It was on this date, July 5, 1791, that the English philosopher and philanthropist Samuel Bailey was born. He was educated first by his maternal grandfather and then at the Moravian school of Fulneck. He visited America to establish commercial connections, but became distracted by literary pursuits. Back in England he acquired a fortune as […]

It was on this date, July 3, 1947, that Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist Dave Barry—author of numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comedic novels—was born David McAlister Barry in Armonk, New York. The son of a minister and an alumnus of a Quaker-affiliated college, Barry avoided military service in the […]

Read about Joss Whedon, religion and celibacy, Ricky Gervais, Pearl S. Buck, Lafcadio Hearn, the “Lemon Test” and Alton Lemon, forging the Papacy and more …

It was on this date, June 28, 1971, that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the most significant ruling to date on the issue of church-state separation, limiting with the “Lemon Test” just how far the states and the United States can go in forcing religious support on citizens. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. […]

It was on this date, June 25, 1949, that American ex-preacher and atheist activist Dan Barker was born. A successful musician, Barker has composed over 200 songs and at least two Christian musicals for children, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1977), and “His Fleece Was White as Snow” (1978). He was ordained a minister in […]

It was on this date, June 24, 1967, that Pope Paul VI promulgated the encyclical Sacerdotalis Cælibatus, The Celibacy of the Priest, reaffirming the that the “brilliant jewel” of priestly celibacy must remain a Roman Catholic command. To be celibate, as the term was originally understood, means to be unmarried, as distinguished from being chaste, […]

It was on this date, June 24, 1842, that journalist, satirist and social critic Ambrose Gwinett Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, the tenth of thirteen children, but he grew up on an Indiana farm. He had little formal education, but loved reading in his father's library, and at 15 became a printer's apprentice. […]

It was on this date, June 23, 1964, that third-generation TV writer and Buffy the Vampire Slayer series creator Joss Whedon was born. He grew up in Manhattan, attended film school, and got his break as a writer for the “Roseanne” TV series. But in 1997 he hit big with the popular TV series, “Buffy […]

It was on this date, June 23, 1858, that 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped from his Jewish parents in Bologna, Italy, by agents of the Inquisition, under the Dominican Father (Pier Gaetano) Feletti. The parents, Momolo and Marianna Mortara, later learned that their Christian maid, Anna Morsi, had secretly baptized the boy when he was […]

It was on this date, June 22, 1633, that Florentine-Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 to 8 January 1642) was compelled by the Roman Catholic Inquisition to recant the theory he held that the earth travels around the sun. What seems obvious to us today was unscriptural, and therefore by definition untrue, in Galileo's […]