Pope Benedict arrives in Lebanon on Friday to bring a message of peace to a region torn by civil war in neighbouring Syria and strained by violent Islamist protests against the United States in Libya and Egypt. While those tensions overshadowed preparations for the religiously sensitive visit, security was low-key in Beirut and the only…
Pope Benedict XVI said he regards his upcoming trip to Lebanon as a visit aimed at promoting peace and dialogue in the entire Middle East. Benedict is scheduled to visit Lebanon Sept. 14-18. “My apostolic visit to Lebanon, and by extension to the Middle East as a whole, is placed under the sign of peace,”…
I teach my classes at Seton Hall University in a seminar room known as the Oesterreicher Suite, in which a photograph of Monsignor John M. Oesterreicher looks down on the class as it is being held. The room itself is comprised of glass cases with speeches and documents that track and illustrate the Monsignor’s path…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward Editor Jane Eisner and Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman to discuss Mitt Romney’s recent trip to Israel. Then Ezra Glinter reports back on the giant celebration of Talmud reading in New Jersey. Finally, John Connelly, a Forward contributor, calls in to discuss how a small…
Fifty years ago this fall, Catholic bishops gathered in Rome for a council that would bring the church “up to date” by making it speak more directly to the modern world. After three years of deliberation, the bishops voted on and accepted statements that permitted the faithful to attend mass in their own languages, encouraged…
The Vatican crackdown on nuns in America has provided a fascinating window on gender, religion, and power — specifically, on how groups of women become scapegoat for religious conflicts. Reuters reported: A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns group said Thursday that it was “stunned” that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty…
The recent controversy over Roman Catholic Cardinal Kurt Koch?s statements at a meeting at Seton Hall University in October with scholars and clergy offers Jews an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of wading into disputes with other religious groups. Koch, the Vatican?s emissary to the Jews, responding briefly to a question about the push…
The Vatican’s new chief liaison to world Jewry met mixed reviews during his debut visit to the United States, thanks in part to statements on the pending canonization of Catholicism’s World War II-era pope. In what turned out to be a bumpy start, Cardinal Kurt Koch angered some Jewish and Christian leaders when he told…
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