Happy Friday! As always, your weekly roundup:
The iconic Archbishop Oscar Romero—long held high as an unofficial saint of the church—will be officially beatified tomorrow. On the eve of his beatification, a University of Notre Dame alum has recorded a song about Romero’s life.
The San Francisco priest who sparked controversy earlier this year by barring altar girls has been replaced as chaplain of the church’s Catholic grade school.
The president of the Boy Scouts of America on Thursday called for an end to the group’s blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning Scout executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” and that “any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement.”
Today, voters in Ireland will decide whether the country’s constitution should be amended to allow for gay marriage. If the amendment passes, Ireland will become the first country to legalize same-sex civil marriage by popular vote. Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin (who we recently interviewed) wrote an opinion piece for The Irish Times about gay marriage, in which he said, “As a bishop I have strong views on marriage based on my religious convictions. I have, however, no wish to stuff my religious views down other people’s throats.”
Pope Francis told bishops to act more like pastors and stop ordering people around.
The Vatican says Pope Francis meant no offense to Israel by referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as an “angel of peace.”
A 2012 study by a University of Texas sociologist has been widely cited to argue that lesbians and gay men don’t make good parents. Now researchers at Indiana University and the University of Connecticut have reanalyzed the same data and reached a very different conclusion.
British actor Jude Law will play the fictional Pope Pius XIII in “The Young Pope,” a miniseries directed by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino.
Comic Jim Gaffigan’s new TV Land series The Jim Gaffigan Show, in which he plays a fictionalized version of himself, centers around his family’s Catholic faith. The first episode of the show, which premiers in July, is currently available online as a preview.
And now for the papal rapid fire roundup
This week, Pope Francis:
- Answered a pigeon breeder’s prayers.
- Canonized two 19th-century nuns from Palestine.
- Remembered a fourth grade scolding.
- Drank some mate tea.
