Word: baptism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Gingrich prepared for his conversion with Monsignor Walter Rossi, the basilica's rector. Because the institution is not a parish church, Gingrich's baptism took place at St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill, where Robert Kennedy attended morning Mass when he served in the Senate. Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl performed the ceremony, with his predecessor Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in attendance. Afterward, a small group of Catholic luminaries celebrated with a dinner at Café Milano in Georgetown...
...listened and was listened to. He can offer a spiritual and moral contribution to dialogue," said Lombardi. "The responsibility is to form consciences." Perhaps dearest to the heart of the devout Pontiff were the stops with far less obvious political overtones: visits to the sites of Jesus' birth, baptism and death, as well as masses with the largely besieged flock of Middle Eastern Christians...
...Public gaffes like that one may explain the anti-Catholic backlash driving similar movements elsewhere in the world. In October last year, Italy's Union of Rationalist Atheist and Agnostics sponsored the country's first-ever "De-baptism Day," when the no-longer faithful attended protests and passed out de-baptism forms to areligious people who didn't have internet connections to download them. More recently, on March 2, atheists and feminists in Argentina teamed up to launch the "Not in my Name" Internet campaign which encourages Roman Catholics to notify their local bishops of their desire to officially leave...
...Back in Britain, Michael Evans, an atheist and former journalist who downloaded the de-baptism certificate in March, believes the Church of England claims more members than it actually has in order to shore up its influence in the secular world. "It claims to speak for the majority of people in Britain," he says. Official estimates are that fewer than one million Britons regularly attend Sunday services, but there are currently 26 Church of England bishops sitting in the House of Lords. "With churches, everybody checks in, but nobody checks out," says Evans, who was baptized as an infant. "There...
...That may be changing. On April 9, John Hunt, a 56-year-old nurse in Croydon, south London, managed to have his official baptism record amended. Religious leaders from the Southwark Diocese had previously refused to delete Hunt's record of baptism, claiming it was an important historical detail. But after Hunt published a renouncement of his Christianity in the London Gazette, a journal of record dating back to the 17th century, those same religious leaders agreed to include it alongside his official baptism entry. "It's about time some of us stood up to be counted," Hunt said after...