Here's your Religion News Roundup excerpt for today.

By Yonat Shimron
c. Religion News Service 2012
Reprinted with permission

Lots of chatter today about New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s decision to deliver the closing blessing to the Republican National Convention in Florida next week.

Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast says the benediction is a “de facto endorsement of the Romney-Ryan ticket by the Catholic hierarchy.” As troubling, he added, was that Dolan has “all but endorsed Paul Ryan.”

And still more chatter on Rep. Todd Akin’s rape remark. Lisa Miller at WaPo says Akin’s ignorance about the mechanics of reproduction is not surprising given that 80 percent of the nation’s high schools teach about abstinence.

As for Rick Warren cancelling a forum between Obama and Romney? It wasn’t because the campaigns lacked civility, as the megachurch pastor claimed, but that the campaigners themselves lacked the interest.

Speaking of megachurches, Mars Hill Bible Church has appointed a new teaching pastor, months after founding pastor Rob Bell departed for California. He is Kent Dobson, son of Ed Dobson, the one-time leader of the Moral Majority who had a change of heart about evangelicals and politics.

Romney now says one of the reasons he won’t disclose his tax returns is that everyone will know how much money he and his wife, Ann, have donated to the LDS church, which he thinks should be kept private.

Read the rest of this post on the Religion News Service web site.