After a busy day of flying from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles and then driving to San Diego, I filed this week’s newsletter a bit late.
Confession time: I forgot how slowly everything moves in Southern California, from baggage claim to the rental car line to the clogged highways. I just ran out of time Friday before needing to take care of more important matters.
Without further delay, let’s jump right into our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with Wednesday’s death of Sinéad O’Connor at age 56.
What To Know: The Big Story
Sinéad O’Connor’s protest: The Irish singer-songwriter — who famously ripped up Pope John Paul II’s photo on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992 — condemned clergy sex abuse early, but America didn’t listen, the New York Times’ Liam Stack recounts.
In her native country, O’Connor was a lonely voice for change until Ireland changed with her, according to the NYT’s Ed O’Loughlin.
The Catholic Church’s abuse scandals “made Ireland more secular, and more understanding of her criticisms,” O’Loughlin’s story notes.
Career-altering flashpoint: The Associated Press’ Holly Meyer examines O’Connor’s legacy:
More than 30 years later, her “Saturday Night Live” performance and its stark collision of popular culture and religious statement is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others — including survivors of clergy sex abuse — O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination’s public reckoning that was, at that point, yet to come. O’Connor, 56, died Wednesday.
The SNL moment stunned David Clohessy, a key early member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. In his 30s at the time, he had only recently recalled the repressed memories of the abuse he suffered. He found O’Connor’s act deeply moving. It was something he and other survivors never thought possible. …
“We were all just deeply convinced that we would go to our graves without ever seeing any public acknowledgment of the horror and without any kind of validation whatsoever,” Clohessy said. “That’s what made her words so very powerful.”
O’Connor paid dearly for criticizing the church, but history proved her right, CNN’s Issy Ronald asserts. Despite the backlash over the “SNL” incident, she had no regrets, People’s David Chiu explains.
O’Connor’s ‘Theology’: Ted Olsen, former executive editor of Christianity Today, mourned the singer-songwriter’s death by noting that he listens to her “Theology” albums at least monthly.
“They’re amazing,” declares Olsen, who wrote a 2007 CT piece on “Why you shouldn't be surprised that her new album is mostly passages from the Old Testament.”
One more related link: At the Jesuit magazine America, Matthew Cortese writes about “How Sinéad O’Connor taught a Catholic priest how to pray.”
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. Devil in the details: God has fallen on hard times in America, and so has the devil, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana reports.
Smietana cites polling data:
Losing faith in God seems to be accompanied by disbelief in the devil, according to a new Gallup report that found that more than half of Americans (58%) said they believe he exists, down from two-thirds (68%) in 2001. About the same percentage (59%) said they believe in hell, down from 71% two decades ago.
But guess who Americans do believe in?
The Associated Press’ Holly Meyer has the answer:
Compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America.
Angels even get more credence than, well, hell. More than astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that physical things can have spiritual energies.
In fact, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
2. Catholicism in Portugal: “(W)hen Pope Francis arrives in Lisbon on Aug. 2 for the 42nd international trip of his papacy and his fourth World Youth Day — a major gathering of Catholic youth that takes place in various cities around the globe every few years — he will find a weakened Catholic Church experiencing the same difficulties it has in much of the developed world.”
That’s the pre-trip analysis by the National Catholic Reporter’s Brian Fraga and Christopher White.
Portugal is starting the atoning process for clergy sex abuse, according to The Associated Press’ Nicole Winfield.
CONTINUE READING: “The Late Sinéad O’Connor Ripped Up The Pope's Photo: — Was It Offensive Or Prophetic?” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.