.

The former imam at a Silver Spring, Md., mosque where Major Hasan worshiped for about 10 years described him as proud of his work in the Army and “very serious about his religion.” The former imam, Faizul Khan, said that Major Hasan had wanted to marry an equally religious woman but that his efforts to find one had failed.

“He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab, and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things,” the former imam said.

Mr. Hasan, 40, a lawyer in Virginia, described his cousin as a respectful, hard-working man who had devoted himself to his parents and his career.

Mr. Hasan said his cousin became more devout after his parents died in 1998 and 2001.

“His parents didn’t want him to go into the military,” Mr. Hasan said. “He said, ‘No, I was born and raised here, I’m going to do my duty to the country.’ ”

David Johnston contributed from Washington.

Pagan Resurgence

2009-10-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

So I recently noticed my last final is on December 21st, the winter solstice, and I am considering invoking all the Pagan gods to help me ascertain success in that endeavor. This NY Times article shows I'm not the only one, either. I'd love to meet all these people and sacrifice a goat with them. After all, what is more natural, more instinctive to humans than a bacchanalian gathering to honor the elemental forces that surround and transfix us?

Upcoming Spirituality Committee Service Events

2009-10-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

"They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing." - Hindu proverb

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, the Spirituality Committee of the Graduate Student Association would like to invite members of the BC community to participate in two rewarding service opportunities.

On Saturday, November 14th, 2009 we will be arranging visits to elderly Jesuits residing at Weston Theological Seminary. On Wednesday, November 25th, 2009, in partnership with Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, we will conduct home visits and give holiday gifts to elderly citizens in the Boston area. For the latter event in particular, we encourage multilingual students to volunteer, as many of the visits will be to senior citizens from various ethnic backgrounds. As charity illuminates the holiday season, and service provides a cornerstone of the BC learning experience, we hope you will join us in this educational and fulfilling project!

If you'd like to participate on the 14th, please RSVP by November 4th. If you'd like to participate on the 25th, please RSVP by November 10th. To RSVP or if you have any further questions, please e-mail Stefaan Deschrijver at deschris@bc.edu.

An Atheist Divide

2009-10-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here's an article from today's NPR News outlet. It is difficult for me to understand how Christopher Hitchens fails to see the parallel between his own vituperative language and the language religions putatively bring against other religions and worldviews, the type of language that can provoke violence, which is one of the biggest critiques against religion (cf. 'Religulous' by Bill Maher). It's also ironic that atheists are facing the same divide that many religious groups today are facing, that of choosing between fundementalism or a strict exclusivism on the one hand, and a tolerance/acceptance/respect for alterity on the other hand. This leads to some interesting questions: is 'atheism' a religion itself? Can it be defined by something other than what it is against? What would Hitchens say about 'The New Humanism' (http://thenewhumanism.org/), which approaches other religions with respect rather than aspersion, and desires to be "Good Without God"?

A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Last month, atheists marked Blasphemy Day at gatherings around the world, and celebrated the freedom to denigrate and insult religion.

Some offered to trade pornography for Bibles. Others de-baptized people with hair dryers. And in Washington, D.C., an art exhibit opened that shows, among other paintings, one entitled Divine Wine, where Jesus, on the cross, has blood flowing from his wound into a wine bottle.

Another, Jesus Paints His Nails, shows an effeminate Jesus after the crucifixion, applying polish to the nails that attach his hands to the cross.

"I wouldn't want this on my wall," says Stuart Jordan, an atheist who advises the evidence-based group Center for Inquiry on policy issues. The Center for Inquiry hosted the art show.

Jordan says the exhibit created a firestorm from offended believers, and he can understand why. But, he says, the controversy over this exhibit goes way beyond Blasphemy Day. It's about the future of the atheist movement — and whether to adopt the "new atheist" approach — a more aggressive, often belittling posture toward religious believers.

Some call it a schism.

"It's really a national debate among people with a secular orientation about how far do we want to go in promoting a secular society through emphasizing the 'new atheism,' " Jordan says. "And some are very much for it, and some are opposed to it on the grounds that they feel this is largely a religious country, and if it's pushed the wrong way, this is going to insult many of the religious people who should be shown respect even if we don't agree with them on all issues."

Jordan believes the new approach will backfire.

A Schism?

Jordan is a volunteer at the center and therefore could speak his mind. But interviews for this story with others associated with the Washington, D.C., office were canceled — a curious development for a group that promotes free speech.

