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"Disciplines can change," says Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who was just installed as the Archbishop of Westminster in March. "When a priest accepts celibacy when he is ordained that rule should be kept. But is [marriage] incompatible with priesthood? The answer is obviously no. I would not rule it out. The matter will come up again." ( Reuters also picked up the story.)

"SonicFlood is creating the biggest buzz right now [in Christian music], but they've done it almost invisibly," reports the Chicago Tribune. "You might call their approach 'rock 'n' roll church,' as the group sees its role as primarily to encourage audiences to worship God—not the band—at the concert."

Some time back, novelist Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini de la Serra debated religion for the Italian newspaper La Correra. The insightful discussion (so says the Japanese newspaper The Daily Yomuri) has now been translated into English.

Noting George Barna's statistic that 25 percent of Web surfers go online for some kind of religious purpose, National Public Radio's Morning Edition asks a rather conventional question of online sites such as Beliefnet and The Spirit Channel: can they be spiritually pure and still work with money? The comments of Tom Beaudoin, author of Virtual Faith, are insightful ("As we are building these new centers for people to gather online, we shouldn't expect that as a foregone conclusion that it's right to put these big banner advertisements in place where people will gather for spiritual conversation for spiritual growth"). And the assertion that for-profit sites can be more creative than nonprofits (like ChristianityToday.com) may be worth more analysis. But the God-and-mammon story has been done before. Several times. Far more interesting would have been to look at the actual content of these sites, not just whether they have ads. (Listen in 14.4 and 28.8 kbps RealAudio streams.)

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May (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44