Word: secularizing
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...Paul's opposition to condoms, he simply called abstinence the only "fail-safe" way to prevent HIV.) But those who missed the "Panzer Kardinal" were rewarded in the weeks before an unusual political triumph on June 13. It was clear that Benedict regarded Europe as the epicenter of the secular relativism he scorned, but it was less so what he might do about it. When an Italian referendum threatened to end restrictions on in-vitro fertilization, the Pope joined the fray, telling Italian bishops fighting it, "I am close to you with my words and my prayers." When the initiative...
...Austrian cardinal stirring up the evolution-vs.-creationism argument in the U.S.? In part, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn says, to spark debate in an increasingly secular Europe. Earlier this month, the influential Archbishop of Vienna - who is as close as any Cardinal to Pope Benedict XVI - wrote an editorial in the New York Times lambasting what he calls "Neo-Darwinian dogma," and suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church isn't necessarily convinced that evolution is true. "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the Neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided process of random variation...
...wrenching moment for the Gaza settlers. The pullout strikes at the heart of their religious beliefs. Sharon's plan has caused a crisis in religious Zionism, the messianic movement that has driven Israel's massive settlement expansion of the last three decades, by shattering its basic tenet - the secular Israeli state is no longer serving as a vehicle for restoring Jewish possession of the Biblical Land of Israel, which they believe is an essential condition for the coming of the Messiah...
...ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves. Rowling's books aren't like that. They take place in the 1990s--not in some never-never Narnia but in modern-day Mugglish England, with cars, telephones and PlayStations. Rowling adapts an inherently conservative genre for her own progressive purposes. Her Hogwarts is secular and sexual and multicultural and multiracial and even sort of multimedia, with all those talking ghosts. If Lewis showed up there, let's face it, he'd probably wind up a Death Eater...
...Harry will not succumb to anger and evil. But we never stop feeling that he could. (Interestingly, although Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland, the books are free of references to God. On this point, Rowling is cagey. "Um. I don't think they're that secular," she says, choosing her words slowly. "But, obviously, Dumbledore is not Jesus...