Ronald Lindsay, who heads the Center for Inquiry, based in Amherst, N.Y., says he didn't know why the interviews were cancelled. As for the art exhibit and other Blasphemy Day events the group promoted:

"What we wanted were thoughtful, incisive and concise critiques of religion," he says. "We were not trying to insult believers."

But others are perfectly happy to. New atheists like Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins and journalist Christopher Hitchens are selling millions of books and drawing people by the thousands to their call for an uncompromising atheism.

For example, Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and author of the book God Is Not Great, told a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right." His words were greeted with hoots of approval.

Religion is "sinister, dangerous and ridiculous," Hitchens tells NPR, because it can prompt people to fly airplanes into buildings, and it promotes ignorance. Hitchens sees no reason to sugarcoat his position.

"If I said to a Protestant or Quaker or Muslim, 'Hey, at least I respect your belief,' I would be telling a lie," Hitchens says.

Asked why he feels compelled to be so blunt, he responds: "I believe it's more honest, more brave, more courageous simply to state your own position."

The more outrageous the message the better, says PZ Myers, who writes an influential blog that calls, among other things, for the end of religion. On Blasphemy Day, Myers drove a rusty nail through a consecrated Communion wafer and posted a photo on his Web site.

"People got very angry," he recalls. "I don't know why. I mean, it's just a cracker, right?"

Myers, who teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, says he received about 15,000 hate e-mails. He says one reason he favors the provocative approach is that it works, especially for the next generation of atheists.

"Edgy is what young people like," Myers says. "They want to cut through the nonsense right away and want to get to the point. They want to hear the story fast, they want it to be exciting, and they want it to be fun. And I'm sorry, the old school of atheism is really, really boring."

The Old School

Paul Kurtz founded the Center for Inquiry three decades ago to offer a positive alternative to religion. He has built alliances with religious groups over issues such as climate change and opposing creationism in the public schools. Kurtz says he was ousted in a "palace coup" last year — and he worries the new atheists will set the movement back.

"I consider them atheist fundamentalists," he says. "They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, they're very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."

He hopes this new approach will fizzle.

"Merely to critically attack religious beliefs is not sufficient. It leaves a vacuum. What are you for? We know what you're against, but what do you want to defend?"

The new atheists counter that they believe in reason, science and freedom from religious myth. And, as Lindsay, who replaced Kurtz, puts it: "We take the high road, the low road, country roads, interstates, highways, byways, — whatever it takes to reach people."

Holy War 2009

2009-10-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

I always like hearing people's personal journey's of faith, because usually they're studded with gems of truth. The article below details an unusual story of a teen's conversion from Islam to Christianity. Someone in the story is crazy, but I still haven't figured out who.

Conversion and Controversy
Teen's Switch from Islam to Christianity Becomes Flash Point for Debate in Fla.

By Amy Green
Religion News Service
Saturday, October 17, 2009

ORLANDO -- First there was Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy torn between two nations. Then there was Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman torn between two families. Now comes Rifqa Bary, the teenage runaway torn between two faiths.

If you're involved in a high-stakes custody fight, Florida, it seems, is the place to be.

Could Rifqa's father in Ohio really kill her for leaving Islam to embrace Christianity? Has the 17-year-old read too many fundamentalist Christian Web sites? Or is it all just teen dramatics?

Those are the questions swirling around the 17-year-old Ohio girl who became a Christian several years ago and sought shelter with an Orlando pastor after she feared for her life because, as she said, her father is bound by his Islamic faith to kill her.

Her parents deny the charges, and are fighting in courts in both states to bring Rifqa home. The case has become a cause celebre among conservative Christian groups, Muslim activists and, of course, politicians.

Gov. Charlie Crist (R) said, "The first and only priority of my administration is the safety and well-being of this child." Marco Rubio, Crist's opponent in a GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat, also urged state leaders "to use every legal tool at their disposal to properly evaluate Rifqa's best interests."

"The case in Florida began as a television event," said Craig McCarthy, a former attorney for Rifqa's mother in Orlando. "It could have been dismissed on Day One." As courts in Orlando and Columbus, Ohio, wrestle over which state has jurisdiction, Rifqa remains in Orlando in foster care. On Tuesday, an Orlando judge ruled Rifqa should return to Ohio, although no timeline was set, and when she does return she will remain in foster care.

