Christianity

Words like “controversial” weren’t used as People magazine recently boosted ABC anchor Robin Roberts in a cover story and how her mother assured her that God approves of homosexuality. Instead, People saved that word for evangelical Christian actress Candace Cameron Bure in the May 5 issue. The headline on the Patrick Gomez article was “Faith, Family, and Full House: The former child star…

Buyer beware those promising a “Catholic education.” St. Mary’s Institute (SMI) is the Catholic grade school in my wife’s New York hometown, Amsterdam. It is affiliated with St. Mary’s Catholic Church, whose pastor Father John Medwid pens the opening to the Saint Mary’s Institute annual newsletter.

"[D]espite years of public hand-wringing in the West over Syria’s bloody and rapid decline, the country is continuing to plummet into new depths of the abyss" as witnessed by instances of crucifixion at the hands of Islamist extremists, Jacob Siegel of the Daily Beast reported today. It remains to be seen if the Big Three networks pick up on the story, but somehow we doubt they will. A search…

MSNBC seized on Pope Francis’s tweet yesterday that “Inequality is the root of social evil” to once again flog conservatives for their economic views. On Monday’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, fill-in host Ari Melber began a segment on the pontiff by gloating, “[S]ome Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place. Specifically, between the pope's teachings and Rush Limbaugh's…

Rheana Murray's Saturday article on ABCNews.com omitted key details about how the Catholic Church determines which saints' feast days are observed by Catholic parishes all over the world. Murray noted that the Church "removed 93 saints from the universal calendar and revoked their feast days in 1969," but two out of the four examples she gave still have "optional" feast days on the calendar…

ABC, CBS, and NBC spotlighted the issue of child sex abuse by priests on their Saturday morning and evening newscasts – twenty-four hours or less before the Catholic Church canonized Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. CBS and NBC both uncritically turned to the president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), but didn't mention her controversial affiliations with prominent anti…

Earlier today, Pope Francis tweeted from his English-language account, "Inequality is the root of social evil." Not long afterwards, the Daily Beast shouted out its Amen by placing the development at the top of its Tip Sheet digest, complete with the cheeky caption "Occupy Vatican." [see screen captures below page break] Naturally, however, the Beast completely ignored statements the pontiff…

Barbara Boland at CNSNews.com noticed that Michelle Obama explained in a Monday interview with TV talk show host Michael Strahan that most Sundays, the Obamas are just “lounging and napping” or plotting out the girls’ activities, like rehearsals or birthday parties. Their church attendance is very sparse. Strahan asked “Easter was yesterday, so how did you spend the day?” After church, "We…

The Friday before the Catholic church would celebrate the canonization of two popes, NBC's Today hyped the "controversy" of the jubilant fans of Blessed John Paul II "drowning out dissent" from those who felt "stomped on" during his papacy. Raining on the canonization parade, NBC's Anne Thompson said the crowds who chanted "sainthood now" at John Paul II's funeral were "drowning out dissent…

Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday authored an op-ed on April 12 declaring herself a Christian. However, the journalist made sure to stress that she would keep her religion out of Post reviews. She also reiterated her dislike for movies such as The Passion, Son of God and Noah.  According to Hornaday, the reason for removing open expressions of faith from her work is "the journalistic…

MSNBC doesn’t typically side with Christian churches – unless, of course, a church stands up for one of the network’s pet causes. That is exactly what happened on Tuesday, when a headline on MSNBC.com lamented how the “Boy Scouts Ban[ned] Church Over Gay Troop Leader.” MSNBC.com's Amanda Sakuma explained that the Boy Scouts of America recently shut down a Seattle troop, sponsored by a United…

On Sunday's This Week on ABC, CNN's S.E. Cupp called on social conservative Christians to drop their opposition to same-sex "marriage" and adoption: "I will say conservatives have got to move on gay marriage....[and] on gay adoption. If abortion is the abhorrent option – and I believe it is – then adoption by any two loving people has got to be the better option." Democratic strategist Donna…

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul made it perfectly clear that a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ as the sine qua non of Christianity. If Christ was not raised from the dead, that the whole of the Christian faith is an utter sham, the apostolic witness fraudulent, the basis of Christian hope nonexistent, and the poor saps who go on attempting to live a life guided by…

Ten years ago, Mel Gibson unveiled his massively successful movie The Passion of The Christ. It came out on Ash Wednesday (February 25, 2004), but is often re-viewed on Good Friday. It had a worldwide box-office gross of over $611 million. In our Special Report on religion coverage that year, we explored how the TV networks attacked Gibson's movie as extreme, divisive, and potentially harmful…