Sightings Articles
Holy Death on the US/Mexico Border by Lois Ann Lorentzen
In the days just before Easter, the Mexican government bulldozed nearly forty shrines to La Santisima Muerte (Holy Death) along the US/Mexico border. The shrines, according to the military, formed an integral part of the "narco-culture" that the gov...
May 28, 2009
Barack Obama, Notre Dame, and the Question of Roman Catholic Identity by Adam Darlage
Notre Dame's invitation to President Barack Obama to give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 17th met with criticism from many Roman Catholics across the nation. After all, as these critics argued, Obama's pro-choice stan...
May 21, 2009
Seminarians by Martin E. Marty
Having had enough of headlines and cable television about distracting commencement events, I am planning to do a small, quiet commencement one the day before you read this. It's at a favorite school of our tribe, Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, ...
May 18, 2009
Pigs, Plagues, Politics, and Religion
To better understand the nuances of the current situation, it is useful to revisit a historic instance of pig disease that likewise touched on politics, economics, the environment, and religion....
May 14, 2009
Torture Follow-Up by Martin E. Marty
Handicapped by distance from my sources, as I mentioned in last week's Sightings, and somehow not quick-witted or schooled effectively enough to google all the possibilities, I failed and "fell through," as pointed out by an astute reader, in last Mo...
May 11, 2009
Unnatural Acts by Melissa Conroy
On May 4, 2009 the BBC's top stories included the headline "'Gay man' disinterred in Senegal." The article told how a gay man died and was buried in a Muslim cemetery, only to be disinterred twice. In the first instance his body was left outside th...
May 7, 2009
Torture by Martin E. Marty
Writing from Paris: If I were Czar of Catechetics, unlikelily appointed to help set the agenda for instruction and discussion among adult church-goers in America, I'd assign the topic of torture. With English-language print media piling up thousands ...
May 3, 2009
The Continuing Responsibility of North-West Theologians in Global Christianity by John G. Stackhouse, Jr
As Martin Marty's pointed out in this past Monday's Sightings, "everyone knows" nowadays that Christian Europe is long over, and Christian North America is declining quickly as well. Africa, South America, and Asia, with their burgeoning populations...
April 30, 2009
Population Changes in Europe by Martin E. Marty
In hours I'll be boarding a plane for secular Europe, in particular secular France, and most particularly, secular Paris. Mixing business and pleasure, I'll be doing some accidental research, namely, observing and taking mental notes on areas famili...
April 27, 2009
Crash: Apocalypse and Prophecy In, With, and Through J. G. Ballard by Jeremy Biles
That writer J. G. Ballard died this past Sunday, in the midst of the global economic crash, makes perfectly sad sense. Ballard was a harbinger of an apocalypse brought on by unrestrained commercialization, and a prophetic voice for both the possibil...