Government members want the ceremonies to stress that Poland’s Catholic identity ties the nation to Western culture and values, especially now when the European Union is criticizing its policies and warning that they threaten democracy and the rule of law. The policies have also led to massive street protests.

“Shouldn’t we reach more boldly to the grace of holy baptism … in order to overcome enmity and discord, in order to seek reconciliation and forgiveness that we all crave so much,” Poland’s Primate Archbishop Wojciech Polak said during the Mass at the 10th-century Gniezno Cathedral. MORE

It has been proven true over the years that victors write the history. Nowhere is this fact more obvious than in Jerusalem, where some Israelis are trying unsuccessfully to rewrite centuries-old history.

Plural-ism?

After the Supreme Court’s landmark gay marriage decision, can a constitutional right to plural marriage be far behind? It seemed that way in 2013, when a federal district court in Utah followed the Supreme Court ruling by striking down part of the state’s bigamy law in a case involving the family featured in the television show “Sister Wives.”

Just think, it’s was a Catholic State.

Louisiana’s State Seal is Catholic symbol – sad!

(Reuters) – Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed an anti-discrimination order on Wednesday protecting the rights of gay and transgender people, aligning his state on the liberal side of a political divide playing out across the U.S. South.

The Democrat’s executive order also protects state employees against discrimination based on other criteria including race, religion, disability or age. It bans state agencies from discrimination, while offering an exemption for churches and religious organizations. MORE

One week after he formally received a bill to designate the Bible as Tennessee’s state book, Gov. Bill Haslam has vetoed the measure. Critics say the bill isn’t constitutional — and that it equates the Bible to the Tennessee walking horse or the Tennessee cave salamander.

The bill’s backers are pledging to try to override the veto, which comes a year after similar legislation failed.

Explaining his veto in a letter to state Speaker of the House Beth Harwell, Haslam writes that in addition to the legal issues about the bill, “this bill trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text.” MORE

Norway’s Lutheran Church voted on Monday in favor of allowing same-sex marriage, becoming the latest of a small but growing number of churches worldwide to do so.

Last year the French Protestant Church allowed gay marriage blessings, while the U.S. Presbyterian Church approved a change in the wording of its constitution to include same-sex marriage. MORE

Even before any major world powers were willing to go public (so to speak) with their involvement in Syria’s five-year, bloody civil war, it was difficult to keep track of the myriad rebel factions, militant groups, and jihadists battling the Assad regime for control of the country.

A seminary student from Ohio got busted in California Friday for allegedly plotting to have sex with an adopted infant in Mexico, police said.

In a victory for Katy Perry, a Los Angeles judge announced Wednesday that she intends to block an effort by nuns to sell a Los Feliz convent to a competing buyer.

The decision marks another major twist in the fierce real estate fight among a pair of nuns, Perry, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a well-known restaurateur over the fate of the coveted property.

The judge’s ruling puts the pop star one step closer to buying the contentious Los Feliz convent, said Perry’s attorney, Eric Rowen. MORE

He doesn’t care who comes into HIS fold, even SSPX. He’s not acting like one who is supposed to retire?

VATICAN CITY—When Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, visit migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos this weekend, they’ll be doing more than sending a political message about the need to welcome refugees.

Christianity’s two most important leaders, still officially divided by a thousand-year schism, will be speaking with an increasingly unified voice that has gone beyond the realm of religion to confronting pressing issues such as climate change and humanitarian crises around the globe. MORE

The Pope represents, according to this opinion, that self aware overconfidence in the victory of progressive thinking that thinks it is right is by definition. The Pope would be strengthened in this opinion by his observation that the influence of the traditionalists in the Church and the mass media seems low. Their recognition and regularization is therefore a cost-effective opportunity to prove his own generosity and fatherhood with a spectacular media-step. Closing a soon to be 30 year old wound would contribute to Francis’ entry in Church history, even if in his view, it would only be the size of a footnote. MORE

Weeks after moving to name a high-powered rifle as the official gun of Tennessee, lawmakers in the state are keeping alive their prolific tradition of declaring official state designations by passing a bill that would make the Bible the state’s official book. MORE

International Muslim group calls for Mideast peace conference …a new peace process to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Did the Vikings Cut Chris Kluwe For His Gay-Rights Activism? 

Norway’s dominant Lutheran Church approves same-sex marriage

‘We are never going to get through this wedding 1:37″.
Guaranteed: You are never going to get through this video.” I turned it off at 1:37.

In May, New Yorker Carl Marucci proposed to his boyfriend, Drew Marsenison, with a beautiful flash mob proposal in Central Park that got nearly half a million views on YouTube and left most (if not all) of those viewers teary-eyed. The couple — who tied the knot in September — had us reaching for the tissue box yet again when they uploaded their wedding video to YouTube on Monday.