A number of press releases re: events in local religious communities have come my way in the past week, so I thought I’d pass them on. Mark your calendars, God Bloggettes!

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For folks interested in what one financial columnist called the “best analysis yet of the global economic crisis,” the Catholic Newman Center on UA’s campus is sponsoring two talks this week on Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict’s social encyclical examining modern capitalism from an ethical, spiritual and technical perspective.

The main message is about promoting human development in the context of social justice and the common good, and the only reason I can tell you that is I’ve read descriptions of the piece by journalists, priests and bloggers because when I tried to read it sans any interpretation, I threw up my hands in frustration. (“Plain English, Papa,” I wanted to scream, “Just put it in plain English!”)

Luckily for me and others of small brain, the Newman Center is bringing in Alejandro Crosthwaite, a Dominican friar from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, to unpack Caritas in Veritate for the common woman and man. The talks are free, open to the public, and start at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday in the chapel of the Newman Center, which is on the corner of Cherry and Second streets at UA. Map is here.

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Next week, also at the Newman Center, for anyone interested in the Israel-Palestine conundrum, Bartholomew Hutcherson, pastor of the Newman Center and also a Dominican friar, will give a talk called “The Geography of Hatred – Palestine in the Common Era.”

Hutcherson said this talk is his “personal reflection” on the two months he spent in study in Israel/Palestine over this past summer. He learned a lot (“Everybody has blood on their hands,” he said) and wants to share it with anyone who is interested. The presentation will be Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. in the main chapel and will focus on the story of disputed lands in the Common Era “with emphasis on the rise of Islam, the Crusader Era, the Ottoman period and the establishment of the modern state of Israel.”

The presentation will examine how conflicts in the current day have their origins in religious and cultural understandings from long ago, asking what history and faith could teach people about the future of the Middle East.

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A sukkah; image via http://tzvee.blogspot.com/

From the Old Testament side of the monotheistic aisle, members of the Southern Arizona Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life are offering their second annual sacred water celebration Monday, Oct. 5, from 7–9 pm, with “a new ritual based on ancient practices,” according to a press release from the Tucson Jewish Community Center.

The water celebration will coincide with Sukkot, is a way-cool Jewish holiday marked by Jews constructing outdoor  sukkah in their yards and eating outside in commemoration of the divine protection of Israelites during their 40-year wandering in the desert. Sukkot follows the two-day joyful observance of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and the one-day solemn observance of Yom Kippur (day of atonement), and lasts seven days.

The celebration will be at the TJCC, 3800 E. River Road, and it is free. Those attending should bring a flashlight and wear comfortable shoes. Everyone participating should bring a reusable pitcher or bowl for the water celebration, and if you want to stay for the potluck, bring a vegetarian snack to share and your own reusable place setting and utensils. For more info, contact: deborah@deborahmayaan.com or call Deborah at 881-2534.

Can you find your way to a hospital? When you get there, can you pay?

You can’t open any newspaper editorial page these days without seeing arguments for and against health care reform. You can’t turn on television coverage of Town Halls around the issue without seeing sometimes gun-toting – as was the case in Phoenix last week – and always sign-toting people protesting the public option as though giving health care to the most vulnerable among us (the very young, the very old, and the very poor) was akin to, well, acting like Hitler.

The comparison, of course, is specious, the crutch of those who cannot argue their case based on merits alone. It is also, as pundits on both the right and the left have explained, trivializing to the millions who suffered under Hilter’s cruel attempt to purify the human race.

But setting that craziness aside, we are still left with the problem of millions of Americans living without access to health care, and, for purposes of God Blogging, a question about people of faith and what they should do about it. According to the folks over at Faith For Health (and a couple of representatives of local Christian communities), believers should get pay attention to what radical discipleship calls one to when reflecting on health care reform. (more…)

Here are two more example people could use to condemn religion or write it off as just a bunch of crazy people: Rampaging Muslims killed eight Christians in Pakistan this weekend after rumor spread that somewhere in a village

The Quran, Islam's Holy text

a Quran had been defaced; and Dale Neumann admitted to a jury that, while his daughter lay dying, he prayed instead of calling 911 or rushing the 11-year-old to the hospital.

Let’s start with the first one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can’t convince people your religion is based on peace if everytime someone offends you, you resort to violence. Yes, the rioting Muslims – 20,000 at last estimate – might be non representative of Islam. If so, let’s hear that proclaimed loud and clear – and not in polite policy statements, but from the mosques where these Muslims attend services. That’s what is lacking in every condemnation from Muslim leaders against terrorism – it doesn’t come from the mosques. Bibles and other religious icons of Judaism and Christianity are defaced frequently. People burn Bibles, gangsters co-opt rosaries as neckwear, and weirdo artists make a chocolate Jesus. Those actions will elicit a letter from the Pope or a condemnation from Israel or a petition started by believers in a certain part of the country. They use their words to express their outrage or offense – not their fists. Muslims seriously need to get a clue on this.

Likewise, Christians who believe in God but somehow don’t believe God gave people medicine or doctors, need to get a clue – and perhaps some jail time and psychiatric care. I come from Texas; I’ve been plenty exposed to people who claim direct communication with the Almighty. I’ve also seen, from people who would never bring attention to themselves or stand up on a stage screaming that God will heal your lame leg, actual physical healing in response to prayer. So it isn’t that I doubt there is sometimes healing that can’t be explained by medicine or science. But it is rare, and it is unpredictable. Medicine, too, can be unpredictable, and the cure is sometimes worse than the symptoms of the disease – just ask anyone who’s endured chemotherapy. But medicine has a far better track record of healing than prayer, and believing so does not mean you’ve turned your back on God, as Neumann seemed to think.