Cardinal Timothy Dolan, recently appointed to Cardinal, had the opportunity to address the Stewart Air National Guard in Newburgh, New York, for their 7th Annual Prayer Breakfast.
Cardinal Dolan was welcomed by the wing commander BrigGen Verle Johnston and Chaplain (LtCol) Joseph LaMorte, the senior chaplain: Read more
A Department of Defense article highlights the unique story of Daniel J. Houten, an enlistee with the Georgia National Guard. He’s now in basic training — but he hardly took the traditional route to get there:
Houten…wanted to join the U.S. Army — but without a GED and 15 hours of college credit, he was ineligible.
An acquaintance told Houten the Israeli Army recruited new soldiers simply because they were Jewish…
Although his religious faith had diminished somewhat, he still identified himself as a Jew and felt strong connections to Israel, the homeland of his people, culture and religion. He decided this should be his next step in life.
Houten learned Hebrew and was Read more
Michael Weinstein took a pay cut in 2010, so it looks like he felt the need to write a book to try to make up the difference. He wrote an “op-ed” printed on the Washington Post website, though it was characterized by a fairly solid theme: No new material, except for hawking Weinstein’s book.
It was refreshing, in some respects, to see Weinstein eschew the subtlety of some of his supporters and just come right out and say he and his “religious freedom” group are targeting Christians: Read more
A Naval flight training class graduation included a ceremony at their base chapel in which the chaplains performed a “blessing of the wings:”
This is a completely voluntary program, but one that is rather popular among many of the new aviators. While it is billed as a non-denominational ceremony, it is clearly a Christian program that culminates in the Catholic priest sprinkling holy water on the wings that these service members are about to pin on later that day.
Normally, this might bring conspiracy-theory advocates out of the woodwork, claiming this was further evidence of a secret coup by Christians to take over the world. Or something. Turns out, though, this story is actually about the participation by the US Navy’s newest Jewish Naval Aviators, in a Read more
The Colorado Springs Independent‘s Pam Zubeck — a veritable PR arm of Michael Weinstein’s MRFF — has a post stating a US Air Force Academy fourth class cadet (freshman) sent an inappropriate religious email to his classmates. She said the cadet
has been “counseled” for sending an e-mail to the entire freshman class urging them to pray and citing specific Scriptures. [formatting original]
She then includes the content of the 500-word email, which had been sent only two days prior. The email does, shockingly, “urge people to pray” and does, indeed, cite “specific Scriptures.” What Zubeck fails to mention is the email is a forward of a daily devotional by Gloria Copeland, distributed on the same day the cadet forwarded it: Read more
Despite being in a combat zone on the other side of the world from home, the US military facilitated servicemembers’ participation in the National Prayer Breakfast. Retired US Army Colonel Danny McKnight was invited to speak at 12 different locations in the country. McKnight is famous for his role in Somalia in 1993 — in what the rest of the world now knows as Blackhawk Down.
Col Danny McKnight and his Hollywood alter-ego, Tom Sizemore
National Prayer Breakfast is an annual interfaith tradition started in 1953 by members of U.S. Congress to get Read more
According to articles on the event, the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, was unique this year:
In a town where just about everything is scripted, the sight of the President, Vice-President and members of Congress singing “Amazing Grace,” during the 60th Annual National Prayer breakfast was one of several off script moments that was almost refreshing today.
According to another source, the talk of the town was the speech delivered at the breakfast — but not President Obama’s speech: Read more
The controversy over the “glam goth” band Aiden being invited to play to a military audience at the atheist Rock Beyond Belief at Fort Bragg has seen comments on a wide variety of websites. In the tradition of “crowd-sourcing” solutions, one commenter came up with a unique idea to ameliorate the scandal: Richard Dawkins should ask that Aiden be removed from the lineup.
Much of the discussion seems to be centered on whether Aiden Read more