The girl arrived in Orlando after connecting with the wife of an Orlando pastor on Facebook. The pastor and his wife took Rifqa in after "they realized that she was someone who really believed her life was in danger," said Mathew Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, an Orlando firm specializing in religious litigation. Staver represents the pastor and his wife, Blake and Beverly Lorenz. The teen was placed with a different foster family after the couple contacted authorities.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report found no evidence of any threat or abuse against Rifqa and said her allegations are "based on her belief or understanding of the Islamic faith and/or Islamic law and custom. [Rifqa] stated that she believes Islamic law dictates she must be put to death for her abandonment of the Islamic faith." Her father, Mohamed Bary, denied making any such threat, according to the report, but he told investigators that when he confronted Rifqa about her conversion in June he lifted a laptop to throw it but reconsidered, thinking about how much money he had spent on it.

The case has put Muslim groups on the defensive. Islam condones no such killings, said Babak Darvish, executive director of the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Darvish said the girl's parents are distraught about her behavior. They moved to the United States from Sri Lanka when Rifqa was a child so that she could receive better treatment for an injury that left her blind in one eye, he said.

Darvish accused some conservative Christians and politicians of using the story to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. "They're trying to use this case to further this extremist political, religious agenda," he said.

Lou Engle, an outspoken Kansas City, Mo., evangelist who has taken up Rifqa's case, said, "If Florida authorities release her to her parents, who she alleges threatened her for converting, we don't know what will happen to her and we should not risk it. While we hate to see any child leave the care of their parents, these conditions are unacceptable."

For some, Rifqa personifies lingering Christian-Muslim tensions more than eight years after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. In late September, as more than 3,500 Muslims prepared to gather for Friday prayers at the U.S. Capitol, Rifqa was featured as part of a national call-in prayer-a-thon.

Engle, who helped organize the call, referred to Rifqa as "our little sister," and during it, Rifqa grew emotional when asked to pray for Muslims to embrace Christianity.

In her few public appearances, Rifqa has been at times emotional, impassioned, giddy and, occasionally, incoherent. In a YouTube video during which she shared her testimony, Rifqa called her parents "radical, radical Muslims," adding, "They can't know of my faith because if they do know, the consequences are really harsh. Just the culture and the background that they come from is so hostile toward Christianity." She explained that a classmate introduced her to Christianity, and then grew emotional as she described the moment she became a Christian, during an altar call at church.

"The Lord completely wraps me in his arms of love, and I break down on the floor and weep," she said. "I felt nothing but love, nothing but this great radical love." An attorney for Rifqa did not return calls seeking comment; staff members cited a court-imposed gag order. Staver said the threat against Rifqa is real and that Muslims, not Christians, have turned the story into another televised courtroom circus.

McCarthy, the Orlando attorney who represented Rifqa's mother, was ambivalent about those who have taken up Rifqa's cause.

"It is not a unanimously held belief that these people are orthodox Christians, which to me is a double tragedy for Rifqa, because if she wants to be a Christian, that's fantastic," McCarthy said. "I don't think she's necessarily being taught the faith in a healthy way.

The making of a saint

2009-10-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

Priest who lived with leprosy now a saint

By FRANCES D'EMILIO
The Associated Press
Sunday, October 11, 2009 2:31 PM

VATICAN CITY -- A 19th-century priest whose courageous work with leprosy patients in Hawaii has been likened to the efforts of those battling the stigma of AIDS was elevated to sainthood Sunday by Pope Benedict XVI, along with four other Catholics he hailed as heroes of holiness.

Among the 10,000 pilgrims packing St. Peter's Basilica was Hawaii resident Audrey Toguchi, an 80-year-old retired school teacher whose recovery from lung cancer a decade ago stunned her doctor and was ruled a miracle by the Vatican.

Toguchi has credited her survival to praying to Belgium-born Jozef De Veuster, also known as Father Damien, who himself died from leprosy in 1889 after contracting the disease while working with ostracized patients living on Molokai island.

Some 40,000 faithful who couldn't fit inside the vast church filled St. Peter's Square on a warm, sunny morning. Many women from Hawaii wore headpieces made of roses and large beaded necklaces over floral-print loose gowns.

Among the five Benedict added to the church's roll call of saints is French nun Jeanne Jugan, who helped the elderly, including some abandoned by their families. Jugan, also known as Marie de la Croix, was "an authentic Mother Teresa ahead of her time," Vatican Radio said. Her Little Sisters of the Poor order of nuns today runs homes for impoverished old people worldwide. She died in 1879.

Toguchi and her doctor, Walter Chang, joined in one basilica procession, and two leprosy patients participated in another.

The new saints had heeded Jesus' call to "the heroism of sanctity," sacrificing themselves for others without "calculation or personal gain," the pope said.

