News Round Up

Our very favorite news story of the holiday season comes out of Kansas City, Mo where 400 people dressed up like Jesus. Why? To put Christ in Christmas! Yup, they went to work, drank lattes at Starbucks and did a little last minute xmas shopping at Target while wearing flowing robes and thorny crowns cause nothing says Christmas like a good,old fashioned crown of thorns. We'll post the YouTube video later.

Probably the most thoughtful thing we've seen on the Rick Warren invocation mess is today's op-ed by Frank Rich. We think we understand what Gene Robinson means when he says that Rick Warren prays to a God "he does not know" but we're not sure that it's anymore civil than Warren's ridiculous comments. We agree with Rich, everyone should just stop talking and pray, silently, for some humility and wisdom.

Also from today's NYT, a story about the Catholic church recruiting from abroad. The noted upside was it's easier to sack them if it doesn't work out. Some of the reason cited are eerily familiar to things American priests have, on occasion, been caught doing. "Some foreign priests had to be sent home. One became romantically entangled with a female co-worker. One isolated himself in the rectory. Still another would not learn to drive. A priest from the Philippines left after two weeks because he could not stand the cold. A Peruvian priest was hostile toward Hispanics who were not from Peru.

Another story on church foreclosures. There's a sin that's not covered in the Bible, oh wait, it is..

Finally, because enough ink hasn't yet been spilled on Rick Warren. Here's a rather tough Chicago Sun Times opinion piece. We find telling the Pom Juice tycoon (also FTD, Franklin Mint and almost every almond tree in California) that she's going to hell because she's Jewish a combination of bad manners, bad politics and really bad theology. God's chosen people, does that phrase sound at all familiar???