Christ

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
May 10 2013

Here’s a look at individuals and issues making headlines throughout the country.

Arkansas

Mar 29 2013

Only day Mass is not normally celebrated

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Archbishop Jose H. Gomez will celebrate the Good Friday liturgy at noon today at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

In the simplest liturgy of the church year, the account of the Passion and Death of Christ is proclaimed from the Gospel of John. As part of the liturgy, Gomez will carry a cross into the cathedral, recalling how Jesus carried a cross along the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Suffering,” on his way to being crucified.

Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D.  |   OW Contributing Columnist
Dec 22 2011

Between the Lines

The madness we now call “holidays” takes on a different meaning in times like these, when you have people without homes and homes without people.

Instead of society focusing on what it should be focused on—rectifying greed run amuck, or putting a stop to the gamesmanship of a dysfunctional Congress—we instead preoccupy ourselves with another holiday that becomes more absurd than the last.

Brittney M. Walker  |   OW Staff Writer
Sep 8 2011

Some pooh-pooh it as false, but there are plenty of spiritual references

Church is a wonderful place for Christians, where people are healed, delivered from their past excesses, meet their mates, learn the scriptures and get doused in the Holy Spirit. Often, movies and critics mock such church happenings with exaggerative skits and scenes that demonstrate ladies dancing down isles and people falling to the ground, convulsing as if enduring a holy seizure. But some would credit the jokes to lack of understanding, or even to fear.

Brittney M. Walker  |   OW Staff Writer
Sep 1 2011

Affirming the humanity of African Americans

The Pan African community is rich with a history of freedom-fighting and change-making, from Nat Turner’s insurrection to Marcus Garvey’s international Back to Africa Movement to the Civil Rights Movement. What many of these moments have in common is that they all encompassed a religious aspect that allowed their participants to connect spiritually to the struggle afoot.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.