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• Archdiocese sells land to pay abuse settlement (The Washington Post)
  
  
• Boston College to buy archdiocese mansion (Associated Press)
  
  

The Passion :

• 'Passion' not likely to play on TV | Despite being the year's biggest box-office blockbuster so far, "The Passion of the Christ" seems unlikely to find a home on the four biggest broadcast networks (Associated Press
  
  
• Von Trier's vision as cruel as Gibson's | The Passion and Dogville are almost mirror images of each other aesthetically (Ed Siegel, The Boston Globe)
  
  
• 'The Passion' and the betrayal of the masses | The one unintended moral of The Passion of the Christ seems to be that salvation is not attainable. As a political documentary, it's that liberation isn't possible (Charles Onyango-Obbo, The East African, Nairobi)
  
  

Television :

• TV viewer sues for blasphemy | An evangelical Christian has started legal action against Channel 7 over the use of the name "Jesus Christ" as a swear word in a top crime thriller (Herald Sun, Melbourne, Australia)
  
  
• Also: Seven sued by Christian | A pensioner is taking legal action against Channel Seven over the use of the name "Jesus Christ" as a swear word, saying it is time for Christians to be awarded the same respect as other religions (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
  
  
• Bloody reality of abortion brought to our living rooms | Britain's first televised abortion lasted slightly less than three minutes (The Telegraph, London)
  
  
• Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria hails ban on miracle broadcasts | Joseph Ojo said nobody was capable of banning miracles, but the advertisement of such (This Day, Lagos, Nigeria)
  
  

Prayer calls in Michigan town:

• City gives tentative okay for Muslim prayer calls | In the end, the vote on the five-member council was unanimous (Detroit Free Press)
  
  
• Mich. city okays Islamic calls to prayer | The City Council gave preliminary approval Tuesday night to a mosque's plans to send out a call to prayer to Muslims on a loudspeaker (Associated Press)
  
  
• Islamic call to prayer stirs tension | Immigrant Muslims in a traditionally Polish town in Michigan run into opposition from their Christian neighbors (Chicago Tribune)
  
  

Politics:

• A Texas bid to shift school finances to 'sin taxes' | Gov. Rick Perry wants to cut property taxes, expand legal gambling and raise taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and topless bars (The New York Times)
  
  
• Bush: 'We're changing the world' | This president indeed may be driven by a religious zeal that is beginning to reveal itself and is reminiscent of the eight crusades between 1095 and 1270 (Pat Murphy, Idaho Mountain Express, Sun Valley)
  
  
• Catholics, conscience, and confusion | Kerry has been heard to say that the Second Vatican Council allows for "freedom of conscience" on abortion and same-sex marriage. I am not a theologian, but I feel safe in saying that the church has never permitted its faithful "choice" in these matters. If this were the case, what difference would there be between Catholicism and NARAL? (Christine M. Flowers, Philadelphia Daily News)
  
  
• The new saintliness | Reaffirm your Catholicism by renewing your vows to "choice" and hitting the abortion industry up for campaign donations (George Neumayr, The American Spectator)
  
  
• On Ten Commandments bill, Christian Right has it wrong | Roy has come to personify a revisionist view of American history - one that, if it gains wide currency, threatens to erode the culture, and constitutional principle, of religious pluralism in the U.S. (Frederick Clarkson, The Christian Science Monitor)
  
  
• For some clergy, legal abortion is a basic right | March for Women's Lives will include clergy—and clergy will be counterdemonstrating, too (Chicago Tribune)
  
  

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April (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48