March 23, 2013, WNYC NPR Radio, “All Things Considered” with Amy Eddings



March 23, 2013, WNYC NPR Radio, “All Things Considered” with Amy Eddings

Topic: “Catholic Conversation: Homosexuality and the Faith”

Click Here for Full Story

March 4, 2013, “Huff Post Live”



March 4, 2013 on “Huff Post Live”

Topic: “No More Celibate Priests”

Click Here for Full Story

March 3, 2013, “Geraldo at Large”



March 3, 2013, “Geraldo at Large”

Topic: “What kind of new pope would America’s Catholics like to see?”

Click Here for Full Story

On Changing Mandatory Celibacy: We Must be Careful What We Wish For



For nearly the past week, the media covering the imminent retirement of Benedict XVI has been awash in tales of a gay scandal inside the Vatican. The stories, we were told, were revealed in a 300-page dossier bound in a red (of course!) cover.

Reports about the dossier cleverly mixed in older stories about gay priests skulking around chat rooms, dirty dancing at parties, and jumping out of their lovers’ beds just in time to preside at Mass.

These sordid tales were actually told years ago in an expose by Italian journalist Carmelo Abbate and had no direct relationship to the dossier. But mixing these older stories with the latest rumor made the contents of the dossier seem even more salacious.

Read More...

February 26, 2013, “Huff Post Live”



February 26, 2013, “Huff Post Live”

Topic: “Political Papacy”

Click Here for Full Story

February 16, 2013, MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes”



February 16, 2013, MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes”

Topic: “How will Pope Benedict be judged?”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Click Here for Full Story

The Officer and the Homeless Man



They were the boots viewed round the world.

Early last week, a tourist took a photo of a New York City police officer helping a homeless man put on a pair of boots. The officer, it turns out, purchased the boots for the man after seeing him barefoot on the street. It was a cold night and the man’s feet were badly blistered.

As he knelt before the homeless man to help him put on the new socks and boots, the officer did not know he was being photographed. The tourist, who also worked in law enforcement in her home state of Arizona, sent the photo to the NYPD, who then posted it to their official Facebook page.

Within a day or two, the photo was viewed by millions, and the kind officer was identified as Larry DePrimo, a handsome, 26-year-old who lives on Long Island with his parents. The press couldn’t get enough of him, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly couldn’t get enough of the good press that this one photo bestowed upon the NYPD.

Having worked closely with members of New York City’s homeless population for several years, the public’s response to stories like this is, for me, a joy and a suffering.

Read More...

August 6, 2012, on Regional News Network’s “Richard French Live”



August 6, 2012, on Regional News Network’s “Richard French Live”

Topic: “The Church at a Crossroads”

Click Here for Full Story

Leaving the Church is a Luxury the World Cannot Afford



It was no surprise when, last week, Bill Keller’s New York Times column declaring that progressive and liberal Catholics should leave the church, received a seemingly endless screed of online comments, as well as Facebook shares, tweets and recurring spins on blog rolls.

It was easy for those feeling demoralized by the hierarchy’s condemnation of nuns, its thinly veiled political campaign for religious freedom and its ongoing, unhealthy preoccupation with matters of the pelvic zone to resonate with Keller’s disappointment and despair.

The hostile takeover of the church by archconservative forces, best summed up in the rants of Bill Donohue, is a fait accompli, Keller concluded, and things are not going to change.

I share Keller’s assessment that church officials seem to want Catholics who dissent from some, if not all, of the church’s teachings related to sexuality — the ordination of women, support for same-sex marriage — to leave the church. How else can one explain the unpleasant, reactionary atmosphere the hierarchy is straining to cultivate within the church’s walls?

But what seems to elude Keller, as it does many of those who comment on this topic, is that the ability to leave the church is a luxury afforded only to Catholics in the West.

Read More...

June 26, 2012, on Regional News Network’s “Richard French Live”



June 26, 2012, on Regional News Network’s “Richard French Live”

Topic: “The Vatican Report: Cracking Down on Nuns”

Click Here for Full Story

© Copyright Jamie Manson - Designed by Pexeto