News In Brief
Faith-Based Funding on Trial
The organization also argued that “the belief in God is extolled as distinguishing the claimed effectiveness of faith-based social services.”
The government said the lawsuit should be dismissed because the foundation had no legal standing from which to challenge the way the government operates. But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the organization’s members could sue, as taxpayers with an interest in programs funded by Congress. The Freedom From Religion Foundation describes itself as “an educational group working for the separation of Church and state.” In its website section “what does the foundation do,” the first item on the list is “files lawsuits.”
(CNS)
What Fields said next — on the day a Senate committee advanced a bill allowing civil unions for same-sex couples — has gotten the pastor banned from giving future Senate invocations. “We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex ‘marriage,’” Fields said in the Senate chamber. “We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do what is right before you.”
The invocations are not supposed to be political or divisive, Senate President Richard Codey said. But Fields, who runs a nondenominational church, provoked a lot of comment. Asked if he felt Fields had gone out of bounds, Codey said, “Absolutely. Positively. Yes. He will not be back.”
(RNS)
Bishops Doing ‘Good Job,’ Poll Finds
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — For the first time since before the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, the percentage of Catholics who think the U.S. bishops are doing a “good job” is higher than the previous year, according to results of the Contemporary Catholic Trends poll conducted by LeMoyne College in Syracuse and Zogby International.
In the fall 2006
Contemporary Catholic Trends survey, 71% of Catholics said they strongly agreed
(29%) or somewhat agreed (42%) that “the
The latest survey results, made public Nov. 30, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Zogby conducted telephone interviews of 1,505 self-identified Catholics chosen nationwide.
(CNS)
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- December 24- January 6, 2006