Daniel Williams: “Millions of Americans are leaving church, never to return, and it would be easy to think that this will make the country more secular and possibly more liberal. After all, that is what happened in Northern and Western Europe in the 1960s: A younger generation quit going to Anglican, Lutheran, or Catholic churches and embraced a liberal, secular pluralism that shaped European politics for the rest of the 20th century and beyond. Something similar happened in the traditionally Catholic Northeast, where, at the end of the 20th century, millions of white Catholics in New England, New York, and other parts of the Northeast quit going to church. Today most of those states are pretty solidly blue and firmly supportive of abortion rights.”

“So, as church attendance declines even in the southern Bible Belt and the rural Midwest, history might seem to suggest that those regions will become more secular, more supportive of abortion and LGBTQ rights, and more liberal in their voting patterns. But that is not what is happening. Declines in church attendance have made the rural Republican regions of the country even more Republican and—perhaps most surprising—more stridently Christian nationalist.

“Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time,” the AP reports.

“Francis’ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the U.S. Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.”

Deborah Jian Lee: “Publicly funded Christian colleges and universities across the U. S. have long exploited a legal loophole to control and discriminate against LGBTQ+ students with impunity— inflicting financial pain and emotional trauma in the process.”

“Now there’s a new battle brewing over this warped version of religious freedom.”

Clergy and staff of the Archdiocese of Cologne tried to browse pornography on work PCs, the BBC reports.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) told a gathering of Christian nationalists that they have been called by God to establish Christ’s kingdom and government here on Earth.

Said Cloud: “You know, people say, ‘Well, the Bible is not a political book, and we shouldn’t be involved,’ and I’m just like, ‘Have you ever read it?’ It’s like every single chapter is like dripping in it!”

“Illinois’ attorney general released the results of a sweeping investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Tuesday, saying investigators found that 451 clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950 — far more than the 103 individuals the church had named when the state review began in 2018,” the AP reports.

New York Times: “The priest’s tactics were well enough known that they became a topic of conversation among the victim’s peers.”

“The Texas Senate passed a bill Thursday requiring each public school classroom to display a copy of the Ten Commandments, a move that drew backlash from civil liberty advocates who say lawmakers should not dictate what religious materials students are exposed to,” CNN reports.

“More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability, according to a long-awaited state report released Wednesday that revealed the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups,” Politico reports.

Kalefa Sanneh: “Many Americans who advocate it have little interest in religion and an aversion to American culture as it currently exists.”

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a nonprofit entity that it controlled have been fined $5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations that the religious institution failed to properly disclose its investment holdings,” NBC News reports.

“In an order released Tuesday, the SEC alleged that the church illicitly hid its investments and their management behind multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019. In doing so, it failed to disclose the size of the church’s equity portfolio to the SEC and the public.”

“Extremists raised more than $6.2 million on crowdfunding websites from 2016 to 2022,” USA Today reports.

“Researchers tracked campaigns across 10 different crowdfunding sites. Most were housed on GiveSendGo, a ‘Christian crowdfunding’ website founded in 2014. GiveSendGo campaigns accounted for $5.4 million of the total fundraising tallied by the group.”

Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church, the AP reports.

Said Francis: “Being homosexual isn’t a crime.”

“Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an ‘elegant demon’ that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith,” the AP reports.

“Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are by no means beyond reproach and are, in fact, particularly vulnerable to evil.”