Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers belted four home runs on Tuesday night in Baltimore, just 17 days after Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox tossed a perfect game in Seattle. The Rangers thumped the Orioles, 10-3, with Hamilton adding a double to set the American League’s single-game record for total bases, with 18. He tied the major league record, set by Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves in 1954.

“Obviously it’s, other than being in the World Series, the highlight of my big-league career,” Hamilton told reporters in Baltimore. “I was saying after I hit two, I’ve never hit three in a game before, and what a blessing that was. Then to hit four is just an awesome feeling, to see how excited my teammates got.

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When Saraswati Devi awoke from the anesthesia, her clothes were soaked in blood. She was lying on a grass mat on the floor in excruciating pain, and there were no medical staff to answer her cries. She was one of 53 women who underwent surgeries at a “sterilization camp” sponsored by the government of India in its national campaign to drastically cut population growth.

The campaign is underwritten by tens of millions of dollars in American and British foreign-aid funds.

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I want to say thanks to all the folks who came out and helped us welcome Bishop Wright to Nashville. As the Square Pegs sang their songs last night, I couldn’t help but get a little misty-eyed. It was as if each of the songs was an offering, a gift given to a guest in welcome; a gift given to one who’s given to many. I was proud of my friends, proud of my community, proud of my church. And after Bishop Wright gave us his address, I was inspired to awe when he responded to the gifts of the community with songs of his own. He sang three songs: “Friday Morning” by Sydney Carter; a rewrite of the Beatles “Yesterday” entitled “Genesis” that he co-wrote with Francis Collins (leader of the Human Genome Project); and a rousing, passionate, show-stopping rendition of Bob Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In.”

Read it all and do not miss the Vimeo video of Tom Wright singing Bob Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In.”

Jesus is cracking jokes, sharing parables and dying for our sins in three Broadway musicals this spring, while another six shows feature religious themes that are woven through dialogue and lyrics.

But what many of these productions lack are ticket-buying multitudes who identify themselves as people of faith, a group rarely courted by Broadway producers offering the sort of focused advertising campaigns that turned movies like “The Passion of the Christ” and “The Blind Side” into unexpected hits.

Tom Allen is working to change that. A partner in Allied Faith & Family, a Hollywood marketing firm that aims to attract churchgoers to movies and now theater, Mr. Allen has spent the past 18 months breaking into the cloistered world of Broadway.

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The parish-based gold champions represent just one of many initiatives of More Than Gold, an umbrella group of 16 Christian denominations set up with the aim of helping the churches to engage more closely with the Olympics.

The idea of a gold champion in every parish was to try to interest the entire Catholic community in the games.

“The whole concept,” explained [Colm] Hickey in an early May telephone interview with Catholic News Service, “is just trying to get people in any way to be inspired by sport.”

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“We are FOR this definition of marriage,” the Bishops wrote, “because we believe it is a vocation in which God calls couples to faithfully and permanently embrace a fruitful union that is open to the gift of children.”

To the claim that the Amendment will codify discrimination against homosexual persons, the Bishops noted, “As Catholics, we believe in the immeasurable dignity and equal worth of all persons. And so we reject hatred or the unjust treatment of any person. We believe that our human dignity comes from God,” adding it “flows not from the expression of our sexual orientation nor from any of our actions.”

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“We oppose Amendment One because the love of God and the way of love that has been revealed in Jesus of Nazareth compels us to do so. We oppose Amendment One because every time we baptize someone in The Episcopal Church, the entire congregation vows to ”˜strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.’* We oppose Amendment One because it is unjust and it does not respect the dignity of every human being in the State of North Carolina. If passed, it will harm not only law-abiding gay and lesbian citizens but other men, women and innocent children in our state,” reads one excerpt from the letter.

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Voters approved the amendment by a 61%-39% margin with all counties reporting, according to unofficial returns from the State Board of Elections.

The state House and Senate voted in 2011 to put the amendment before state voters. Both chambers are Republican-controlled for the first time in 140 years.

President Barack Obama said he was “disappointed” by the vote, describing it as discriminatory against gays and lesbians, a spokesman said….

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While some newspaper publishers are putting their faith in “digital first”, worshippers are being urged to pray for the future of the press.

Amid an industry ravaged by circulation decline, cost-cutting and redundancies, Sunday 20 May has been designated a day of prayer for the media by the Church and Media Network.

A specially commissioned prayer thanks journalists for their “persistence in seeking after truth” and asks for them to “reach for the highest professional standards, especially when budgets are stretched, time is tight, and competition increasing”.

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“We don’t wish to express any opinion on the result, but there is a satisfaction when our values are evoked by the future president of the country,” said Muriel Menanteau, a spokesperson for the Protestant Federation of France, which represents more than 800,000 of the 1.2 million Protestants in the country.