"Their perfection, in the logic of a faith that is humanly incomprehensible at times, consists in no longer placing themselves at the center, but choosing to go against the flow and live according to the Gospel," Benedict said in his homily.

Official delegations included King Albert II and Queen Paolo of Belgium; U.S. President Barack Obama's new envoy to the Vatican, Miguel H. Diaz; and Hawaii Sen. Daniel Kahikina Akaka. Poland's president, France's prime minister and Spain's foreign minister also attended.

Obama, born and partially raised in Hawaii, said in a message to mark the canonization that he remembers stories about Damien's care for people with leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, and its stigma.

The U.S. leader, noting that millions worldwide suffer from disease, especially HIV/AIDS, urged people to follow Damien's example by "answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick."

Honolulu pilgrim Gloria Rodrigues said she saw a link between Damien and AIDS.

"He was a servant of the outcast and should be an inspiration for us today to do as he did," said Rodrigues, who added she had relatives with leprosy who had been cared for on Molokai, although years after Damien's work there.

Those with leprosy, which can cause disfigurement, had been ostracized for centuries by societies and even families.

"The way leprosy was perceived then is how AIDS is perceived today" by many people, said Gail Miller, a pilgrim from Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Damien, said Benedict, "not without fear and repugnance," chose to go to Molokai and risked his health to serve the leprosy patients "who were there, abandoned by all," and went on to feel "at home with them."

Damien's image, vividly showing lesions of leprosy on his face, was draped from the basilica's facade.

Mills' pastor, the Rev. James Kean, said their parish, St. Damien of Molokai, in Pontiac, Michigan, is the first U.S. church to be named in the saint's honor. He said a relic of St. Damien, a fragment of a heel bone, will be brought to their parish from Rome for a day before being taken to Hawaii.

Later greeting the pilgrims in the square, Benedict urged those to help in the battle against leprosy as well as what he called "other forms of leprosy caused by lack of love or cowardliness," apparent reference to those who psychologically isolate themselves from others.

Also becoming a saint was Zygmunt Szcezesny Felinski, a 19th-century Polish bishop who defended the Catholic faith during the years of the Russian annexation, which had led to the shutdown of Polish churches.

Two Spaniards, Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded an order of Dominicans in the 19th century, and Rafael Arniaz Baron, who renounced an affluent life at age 22 to live humbly in a strict monastery in the last century, also were raised to sainthood.

----

Associated Press reporter Daniela Petroff contributed to this report.

Minarets in Zurich?

2009-10-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

BBC News has reported that the poster above has been allowed under free speech laws in Switzerland. It comes ahead of a decision by the government on whether to curtail the construction of mosques and minarets in Zurich. My own opinion is that the poster's clear hateful overtones override free speech laws and it should therefore be disallowed. The minarets look just like missiles (coincidence?) and the poster evokes a sense of dark/black/terrorist Islam overtaking pure white/cross/Christian Europe. What are your thoughts? What are the limits of free speech when it comes overt or implicit propaganda that evokes religious and cultural enmity between groups like the one above does?

In Glock we trust

2009-10-02T08:49:00.001-07:00

Below is an AP story (with a clever title!) about preachers carrying guns. It seems to me that just possessing a weapon isn't at all contradictory with the aims of the clergy, so I think the Rev. Adams' rationale at the end of the article is a good one. The instant one man pulls the trigger against another human being though, is. In that instant, in order to shoot someone, the mind has to generate some kind of negative emotion, like fear, anger, or hatred, and that to me seems to be against the values extolled by most Christian pastors. I think guns should be to these Detroit pastors what nuclear weapons are to most countries today: something you never use, but keep around for their deterrent properties.

Piece be with you: Detroit pastors packing heat

By COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 1, 2009 5:32 PM

DETROIT -- The Rev. Lawrence Adams teaches his flock at the Westside Bible Church to turn the other cheek. Just in case, though, the 54-year-old retired police lieutenant also wears a handgun under his robe.

Adams is one of several Detroit clergymen who have taken to packing heat in the pulpit. They have committed their lives to a man who preached nonviolence and told followers to love their enemies. But they also say it's up to them to protect their parishioners in church.

"As a pastor, I'm referred to as a shepherd," Adams said. "Shepherds have the responsibility of watching over their flock. Do I want to hurt somebody? Absolutely not!"

Responding to a break-in at his church Sunday evening, Adams surprised a burglar carrying out a bag of loot and shot the man in the abdomen after the man swung the bag at him.

The burglar survived - for which Adams is grateful - but the reverend said he could have been hurt or killed if he had not been armed.

