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This is the second Weblog we've posted today. The earlier one has bigger stories.

1. Melissa Berels: An American martyr
From The Detroit Press:

Melissa Berels was a devout Christian who spent her work breaks on a phone chat line, likely spreading the word of her faith, police said.

Patrick Selepak has confessed he was one of the people in spiritual peril on the other end of one of those calls, New Baltimore Detective Ken Stevens said Thursday.

"We knew that she talked to people all the time and was very involved in the church and trying to get the message out," Stevens said.

It was those brief conversations from inside V.G.'s Food Center in New Baltimore that probably led to Selepak's visits there, police said. Now Selepak is accused of killing Berels, who was 10 weeks pregnant, and her husband, Scott Berels, on Feb. 15. Police discovered their bodies wrapped and bound in plastic and stashed under a tarp in a bedroom of the couple's home in New Baltimore.

Expect to hear more about Berels and her faith as Selepak and Bachynski's trial continues.

2. Christian college applications spike
"Applications have jumped between 8 percent and 10 percent at the 238 colleges that belong to the North American Association of Christian Admissions Professionals," Religion News Service reports. "More applications mean more students on campuses next fall … and that's good news since 25 percent of those schools are barely breaking even financially. … Enrollment has increased 70 percent since 1990, from 135,000 to 230,000, at the 102 evangelical schools belonging to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities."

3. Catholic Charities of Boston quits adoption business
If providing adoption services requires placing children in sexually disordered homes, the Boston Archdiocese said, then we're not interested. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco told The Boston Globe that it's reconsidering its practice of allowing gays to adopt children through its Catholic Charities arm, especially now that San Francisco's former archbishop William Levada, now head of the Vatican's prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is reiterating Vatican policy on the matter.

4. Handicapping the Santorum-Casey race
"Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Republican Party's most vulnerable incumbent, trails state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. by 10 to 15 percentage points, but the race will tighten when Democrats learn more about Mr. Casey's pro-life views, pollsters and campaign advisers said yesterday." That ludicrous lead is in today's Washington Times. Does anyone who knows enough to have an opinion in that race know anything about Casey other than that he's pro-life? What the Times really means is that if a third-party candidate who supports abortion enters the race, Casey could face trouble. No kidding. And if a Republican were to enter the race either as a pro-life or a pro-choice candidate, Santorum would probably face additional problems. But so far party leaders have done everything they can to keep others out of the race.

Quote of the day:
"Anti-abortion advocates? Bring 'em on, Texan says"

—Headline in today's New York Times, over a story about the new president of Planned Parenthood of America, wherein Cecile Richards never says "Bring 'em on" or compares pro-lifers to Iraqi militants, as the headline suggests.

Ala. church bombings | Crime | Abuse | Abortion | Life ethics | Politics | Climate change initiative | Faith-based initiative | Religion & homosexuality | Church & state | Boy Scouts | Education | Charity | Catholicism | Inmate priest to be paroled | St. Patrick's Day | Church life | Uganda church collapse | Missions & ministry | Grahams in New Orleans | Sudan | Books | More articles of interest

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50