The federation had held a meeting with Hollande during the campaign because of his support of secularism and had given him a document calling for a return to facts and accuracy by “leaders in the political, economic and social spheres.” It also implicitly criticized the targeting of immigrants and Muslims that had taken place in the run-up to the two rounds of the elections.

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The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, I strongly support the noble and learned Baroness in everything that she has just said. She has very starkly set out the figures and the likely impact of not sending this back to the Commons. She has quite rightly said that people could die as a result.

It is hard to engage in this discussion without having a rerun of the long debate that we have just had about the non-pursued Pannick amendment. It seems to me that we are in considerable confusion-and I have to say, with all due respect, that I do not think that the Minister helped us at all in this-about whether what is really at stake is the focus, orientation and purpose of the Bill, or whether it is a genuinely financial provision.We are really-I nearly used the expression “having the wool pulled over our eyes”. I feel profoundly unsatisfied and unpersuaded by what we heard earlier this afternoon.

This boils down to the question of what kind of society we want to live in…

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Workshop topics will include God’s Creation and poetry, Celtic spirituality, ecology and the eucharist, ethical investments, ecology and the economy, climate change, how to become an eco”“congregation and helping children and young people nurture respect for the earth….

ECI chairperson, Sr Catherine Brennan, looks forward to welcoming a broad section of people to the conference from both north and south of the border. “The stark sign of our time is a planet in peril at our hands and it is poor people who suffer most from environmental impoverishment,” she says. “Commitment to the poor and commitment to the well”“being of life on this planet must go together as two inter”“related dimensions of the one Christian vocation….

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Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

O Lord, who though thou wast rich yet for our sakes didst become poor, and hast promised in thy holy gospel that whatsoever is done to the least of thy brethren thou wilt receive as done to thee: Give us grace, we humbly beseech thee, to be ever willing and ready to minister, as thou enablest us, to the needs of others, and to extend the blessings of thy kingdom over all the world; to thy praise and glory, who art God over all, blessed for ever.

–Saint Augustine (354-430)

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

–Leviticus 19:9-18

“In order to permit same sex couples to marry the Government merely needs to repeal s11(c) Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 which says ”˜11 Grounds on which a marriage is void; c)that the parties are not respectively male and female’.”

“However if it does repeal that sub section then those organisations and individuals which are authorised to register Marriage (which of course includes Church of England Priests by virtue of their office) would at that point be obliged to perform Same Sex marriages unless there is a specific statutory exemption,” he said.

The current state of the law, Mr. [Neil] Addison wrote on his blog was that there was no difference between “Civil” as opposed to “Religious” marriage [as] both are in law the same thing and merely take place in different premises.”

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If you thought that the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, Ireland, this June was just for Catholics, you would be wrong. “There is a genuine sense of excitement and expectation right across the Christian traditions in Ireland”, says Rev. Michael Jackson, the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin….

It may be the 50th global gathering of the Catholic Church on the Eucharist, but from the outset the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, decided this Congress should also become an opportunity to further the ecumenical journey in Ireland, which for historical reasons has often been an uphill climb. On the opening day of the Congress, Monday June 11th, pilgrims will explore the theme, Communion in One Baptism with key-note addresses from Br. Alois Löser (Prior of the Taizé Community, France), Dr Maria Voce (President of Focolare) and Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev (Metropolitan Archbishop of Volokolamsk -Russian Orthodox).

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Greece’s political turmoil showed no signs of abating Tuesday as hopes faded that leading political parties can form a coalition government after Sunday’s splintered election result, increasing the possibility that Greeks will be called back to the polls as early as next month.

The inconclusive vote and ensuing coalition talks, combined with concerns about the emergence of a Socialist president in France who opposes German-led austerity measures for the euro zone, has revived speculation that Greece would leave the euro, stoking new worries about the fragility of Europe’s monetary union.

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Some readers might perhaps not be aware that Princess Badiya hails from the Jordanian Royal Hashemite Family and that she supports practical work to promote inter-faith and cross-cultural understanding. Moreover, her father – HRH Prince Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan – is one of the towering figures in interreligious dialogue and perhaps also one of the foremost thinkers across the world.

The talk was both encouraging and vivifying. Speaking ”˜simply’ as a Muslim woman, and bringing into it her own vignettes and stories as well as her sense of discernment, humour and infectious laughter, Princess Badiya’s paper was – perhaps not unexpectedly – strongly supportive of Christian-Muslim dialogue as she enumerated a host of reasons why the followers of those two great monotheistic traditions should talk to each other rather than at each other. But she was also disarmingly candid about the negative stereotypes of Islam in the West: some of them fomented by the rapacious attitudes of extremist Muslims whose deeds or words colour negatively a global religion that is neither monolithic nor homogeneous.

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