Thursday's News & Ideas - 11/21/2024

Conservative Christians ‘grieve’ Gaetz nomination, express frustration with leaders’ silence
Religion News Service: Critics include a founder of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel and Boz Tchividjian, grandson of famed evangelist Billy Graham.

As nuns disappear, many Catholic hospitals look more like megacorporations
National Catholic Reporter: Nuns founded and led those hospitals in a mission to treat sick and poor people. Now in the more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country, not a single nun can be found occupying a chief executive suite.

‘AI Jesus’ is now taking confessions at a church in Switzerland
Vice: About two-thirds of participants told the outlet that they came out of the tech-assisted confessional having had a spiritual experience.

Louisiana and the Twelve Commandments
ARC Magazine: A new state law inserts religion into classrooms, inaccurately. Part of the problem is that “the” Ten Commandments do not actually exist.

How a Sabrina Carpenter song led to a priest’s demotion for mishandling church funds
NPR: A Brooklyn priest allowed Sabrina Carpenter to film a music video inside his church last year. The ensuing controversy kicked off an investigation that uncovered what the diocese calls a “pattern of serious violations” of its policies.

The Spark

Get in, loser — we’re chasing a Waymo into the future 
A driverless world* is coming for all of us, writes Wired. So close the door and buckle up.

*access is limited for nonsubscribers