Religious "news"

In the (conservative NatReview) The Corner, they quoted a poll saying that 75 percent of Catholics felt they didn't have to follow the church teachings.

They thought that was terrible, except then the "Vatican" (actually a small office in the Vatican that doesn't speak for the church) released an economic statement that came out of the left wing of politics. Well, duh. The "church" as John Allen keeps reminding folks, is not a monolith, and a lot of the stuff that comes out of the Vatican is opinion, not dogma. Actually, there is only a small core of doctrines that we need to obey, the rest is optional.

So you have the professional Vatican pressuring Israel to make concessions because of the persecution of Christian Arab in various Arab countries. The pope is worried that the "holy land" will soon have no more Christians left.

Except, they are still there, but they are the "invisible man";

From the SeattlePI:

In the Holy Land, a changed Christian world
MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press

The two Masses in Arabic for the town's native Arab Christian population are outnumbered by four in English, attended mainly by Filipina caregivers. Then there are others in Spanish, for South Americans; French, for African migrants; three South Asian languages, including Konkani, spoken in the Indian district of Goa; and, for a generation of Christians raised among Israel's Jewish majority, Hebrew...If one counts all of the people in Israel who are neither Jewish nor Muslim, these newcomers outnumber Arab Christians by more than five to one. The number of newcomers who are practicing believers is far smaller, but by some estimates they equal or outnumber the members of local churches.

"This creates concern for some that in the long term there could be a change in who the Christians of the Holy Land are, and concern about what will happen to the historic churches," said Amnon Ramon, who has researched these demographic changes as an expert on Christianity in Israel at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

There are enough newcomers now for a Catholic cathedral in every major Israeli city, said Rev. David Neuhaus, who heads the Church's vicariate for Hebrew-speakers.

the article says there are 40 000 Pinoys in Israel: but I suspect if you include those there without proper papers and their children, it is even higher.