What is to be done about Archbishop Myers?
A week after John J. Myers was installed as archbishop of Newark in October of 2001, a priest of the archdiocese named Michael Fugee was indicted for groping a 14-year-old boy the previous year.
Author Archives: Mark Silk
About Mark Silk
Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.
Stories
When Prophecy Fails
Last Saturday I attended a memorial service in Washington for Henry Riecken, an old friend’s father, who died last December at the age of 95. Riecken was one of the high priests of American social science during its mid-20th-century heyday, but he earned lasting fame as one of the three co-authors of When Prophecy Fails, the classic account of true believers who refuse to give up their beliefs even when faced with definite empirical proof to the contrary.
The legacy of Bush’s faith-based initiative
Among the displays unveiled at yesterday’s opening of the George W. Bush Library was one dedicated to the 43rd president’s faith-based and community initiative, as well there should be.
Serving God and Mammon at Trinity Church
The Episcopal church known appropriately in all senses as Trinity Wall Street turns out to be worth a cool couple of billion dollars, according to its accounting of its assets in response to a lawsuit.
What hath SSM to do with no-fault divorce?
The SSM tide is rolling in. What are the poor Catholic bishops to do?
On Muslim terrorists and collective responsibility
I am more than sympathetic to the desire of American Muslims to put as much distance as they can between themselves and the Tsarnaev brothers. We Jews know only too well what it is like to be blamed collectively for things we didn’t do, beginning with the crucifixion of Jesus.
A pope with a sense of humor
Francis offers an excuse for not being able to attend the 105th plenary assembly of the Argentine bishops conference
It’s the bishops, stupid!
Michael D’Antonio came to Trinity this week to talk about his new book Mortal Sins, the best account yet of the abuse scandal in the American Catholic Church. D’Antonio, who was part of the team at Newsday that won a Pulitzer in 1984 for coverage of the Baby Jane Doe case on Long Island, is a prolific author who likes taking the side of those who take on the system.
GetGet Religion: the Gosnell coverage
GetReligion’s Mollie has been leading the charge (most recently, here) that the mainstream media has provided insufficient coverage of the murder trial of the Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and as tempests in teapots go, this one has reached Category 4.
What’s wrong with a Jewish law judge’s sock puppetry?
Twenty years ago, I paid a visit to Michael Broyde in his Emory University Law School office, to ask him to help me understand the Jewish legal doctrine of lashon hara–telling bad things about someone. I was interested in the relationship between this proscribed behavior and the practice of journalism.