Detroit had the nation's highest homicide rate last year among cities of at least 500,000 residents. The city has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, and these days about one in four working-age residents is without a job.

The northwest Detroit neighborhood surrounding Adams' church isn't one of the city's most dangerous. But there have been many recent reports of crimes in the area, including four burglaries, three auto thefts, one armed robbery and four assaults, including one with intent to murder.

"It's getting worse because of the economy," Adams said. "People are out of work and feel they have to provide for their families."

Prior to 2000, anyone who wanted to carry a concealed weapon in Michigan had to show a need to do so. Now, gun owners simply have to pass a stringent background check and complete eight hours of handgun training.

"I get people from all walks of life, including pastors," said Rick Ector, owner of Rick's Firearm Academy in Detroit. "But it's not anything specific to pastors. Detroit is not a very safe place."

Michigan allows pastors to decide if someone registered to carry a handgun can do so for protection inside churches.

The clergy in Detroit who arm themselves say they do so because of the high overall crime rate. But churchgoers elsewhere have been the target of violent attacks several times in recent years:

- Last year in a New Jersey church, a man fatally shot his estranged wife and a man who intervened in the attack.

- A pastor was found stabbed to death in August in an Oklahoma church.

- A Maryville, Ill., preacher was gunned down during his Sunday sermon in March.

- In December 2007, a gunman killed two people at a Christian youth mission center near Denver and two others at a megachurch in Colorado Springs.

- Near Detroit, a man was shot to death in 2003 while worshipping in a Catholic church. And an attacker fatally shot a woman and wounded a child inside another Detroit church three years ago because of a domestic dispute.

"I don't know what kind of issues people are bringing with them. You could be running from estranged husband, boyfriend," said Bishop Charles Ellis III, pastor of the 6,500-member Greater Grace Temple in Detroit.

Ellis said he sometimes carries a gun, but never in the pulpit. His church has a "ministry of defense" for Sunday services made up of about 18 armed congregants who are off-duty law enforcement officers.

Clergy are adjusting to society, said the Rev. Kenneth J. Flowers, pastor of Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Detroit.

"In addition to their faith, they are carrying weapons," said Flowers, who does not carry a gun. "There used to be a time when everybody respected a pastor. Even a drunk would straighten up if a preacher came by."

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of an armed clergy, because Christ preached against violence and taught people they should love their enemies.

"But the scriptures also are clear that civil authority is part of God's plan," said Claude Wiggins, a former pastor and current assistant at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.

"In our country, it says in due process that you may bear arms to protect yourself. While we should be committed to trusting God, that doesn't prevent us or command us to be totally passive," Wiggins said.

Al Meredith, pastor of the Wedgwood church in Fort Worth, said some off-duty police officers who are deacons at his church carry guns, but he's uncomfortable with the idea of an armed congregation.

"It discourages the crazies from acts of violence if they see uniforms around, but I don't want everybody bringing guns," Meredith said. "My ultimate conviction is what does the word of God say and what would Jesus do? Can you in your wildest imagination ever see Jesus packing a .38? I can't imagine Peter and Paul carrying .45s."

The Rev. William Revely, who sometimes wears his .357-caliber handgun while preaching at the Holy Hope Heritage Church in Detroit, does not worry whether it might be wrong for a man of God to carry a firearm in church.

"I've always felt that the only way to handle a bear in a bear meeting is to have something you can handle a bear with," said the 68-year-old pastor, who practices at a gun range with another pastor. "We have to be realistic. I know too many people who've been shot, carjacked."

Adams said most - if not all - of Westside's 50 members have supported his actions after encountering the burglar.

"People want to look at Christians and the church as believers in God and ask 'Why doesn't God protect you?" Adams said. "The reality is God has given man free will. We have to use our God-given talents and protect ourselves."

BC Symposia on Interreligious Dialogue

2009-09-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening marked the opening plenary session, open to the larger BC community, of the now annual Boston College Symposia on Interreligious Dialogue. Most of the Spirituality Committee, myself included, were in attendance at the BC Heights Room. The session was followed by an informal social, with wine and cheese and other finger foods provided by BC catering. Last year's event was headlined by David Burrell, a Notre Dame professor of philosophical theology who specializes in dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Following in Burrell's footsteps in 2009 comes University of Chicago professor David Tracy, one of North America's most prominent Catholic theologians. Like Burrell, Tracy approaches interreligious dialogue from a philosophical perspective and takes Western hermeneutics as his shining light. His opening address was entitled, "Understanding the Religious Other: Western Hermeneutics and Interreligious Dialogue." Catherine Keller of Drew University and S. Mark Heim of Andover Newton Theological School followed Tracy's 45-minute address as respondents.

