News - September, 2012

News

Amish bishop describes beard-cutting attack

Sep 06, 2012 by James F. McCarty
c. 2012 Religion News Service CLEVELAND (RNS) Law officers testified Wednesday (Sept. 5) about the chaotic and bizarre scene they discovered the night of Oct. 4, 2011, when they arrived at the Holmes County, Ohio, home of Raymond Hershberger, a 79-year-old Amish bishop.
News

Bishop: Church credibility on sexual abuse ‘shredded’

Sep 05, 2012 by David Gibson

The U.S. Catholic bishops’ point man on sexual abuse has said that the hierarchy’s credibility on fixing the problem has been “shredded” and that the situation is comparable to the Reformation, when “the episcopacy, the regular clergy, even the papacy were discredited.”

News

Democrats add support for gay marriage to platform

Sep 05, 2012 by Rick Hampson

On the night the Democrats became the first major U.S. political party to endorse gay marriage, some convention delegates remembered how it used to be—back in the days when, as one said, “you’re scared because it’s not OK to be who you are.”

News

Prominent priest apologizes for controversial sex abuse remarks

Sep 04, 2012 by David Gibson
c. 2012 Religion News Service NEW YORK (RNS) The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, a popular Franciscan friar who defended priests who sexually abuse children and blamed some victims for "seducing" them, has apologized for the controversial remarks.

Groeschel, 78, said in a statement released late Thursday (Aug. 30) that he blamed his failing health for the way he phrased the comments.
News

Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon dies at 92

Sep 04, 2012 by Daniel Burke
c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, revered as a messiah within his Unification Church but regarded by many others as a vain and enigmatic man who blessed mass weddings, built a sprawling business empire and presided over a personality cult, died on Monday (Sept. 3) in South Korea. He was 92.