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Latino evangelicals using Catholic abuse scandal, says New York Times
"Most evangelical Christians would say they have no interest in capitalizing on Catholicism's woe," reports The New York Times's Daniel J. Wakin. "But when asked, they do not hesitate to find the scandal's roots in Catholic dogma, and some go even further. In a few cases, priests say, the scandal is being thrown in Catholic faces by proselytizing neighbors. And others who study the evangelical world suggest that the scandal will be used as a wedge in the long struggle between Catholics and evangelicals for Latino souls."

Gordon-Conwell Seminary professor Eldin Villafañe tells the paper that Latino evangelical pastors are sad about the scandal but feel vindicated, pointing to Catholicism's "hierarchical structure and mandatory celibacy" as proven problematic.

Catholics are becoming increasingly aware of and irritated by the comments, Wakin reports. At a recent parish meeting, says New York priest John Grange, "one of the things that surfaced was annoyance at evangelical Protestants' kind of rubbing Catholic people's noses in it."

Unfortuantely, the article is unclear about where this nose-rubbing is coming from. Evangelical Latino pastors? Evangelical Latino laity? The general evangelical laity? Weblog doesn't see it coming from white evangelical leaders; if anything, they're saying that evangelical churches have sexual ethics problems of their own.

Crime and justice:

• Man arrested for killing priest in Panama | He was angry at being rejected from the priesthood. (Associated Press)
  
  
• American missionary shot by carjackers (The East African Standard, Nairobi)
  
  
• Abducted priest, 60 blind people missing | Suspected rebels adducted them from a parish in Liberia. (U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks)

Personalities:

• Demon buster | Bob Larson goes to Cincinnati (The Cincinnati Post)
  
  
• Earlier: Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due. (Christianity Today, Sept. 3, 2002)
  
  
• Bucking the system | Buck Jones was no Jackson or King. But lead he did. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
  
  
• Stars of Rock and Heavy Policy Seek Answers to Africa's Poverty | Ghana is Stop 1 on the O'Neill-Bono Africa Tour 2002. (The New York Times)
  
  
• Also: 'Odd Couple' of Aid Diplomacy Heads Into Africa (Reuters)
  
  
• Also: Bono begins African mission (BBC)
  
  
• Earlier: Bono Tells Christians: Don't Neglect Africa (Christianity Today)

History:

• Jealous Scots to blame for witch hunt | New research finds that the hysteria that led to the burning of 1,500 Scottish women between the 16th and 18th centuries was sparked by a failed businessman, driven mad by his sister-in-law's success. (The Sunday Times, London)
  
  
• Saint who took the hard road to holiness | When it came to treating yourself badly in the name of holiness, St Simeon Stylites had no rival (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
  
  
• Peace of the action | Quakers aren't the sort to make a fuss of a 350th anniversary. Instead, they will get on with their work—quietly struggling to defeat the forces of violence and extremism. (The Guardian, London)

Books:

• Big changes in Christian publishing | As denominational labels mean less and less for today's Christians, it spells trouble for the once-proud denominational publishing houses which have seen their financial statements tumble into the red. (Religion News Service)
  
  

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May (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46