Here is a brief summary of Tracy's address from Prof. Tracy himself: "This paper will address the difficult question of whether modern Western hermeneutics (especially those of Gadamer and Ricoeur) are helpful as heuristic guides for interreligious dialogues. The claim will be that Gadamer's model of conversation is indeed a helpful one and that Ricoeur's addition of explanatory methods and hermeneutics of retrieval and suspicion are also relevant. However, I will also claim that there are serious limits to the present hermeneutic models: namely Gadamer's idea of "fusion of horizons" and Ricoeur's notion of "appropriation." These hermeneutic claims must be faced with the question of radical otherness. This was central in the exchange between Gadamer and Derrida as well as Ricoeur and Levinas. Clearly radical otherness and difference are present in interreligious dialogues. The question of otherness and difference in a context of a revised hermeneutics will be posed as a possible heuristic tool for interreligious and intercultural dialogues."

While my own insufficient background in the hermeneutical philosophy of Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Derrida at times made it frustratingly difficult to follow, Tracy's address and Heim's and Keller's responses nevertheless provided some tantalizing food for thought in the highly-difficult-to-digest emerging fields of interreligious dialogue and comparative theology.

How much can we really understand about the 'Other'? How much should we want or expect to understand in dialogue? What are the aims of dialogue? Following up on Catherine Keller's comment on the etymology of 'empathy', is em-pathos (fully entering into the feeling of) in interreligious dialogue something we should strive for? Mark Heim made an interesting observation about the mindest that is presupposed when reading scriptural texts. Can a Christian, for example, really be able to understand a text from the tripitaka without that high degree of risk that comes with the expected degree of openness?

What are your thoughts?

Eid celebrations in Greater Boston area

2009-09-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center in Roxbury during the sermon of the Eid Al-Fitr feast last Sunday, marking the end of Ramadan.
There were an estimated 9-10,000 people attending the celebration in Roxbury, along with 17 other mosques in the Greater Boston area that celebrated with smaller numbers, 9 of which exceeded 1,000.

I received these pictures from Professor Muhammad from my 'Abrahamic Family Reunion' course at BC. He informed us that the Muslims in Boston truly represent a "United Nations" of devotees from all across the umma, everywhere from Egypt to Morocco, Montenegro to Turkey, Indonesia to Pakistan.

Anthony De Mello, SJ

2009-09-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have added some footage of Anthony De Mello, SJ on the video gadget. His material is intellectually fascinating for the way that he blends Christian and Hindu [or occidental and oriental] ways of thinking (yeah Jesuits!). It has also been, for me at least, a highly engaging and thought-provoking resource on a more spiritual level. His books include Sadhana: A Way to God, Awareness, and Awakening.

That's all on De Mello for now, but I'll have more later on how his creativity got him in trouble with Rome. :\

A cardinal problem

2009-09-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

Did anyone realize there were bodies buried on our campus?! Personally though, I don't see a problem with leaving the tomb where it is, in accordance with the late Cardinal's wishes. Moving it seems to be almost disrespectful to the dead. Plus, this is such an historic city that it's difficult to travel anywhere without stumbling upon some grave or memorial commemorating a figure from ages past. Would it be so bad to leave things where they stand?

The Boston Globe

Church seeks to move body of O’Connell

Land sale requires cardinal’s reburial

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | September 18, 2009

The Archdiocese of Boston, writing an epilogue to one of the more colorful stories in the history of Catholic Boston, asked a court yesterday for permission to unearth the entombed body of Cardinal William H. O’Connell and relocate his remains to the grounds of a suburban prep school.

The proposed disinterment is rich with historical irony, because when O’Connell first purchased land in Brighton as a headquarters for the archdiocese, he insisted that the remains of a group of Sulpician priests be dug up and removed from the property.

Now, six decades after his death, the cardinal’s body may be exhumed from the same acreage because his own alma mater, Boston College, has insisted that the archdiocese remove the cardinal’s remains as a condition of the university’s purchase of the Brighton property.

“It is no longer possible to honor the late cardinal’s wishes relative to his burial,’’ Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley and the trustees of Boston College said in a joint filing in Suffolk Probate and Family Court yesterday. “The petitioning parties seek this court’s approval to reinter the cardinal’s remains on a site approved by the court.’’

