Faith in the News: The Queen's faith-filled funeral

Plus, looking at Hurricane Fiona's damage to faith communities in Puerto Rico

Welcome to our weekly post known as Faith in the News, where we provide news, stories, and essays of the last week across faith communities. Our subscribers say it’s their favorite post of the week, so we hope you enjoy this curation and analysis. As always, you can easily become a paying subscriber and fuel this work.

Faith in the News, week of 18 September 2022

• The Queen’s funeral service in the UK was remarkable on Monday because of the Queen’s deep abiding faith. (NC Register) We were especially moved by Archbishop Justin Welby’s short sermon, and Michael recited it on Tuesday’s Morning Five podcast. Here in DC, a service was held by the British Embassy at the National Cathedral — VP Kamala Harris attended. (WaPo)

• Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico continues to devastate. RNS reports out on the damage to Catholic churches there.

• This newsletter piece and interview with Matthew Oppenheimer on the fraught history and relationship between higher ed and anti-Semitism is worth the read. (The Atlantic)

• The National Institutes of Health just released new evidence that Black Americans have improved heart health if they are religious or spiritual. “The researchers found that people who engaged in more religious activities or had spiritual perspectives tended to have better measures of overall heart health. Those who regularly attended religious services or activities were more likely to have ideal or intermediate LS7 scores in diet, smoking, and blood pressure. Those who often engaged in private prayer had 12% better odds of having ideal or intermediate scores in diet. They were also 24% more likely to not smoke. Those who used religious beliefs to get through stressful events were at least 10% more likely to have ideal or intermediate scores for physical activity, diet, and smoking.”