Christianity

Photos: Pope Benedict resignation memes, Twitter Nation reaction

Due to concerns about his health and advanced age, Pope Benedict XVI has announced that he will resign at months end -- the first pontiff to do so since the 1400s. The news created a Pope-size explosion on Twitter, and meme makers are already busy as well. Below, see our favorite early tweets plus a ... More >>

Fetuses-aren't-people lawsuit: Bishops to review Catholic hospital's argument

Colorado's Catholic bishops say they will "undertake a full review" of a lawsuit in which Catholic Health Initiatives, an Englewood-based operator of 78 Catholic hospitals in seventeen states, has argued that it can't be held liable for the deaths of two unborn babies because fetuses are not people. ... More >>

In honor of Book of Mormon, here's a pop history of religious satire

"I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America/I am a Mormon, and a Mormon just believes," sings Elder Price in Matt Stone and Trey Parker's iconic musical, The Book of Mormon. And while the theological irreverence of a song like "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream," or the existential send-up ... More >>

Review photos: The Book of Mormon is a godsend!

The Book of Mormon finally arrived in Denver, freighted with a massive weight of hype, slick marketing, praise and excitement for this musical created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, both Colorado natives. The show had sold out within hours last January, with friends posting photographs of themselves ... More >>

The Book of Mormon: Catch up before you go with our ten best posts on the play

It's almost here, guys. This Tuesday will mark the official opening date of the national tour of one of the laugh-crackingest, award-winningest musicals in recent history -- but more important, it came out of local minds. We've been writing about Matt Stone and Trey Parker's The Book of Mormon since ... More >>

Tim Tebow to become Times Square Tim in New York, says Focus on the Family

After the Broncos traded Tim Tebow to the Jets, televangelist Pat Robertson accused Denver of treating Tebow shabbily. But a spokesman for Colorado Springs' Focus on the Family, for which Tebow made a 2010 Super Bowl ad, doesn't echo this claim. Instead, he believes the events that led the Broncos t ... More >>

The Book of Mormon free tickets? Kind of....

Hometown heroes Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who created a musical about a cannibal when they were University of Colorado film students, have an even more unlikely hit on their hands with The Book of Mormon. The boffo Broadway musical will start its tour here in August -- and tickets sold out fast S ... More >>

Reader: You wouldn't dare write about Jews or Muslims the way you did about Mormons

​Hundreds of fans lined up to buy The Book of Mormon tickets on Sunday, since the musical written by hometown heroes Trey Parker and Matt Stone will start its road tour here in Denver next August. For those who managed to snag seats, Jenn Wohletz, who spent several years in Utah, offered up t ... More >>

Five things you need to know about Mormons

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who created The Book of Mormon , are hometown heroes -- and that alone is reason for a "Glory Hallelujah" all around. Tickets for the musical sold out in record time yesterday; for those lucky enough to have snagged them, there are a few things about the LDS faith that yo ... More >>

Why do Mexicans find Mormonism so fascinating?

Colorado comedian Lori Callahan sticks it to the Mormons

Lori Callahan is not a Mormon.​Even though we may have made the "wrong assumption, wrong conclusion" about the onslaught of "I'm a Mormon" billboards across the state, comedian Lori Callahan still sees a correlation. She can't help but think that as the election draws closer, Republican presid ... More >>

Mormons: A shallow yet helpful guide to see if you should hate them or not

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests coordinate protests with filing against Vatican

Big pics below.​Yesterday, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests accused the Vatican, as well as four officials, including Pope Benedict XVI, of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. To draw more attention to this action, members of SNAP's Denver ... More >>

Comment of the day: "For giving G-d the finger, Trey Parker and Matt Stone received a Tony."

Trey Parker​Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the Colorado boys who made the big time with South Park, are used to pushing the envelope and making people mad. But they managed to make one hthalljr so angry by winning nine Tony awards, including Best Musical, for The Book of Mormon that he forgot ho ... More >>

Trey Parker thanks Joseph Smith, the other author of The Book of Mormon

broadway.comCollaborators Trey Parker (left) and Joseph Smith.​Local boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone made good -- very, very good -- last night when the former University of Colorado students won nine Tony awards, including Best Musical, for The Book of Mormon. But while they were embraced by ... More >>

Priest is this week's most ridiculous trailer

​OMG like how hot are vampires right now? So hot, is how hot they are right now, but as everyone knows, Dracula is pretty much played out and the whole vampires-as-sexy-brooding-potential-lovers thing is already taken -- what we need is a new angle on vampires. So let's see... how about priest ... More >>

Doing us proud: The Book of Mormon sweeps the Tonys with fourteen nominations

​It's been not much more than a month since The Book of Mormon, the sweet and dirty musical send-up of Mormonism from South Park creators and Denver locals Trey Parker and Matt Stone, opened on Broadway to the adulation of everybody -- and now its dominance is official: Yesterday, Book of Morm ... More >>

Comment of the day: "Why pay to drink from the gutter?"

​Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the longtime brains behind South Park, Colorado's most famous semi-fictional mountain town, took it all the way to Broadway on Tuesday when The Book of Mormon opened to glowing reviews. The musical, a sendup of Mormon culture starring two "elders" on a mission trip ... More >>

The Book of Mormon opens on Broadway to glowing reviews. Here's a look back.

Bring it back home!​Type "The Book of Mormon" into Google right now, and the first thing to come is the eponymous play by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, two Colorado boys who went on to become, we think it's fair to say at this point, the greatest satirists of a generation. From South Park to Tea ... More >>

Katia Birge's case of alleged rape by a Catholic lay minister scheduled to go to trial in March

​ Last week, we wrote about the case of Katia Birge, who claims to have been raped by a Denver Catholic lay minister in 2008. Today, her father, attorney Tom Birge, called to dispute a statement made by the Archdiocese of Denver spokeswoman -- and to clarify other points.

Katia Birge's case of alleged rape by a Catholic lay minister: Does it signal new kind of abuse?

Chaput.​ SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is criticizing Catholic officials in Denver, including Archbishop Charles Chaput, for their handling of the Katia Birge case. Birge claims to have been raped by a Denver lay minister in 2008, when she was 25 years old.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church members fight to restore mural of Mexican patron saint

A now-covered painting.​This afternoon, a group of about thirty Catholics from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in North Denver marched into the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Denver. Their mission? To deliver a letter asking the archbishop for a third time to restore the church's mural of Ou ... More >>

How Mormons sold their religion to Mexicans

Is the number of Mexican Mormons growing?

Focus on the Family Action's rebranding as CitizenLink a bid to "minimize the confusion"

A CitizenLink graphic gives the two major parties equal time -- kind of.​Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family and Focus on the Family Action are not one and the same. The former is a 501(c)(3) founded in 1977 by the Reverend James Dobson to promote family values from a Christian perspect ... More >>

South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone: What's their plan for bringing Mormons to Broadway?

​Now that South Park bad boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone have announced plans for a Broadway production titled The Book of Mormon, congregants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are bracing themselves for some savage jokes about polygamous prophets, complicated underwear, annoy ... More >>

Focus on the Family wants your latte money

Focus on the Family president and CEO Jim Daly.​The Colorado Springs Gazette's parent company may have declared bankruptcy this week, but the paper's still reporting the big news in its community, including details about layoffs at Springs-based Focus on the Family; 75 jobs, or about 8 percent ... More >>

Denver archbishop to investigate controversial Legion of Christ

Sixty Legionnaires of Christ receive their ordination from Pope John Paul II in 1991.​The Legion of Christ made the wrong kind of headlines when it was revealed that the Catholic organization's founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, who died in 2008, had fathered children -- which means he ... More >>

Angels & Demons

The Bob Beauprez robo-calls and the Solidarity Institute

Q&A with Scott Pomfret, author of Since My Last Confession

Wayne Laugesen Vs. Richard Baker: The Debate

For God's Sake

The Thermals have fun with fundamentalism.

Best Place to Buy Poperphernalia

The Catholic Store

Passionless Christianity

The Chancellor's Tale pays lip service to the Church.

The Message

The Pope's DJ

Rome on the Range

The pending sale of Good Shepherd Elementary sticks close to home.

Born to Believe

Church members had faith that God would heal their children. But often faith wasn't enough.

Soup With a Smile

Their mission is to help the homeless, but now the Catholic Workers are trying to keep a roof over their own heads.

The Black Sheep

Unitarian minister Joel Miller finds out it's hard to lead the wrong kind of church in southwest Jefferson County

Preach for the Stars

Meet Bill McCartney's good buddy, golfing pal and spiritual partner: Pastor James Ryle.

Big Wheel

Local Baptist preacher Acen Phillips has a passel of fancy cars and a devil of a history in court.

God's Own Party

Everything's divine in Arvada, where the GOP has veered sharply to the religious right.

The Vision Thing

A local conference on apparitions of the Virgin Mary features a Medjugorje speaker. The critics hoot.

Sanctuary

For a century this inner-city church has served as a refuge. But its most important mission has always been outside the walls.

Bloodletting

Performance artist Cristofer Lix talks and sings about living with AIDS.

SET IN STONE

ROY NEAL FOUND HIS CALLING THROUGH TROWEL AND ERROR.

OFF LIMITS

EXPERIENCE NOT NEEDED

DO TEACHERS GET BETTER WITH AGE? ASK THOSE WHO WERE LET GO AT MACHEBEUF HIGH.