O’Connell served as archbishop of Boston from 1907 to 1944, a period of extraordinary growth, in size and influence, for the Catholic population of Boston. He was a powerful and influential prelate who was respected, if not always loved, but his reputation has been complicated in the years since his death by two biographies that have taken critical looks at his lengthy tenure.

O’Connell, as a Catholic priest, had no children, and his multiple siblings and nieces and nephews are all deceased. His surviving relatives - 30 descendants of his brothers and sisters - are divided over disposition of his remains, with some reluctant to see the body moved and others less concerned by the proposal.

The saga touches on many of the most significant episodes of local Catholic history, including not only the storied career of O’Connell, who was at once one of the most powerful and controversial churchmen in Boston, but also the sexual abuse crisis, because the land on which he was buried was sold to pay settlements to victims.

There is even a Kennedy connection: O’Connell’s most prominent living relative is his grandnephew, Paul G. Kirk, a onetime aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy who became chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Paul Kirk did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. His brother, Centerville attorney Edward W. Kirk, has been the leading opponent of moving the body of the late cardinal. In a brief interview yesterday, Edward Kirk would say only that “we want to explore every opportunity for a satisfactory resolution of this by agreement.’’

O’Connell, the 11th child born to a family of Irish immigrants in Lowell, was Boston’s first cardinal, and he presided over the church during atime of transformation in the way Catholics were seen and treated in Boston.

“The Catholic community was coming into its own, politically and socially, and he both symbolized that and, in some ways, made it possible,’’ said O’Connell biographer James M. O’Toole, a Boston College history professor. “He was a comparable figure to the political giants of the age - James Michael Curley and Honey Fitz - and he turned the position of archbishop of Boston into that of a public figure, so that what he had to say on any subject was news, simply because he said it.’’

O’Connell had his quirks. He owned a succession of black poodles that he would walk along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. And he had his foibles. He was criticized during his tenure for failing to act against two priests, one of them his nephew, who had secretly married.

Archdiocesan officials say that they are obligated to try to relocate the remains as part of the 2004 agreement with Boston College, but that they will do everything they can to honor O’Connell.

They chose St. Sebastian’s School as the new site for his grave because O’Connell, who was a champion of Catholic education, founded the school in Newton in 1941. (The school moved to Needham in 1982.)

“The issue for the archdiocese is about making sure that we appropriately provide a permanent resting place befitting a cardinal and priest of the church and to fulfill the conditions of the sale to Boston College,’’ said archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C. Donilon. “We believe that in the end we will have provided a more appropriate resting place that honors and respects the late cardinal and his family.’’

Donilon said that, if the archdiocese is allowed to move the body, the church will construct a permanent memorial to the cardinal at St. John’s Seminary and will establish a scholarship in the cardinal’s name at St. Sebastian’s.

O’Connell’s legacy is still treasured at St. Sebastian’s, an elite Catholic private school with 360 students, all boys, in grades 7 through 12. The cardinal’s portrait hangs in the school’s dining room, and the school bestows an annual medal in his name.

“If the cardinal is to be disinterred, we would welcome him here,’’ said William L. Burke III, the school’s headmaster.

O’Connell’s will is quite explicit about his wishes; he wrote, “I direct that my funeral obsequies be as simple as possible, and that I be buried in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the grounds of St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts.’’

But in fact, his funeral was quite elaborate, and that chapel, which O’Connell constructed to house his remains, is on land that the seminary sold to the archdiocese and the archdiocese then sold to Boston College.

“Given that the cardinal’s wish to be buried on the grounds of St. John’s Seminary could no longer be honored, the archdiocese and Boston College felt it best that he be reinterred at an archdiocesan site,’’ said Jack Dunn, a spokesman for Boston College, who added that the college has proposed building a parking garage near the site of the tomb. “Out of respect for the cardinal, we do not believe that it is appropriate to have a grave site on a college campus, especially at a site in close proximity to a proposed parking facility.’’

It is not clear whether the archdiocese would be able to move the tomb itself or would have to remove the body from beneath the tomb while leaving the structure intact, because the tomb is arguably of some historic significance and has attracted the attention of the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.

Yom Kippur begins this Saturday, September 27

2009-09-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

Yom Kippur, one of the most important, if not the most important, Jewish holiday begins at sunset, this Saturday September 27th and lasts until sundown of the next day. This day of import begins with Kol Nidre, a Saturday evening service named for the prayer with which it begins. It's interesting to note how in the article "G-d" is used to signify the divine. This reminds me of the injunction not to pronounce the name YHWH, and to use Adonai instead. The word 'Adonai' is derived from the vowel sounds between the consonants in YHWH. In the translated Hebrew Scriptures, YHWH is translated as LORD with capital letters. 'Lord', in lower-case letters, is the translation of Adonai. Just a few interesting tidbits!

