In today’s news, there’s an article regarding the Catholic growth rate in several countries, and a court ruling today said Texas was to extreme and exceeded their authority by taking over 400 FLDS children. And finally, another survey. This one involves science teachers and what they teach. Let’s get to the links…
Catholic Church growth in Africa and other countries
The Catholic Church is experiencing its largest growth in Africa. It’s seeing a decline in Europe and Brazil. And having little change in the U.S.. That’s accroding to the Vatican.
The number of Catholics in Africa have increased from 12.4 percent to 14 percent between 2000 and 2006. In Europe, Catholics fell from 26.8 percent to 25 percent. In Brazil, the numbers are down to 67 percent compared to a high of about 90 percent in the 1960s.
The entire article with more breakdowns and analysis may be read at Catholic Church Reports Biggest Growth in Africa.
Court rules: Texas had no right to take sect children
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas ruled that the state had no right to take the over 400 children from the FLDS. They, in effect, exceeded their authority and were too extreme.
In a written opinion, the court said in part:
“the existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger."
The opinion went on to say:
“The danger must be to the physical health or safety to the child,” the court writes. “The Department (CPS) did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty.”
For more, read the AP article on CBN News entitled Court: Texas Had No Right to Take Sect Kids.
16 Percent of Science Teachers Creationists
For a closing survey today, the Christian Post reports that 16 Percent of Science Teachers are Creationists. According to the article by Aaron Leichman,
While a majority of the nearly 1,000 teachers surveyed in the poll said that they spent at least three to 10 hours of classroom hours covering evolution, a quarter of all teachers also said they covered creationism and intelligent design – about half of whom said that they believed it was a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.”
Interestingly, two percent of science teachers said evolution wasn’t taught at all in their classes.
That’s all for today! Thanks for stopping by.