Pope to Priests: Get Online!
Pope Benedict XVI will use his World Communications Day message in May to encourage the clergy to start blogging and using the Internet and social media to connect better with their flocks. (Matt Warman, Telegraph)

Pursuit of the “Optimal Illusions”
All ideas have practical consequences, and in practice we all employ some combination of scientific and nonscientific ideas. If we could all admit to this then we could start to use our gullibility strategically. We could venture forth more consciously and conscientiously in the pursuit of what I’ve called Optimal Illusion: believing untrue things where it helps more than it hurts, believing true things where it helps more than it hurts. (Jeremy Sherman, Ambigamy, Psychology Today)

Catastrophology Response
Rabbi Marc Gellman: I’ve received so many letters and queries about God and evil following the earthquake in Haiti that I thought it best to address them all at once. (New Haven Register)

God Help Us
James Wood: Either God is punitive and interventionist (the Pat Robertson view), or as capricious as nature and so absent as to be effectively nonexistent (the Obama view). Unfortunately, the Bible, which frequently uses God’s power over earth and seas as the sign of his majesty and intervening power, supports the first view; and the history of humanity’s lonely suffering decisively suggests the second. (The New York Times)

Q&A
Brenda Peterson
Brenda Peterson’s new memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind, tells the story of her unusual childhood in the high Sierra. Her forest ranger father led her to embrace the natural world, while her Southern Baptist relatives prepared to leave this world behind. (Jennifer Haupt, One True Thing, Psychology Today)

BOOKS
The Power of Half
Kevin Salwen’s 14-year-old daughter Hannah seized upon the idea of selling the luxurious family home and donating half the proceeds to charity, while using the other half to buy a more modest replacement home. Eventually, that’s what the family did. (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times)

MOVIES
Legion
A ridiculous piece of hokum that is far more fun than it has a right to be. Although not exactly designed to appeal to religious folks—for one thing, the villain is no less than God—the film has enough entertaining action and sly humor to please its target audience. (Frank Scheck, Billboard)