Updated to add link to Entertainment Weekly story about Mother Dolores Hart.

Belief Beat usually covers hard news or stories that make multiple headlines, but now that it’s February, let’s look back at a few interesting January features you may have missed:

• Check out this New York Times column about a mohel’s experience circumcising an infant that had died. (I’ve written about circumcision trends before, but this is the first I’ve heard of this concept, and I found it quite touching.)
• The Orlando Sentinel’s Religion World blog reported that Robert Rowthorn, a Cambridge University economics professor, thinks there’s a “religion gene” that makes people more likely to be devout. His study is called “Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model.” Nature vs. Nurture, Round 4,815,162,342?
• Check out this NPR report on the U.S. Army’s “spiritual fitness” test, also covered by USA Today’s Faith & Reason blog, which has upset some atheists, non-Christians and religious freedom advocates, including the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s Mikey Weinstein.

Also, I can’t find a copy of the article online anywhere — perhaps it’ll be posted once the issue
is no longer on newsstands — but turn to page 84 of Entertainment Weekly‘s Oscar issue for a great profile of “The Nun Who Kissed Elvis.” It’s about Mother Dolores Hart, an Academy Awards voter who left Hollywood for the Abbey of Regina Laudis (my old neighbor) in Bethlehem, Conn. nearly 50 years ago. FYI, those Benedictine ladies are quite a talented bunch — in addition to Hart the Oscar-voting nun, there’s also debutante banker-turned-beekeeper Mother Deborah Joseph and Mother Noella Marcellino, the “cheese nun.”

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

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