Here is some more information about Yom Kippur (excerpts from Judaism 101):

The name "Yom Kippur" means "Day of Atonement," and that pretty much explains what the holiday is. It is a day set aside to "afflict the soul," to atone for the sins of the past year. In Days of Awe, I mentioned the "books" in which G-d inscribes all of our names. On Yom Kippur, the judgment entered in these books is sealed. This day is, essentially, your last appeal, your last chance to change the judgment, to demonstrate your repentance and make amends.

As I noted in Days of Awe, Yom Kippur atones only for sins between man and G-d, not for sins against another person. To atone for sins against another person, you must first seek reconciliation with that person, righting the wrongs you committed against them if possible. That must all be done before Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur is a complete Sabbath; no work can be performed on that day. It is well-known that you are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking (even water) on Yom Kippur. It is a complete, 25-hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before Yom Kippur and ending after nightfall on the day of Yom Kippur. The Talmud also specifies additional restrictions that are less well-known: washing and bathing, anointing one's body (with cosmetics, deodorants, etc.), wearing leather shoes (Orthodox Jews routinely wear canvas sneakers under their dress clothes on Yom Kippur), and engaging in sexual relations are all prohibited on Yom Kippur.

Most of the holiday is spent in the synagogue, in prayer. In Orthodox synagogues, services begin early in the morning (8 or 9 AM) and continue until about 3 PM. People then usually go home for an afternoon nap and return around 5 or 6 PM for the afternoon and evening services, which continue until nightfall. The services end at nightfall, with the blowing of the tekiah gedolah, a long blast on the shofar. See Rosh Hashanah for more about the shofar and its characteristic blasts.

It is customary to wear white on the holiday, which symbolizes purity and calls to mind the promise that our sins shall be made as white as snow (Is. 1:18). Some people wear a kittel, the white robe in which the dead are buried.

After Yom Kippur, one should begin preparing for the next holiday, Sukkot, which begins five days later.

List of Dates

Yom Kippur will occur on the following days of the Gregorian calendar:
Jewish Year 5769: sunset October 8, 2008 - nightfall October 9, 2008
Jewish Year 5770: sunset September 27, 2009 - nightfall September 28, 2009
Jewish Year 5771: sunset September 17, 2010 - nightfall September 18, 2010
Jewish Year 5772: sunset October 7, 2011 - nightfall October 8, 2011
Jewish Year 5773: sunset September 25, 2012 - nightfall September 26, 2012

Catholic role in the Middle East

2009-09-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Having a background in international studies, these kinds of news stories interest me. As the article mentions, the Catholic Church indeed has a long history of activity in the Middle East, and history shows that its always worked out well, so why not meet and discuss new means of participation? :D

Pope: Bishops to discuss Middle East next year

The Associated Press
Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:46 AM

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI has announced a special meeting of bishops next year to discuss Middle East peace efforts and the role of the Catholic Church in the region.

Addressing bishops and patriarchs from Eastern rite churches, Benedict said Saturday that the meeting will take place Oct. 10-24, 2010, and will be titled "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: communion and testimony."

The meeting of bishops, called a synod, will gather church leaders from the Middle East and around the world.

The pope and the Vatican have long been active on the Middle East diplomatic front, seeking to protect Christians in the Holy Land and elsewhere in the region while supporting efforts to solve the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

ISBCC opens in Roxbury

2009-09-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

This blog will raise awareness over issues pertaining to particular religious and philosophical practices and lifestyles, especially in the Boston area.

Our first post comes to us from Roxbury, where just a few months ago, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center opened. Check out the article in the Boston Globe.

Mission Statement

2009-09-17T16:25:00.001-07:00

The Graduate Student Association's Spirituality Committee, from the hallowed institution of higher learning in Chestnut Hill, brings you its mission statement:

The goal of the GSA Spirituality Committee is to assist students of any and all religious and philosophical views-- it is not intrinsically Catholic or Christian. The committee means to provide graduate students with spiritual or religious resources supporting them in their efforts to conceptualize and construct the human good. One way of realizing this is through dialogue, which encourages us to trust in the process and the journey in the direction of whole and authentic human fulfillment.

The Committee also means to strengthen the community through joint multi-faith efforts that engage faith, diversity, and social action. We believe that the bonds of community will be strengthened if religious and philosophical diversity is engaged in working towards better understanding and cooperative service.