Source: The Boston Globe

On Sunday August 26, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that the annual festival in Boston's North End honoring St. Anthony of Padua drew thousands of Italian-Americans. At the center of the festival "stood a shrine to one of the most revered and holy saints in Catholicism: the life-size statue of St. Anthony and the 'blessed relics,' believed to be fragments of the 800-year-old remains of the saint himself...[that] made the trip from Padua, Italy...Event organizers estimated that more than 50,000 people-most of Italian decent-attended...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 25, 2001 The Boston Globe reported that Tom Green of Utah, "a man with five wives and 30 children, was sentenced...to five years in prison...Polygamy is an open secret in Utah and elsewhere in the West, where there are an estimated 30,000 people practicing plural marriage." Green took the stand and "made it clear he has no regrets." He was sentenced "to five years on each charge he faced - four bigamy charges and one for failing to support his family. The sentences will run concurrently...He is still awaiting trial on...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 23, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "a state legislator apologized...for forwarding to fellow lawmakers an email that said, 'Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity.' Representative Don Davis, a white Republican...said he didn't consider the letter racist...'Whose brand of Christianity is this? It's not mine,' [state Senator William Martin, a black Democrat] wrote. Representative Ron Sutton, an American Indian, said he had no use for such sentiments in the Statehouse."

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 20, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "over four decades as an itinerant archivist with a passion for preservation, a Mormon convert to Buddhism named E. Gene Smith has amassed a rare collection of the endangered Tibetan Buddhist canon: some original writings of Buddha, early commentaries by Indian Buddhists, and the writings of Tibetan Buddhist sages over the last 12 centuries. 'This is the best library of Tibetan works in the country,'" according to the soon-to-be chair of Buddhist studies at Harvard University...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 16, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on the nation's largest Roman Catholic cathedral, which is about to be completed in Los Angeles. "Because of its grandeur and ambitions, the cathedral...has become a growing symbol of pride and disdain." The cathedral is meant for the "nation's largest archdiocese, with about 5 million Catholics of many backgrounds, with Mass celebrated in 38 languages on any Sunday." Cardinal Roger M. Mahony addressed those who criticized him for spending so much money on the building in an...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 14, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "a local organization of Catholic women [Massachusetts Women-Church] has rented signs atop 20 Boston taxicabs demanding that the Vatican allow women to be ordained as priests...In other cities, activists have rented billboards, and one woman disrupted a bishops' meeting in Washington...The church has cited the fact that Jesus did not have female apostles as a justification [for not ordaining women], and Pope John Paul II has said the matter is not open for debate."

Source: International Society for Krishna Consciousness

http ://w ww.iskcon.net/boston

On August 14, 2001, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness reported that "the Boston Theological Institute's Dialog Program convened a panel on religious conversion at the Harvard Divinity School. Christopher Queen...of the Harvard Extension School...discussed his journey from Methodism to Buddhism...Premananda dasa spoke of his journey from Christianity to atheism to Vaishnavism...The organizers were so...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 14, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America opted... not to overturn a ban on homosexual clergy members, deciding instead to undertake its first major study on whether to endorse the morality of homosexual relationships... A coalition of five pro-gay Lutheran caucuses and the activist group Soulforce of Laguna Beach, Calif., held a... rally...to protest what they saw as Lutheran inaction. Protesters...kneeled to pray and sing across the street from the meeting all and 48 were...

Source: The New York Times

On August 12, 2001, The New York Times reported on the on Finger Lakes region of New York. "Best known for its...bucolic beauty, [it] has become the hog farming capital of New York. But with that distinction has come controversy...casting an awkward spotlight on the people most associated with the animals, Mennonite farmers." Many of their neighbors are complaining that the stench produced by the pigs "has adversely affected the quality of life, the environment, the wine business and the tourism industry...Like their...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On August 12, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the ruling Taliban movement...freed dozens of children it had accused of receiving Christian teaching and imprisoned their fathers instead, the official media [in Afghanistan] reported. Meanwhile, a special U.N. envoy began a mission here aimed at pressing the Taliban to release eight foreigners, including two Americans, arrested on charges of propagating Christianity in this devout Muslim nation." The foreigners worked at Shelter Now International, where the youngsters who...

Source: The Dallas Morning News

On August 11, 2001, The Dallas Morning News reported that a new documentary linking the traditions of Jews and Christians, Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith, "is set to debut on public television in at least 70 markets this fall...An executive at Connecticut Public Television "believes that this film 'fills a vacuum' as the first even-handed documentary to address the shared heritage and differences without either side 'scoring points.'...Dr. Wilson, a professor of Old Testament and Jewish Studies at...

Source: The Washington Post

On August 9, 2001, The Washington Post published an editorial about Bush leading his cabinet in prayer before a meeting. "Bush is different only in degree, not in kind" in terms of presidential piety. "It makes me scratch my head whenever anyone mentions how religion has been banished from American life. This lament, so intrinsic if not essential to the conservative moment,...has attained the status of a Big Lie -- an untruth repeated so often that it goes unchallenged...America -- alone among the major Western democracies --...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 8, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "in a significant reversal, the Catholic Church withdrew its opposition...to a bill that would force clergy to report suspected child abuse to the state. The church said it will now work to ensure the bill's passage, but declined to say why it changed its position...As proposed, the bill makes an exception for so-called privileged communication, allowing priests who learn of abuse in the confessional to keep the information secret."

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 8, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on the debate in Utah "over the Salt Lake [Mormon] Temple being the literal backdrop of the Olympics and over the extensive involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in hosting them. Critics fear that the state's dominant institution intends to use the Olympics as a public relations tool to carry its mission around the globe in search of converts." The Mormon Church has about 11 million members. "While the church's president... has banned proselytizing on the...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 8, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "fraud artists increasingly are preying on people based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds, members of the North American Securities Administration Association said at a press conference in Washington. The news came on the heels of prison sentences...for two former members of a Tampa church, who bilked fellow churchgoers of nearly $580 million on 'divinely inspired investments.'...'I've seen more money stolen in the name of God than in any other way,' said...NASAA...