Faith Digest: Civil rights groups urge feds to purge anti-Muslim materials

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Civil rights and religious groups say efforts to rid federal agencies of anti-Muslim bias have faltered, and prejudice against Muslims persists, particularly in training anti-terrorism officers. Seventy-five groups—including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Auburn Seminary and the NAACP—sent a letter to the White House urging an audit of federal law enforcement training material. muslim bias200Woman with an American flag wrapped around her head. (RNS Photo courtesy of Rob Byron via Shutterstock)The groups point to a reference to “Mohammed Raghead” in a memo and the claim by a former FBI official that the CIA’s director is a “closet Muslim.” Anti-Muslim sentiment, flagged several years ago, prompted the White House to order an assessment of the intelligence community’s training materials and policies—but that never happened, the letter charges. Instead, the groups wrote, administration officials settled on expanded sensitivity training and other measures that don’t directly address the continued use of anti-Muslim materials. A National Security Council representative said the letter will be reviewed and a response issued.

American nuns honor feminist theologian. The nation’s largest leadership group for Catholic nuns bestowed its top award on a theologian who has been condemned by the U.S. Catholic bishops for her book examining the nature of God. A top Vatican official warned the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that honoring Sister Elizabeth Johnson, author of Quest for the Living God and longtime Fordham University professor, would be considered provoking the Holy See and U.S. bishops. The conference represents 80 percent of the 51,600 women religious in the United States. The organization has been under fire since 2012, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Roman Catholic Church’s top orthodoxy enforcement group, ordered the nuns to revise their statutes and move away from “radical feminism.”


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