Religion

WaPo runs an article today about the obnoxious ostentation of today's Bar Mitzvahs [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201624.html] . It kinda brings out the anti-Semite in ya, but if the Jews are ridiculously extravagant, they're merely setting the American pace.

I don't know about this. St. Martin of Tours and others forbad women from the monastery premises, and it wasn't for sexist reasons. I've also read that familiarity through the workplace spawns affairs. And I know from personal experience that NFP's counsel

> The Boston archdiocese has received instructions to stop arranging adoptions for homosexual couples, the Boston Herald reports today. > The Boston arm of Catholic Charities came under fire in October when it was revealed that the office was actively helping homosexual couples to adopt children, despite Church teaching that

But what good is better health if you can mock the infirm? > A recently published Brigham Young University study that examined the possible link between religiosity and better psychosocial health found that compassion was the active ingredient in the relationship. > Patrick Steffen, lead author of the study and

> A group of dissident Catholics has organized public opposition to the quick beatification of Pope John Paul II (bio - news). > Eleven theologians and one journalist from Europe and Latin American have joined in a statement entitled "The beatification of John-Paul II: appeal for clarity." In

James Kushiner on the Willow Creek Church's decision to cancel its Sunday service on Christmas [http://merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2005/12/churches_closed.html]: > If "the best way to honor the birth of Jesus" is for families to have "more personal experiences,"

> "Joan of Arc, there's a girl," he went on. "She said she spoke to the saints, when what she really saw were statues. But they spoke to her. Was she crazy? I don't know. I do know that she stopped the longest

I don't whether the Germans are just trying to catch up with the Scandinavians when it comes to hedonism or whether their thought processes are just hopelessly grim from the likes of Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche: > A German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar