By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

This is my last post at God & Country, and in the spirit of the season, I'd like to close out with a year-end list. I launched this blog a little more than a year ago, when I had some doubts about there being enough religion and politics news in a nonelection year to sustain it. More than 600 posts later, those doubts have faded.

Here's my list of favorite, most full of impact, and most newsworthy 10 posts of the year. Thanks for reading!

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The Catholic bishops fired off another letter to the U.S. Senate last night urging opposition to the Democratic healthcare bill poised to pass tomorrow. Despite abortion funding restrictions that have provoked the ire of the leading abortion-rights groups, the bishops say the Senate bill still allows federal funding of abortion coverage and make clear they'll accept nothing less than the House healthcare bill's sweeping ban on federal abortion funding.

Here's the top of the letter, which also cites concerns about coverage for immigrants and about affordability:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

With the Senate poised to pass its healthcare bill Thursday morning, abortion may be the biggest sticking point in the coming attempt to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the legislation. Both have abortion funding restrictions that the abortion rights lobby says it won't accept and that a powerful bloc of moderate Democrats says are necessary to securing their support for the final bill. More than any other religious body, it's the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops that have informed those senators' abortion positions.

What explains the bishops' power? My most recent God & Country column from U.S. News Weekly explains. Here's the meat:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The Democrats' Senate abortion compromise won over the party's last healthcare holdout, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, this weekend but is drawing lots of fire from both sides of the abortion issue—even though it paved the way for the Senate vote to end debate on the bill early this morning. The new abortion language includes steps to segregate federal funds from abortion coverage through separate accounts that would pool private premiums to pay for abortions; an explicit option for individual states to bar healthcare plans participating in their health insurance exchange from offering abortion coverage; protections for conscience rights; new tax credits for adoption, and new federal assistance for pregnant women.

Here's a weekend roundup of statements from all sides of the abortion wars vowing opposition to the new language:

With Sen. Bob Casey attempting to strike a compromise on abortion funding in the healthcare bill that will win support from pro-abortion rights Democrats and from antiabortion Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, antiabortion groups are turning up the heat on the Pennsylvania Democrat. Those groups want Casey to jettison his compromise effort and vow opposition to the healthcare bill unless it includes the House bill's strict ban on abortion coverage in federally-subsidized health insurance plans.

The Susan B. Anthony list and CatholicVoteAction.org released TV ads today in Pennsylvania pressuring Casey to get behind the Stupak abortion ban.

Here's the ad from Susan B. Anthony List:

View CatholicVoteAction.org's ad here. 

After posting yesterday on conservative Roman Catholic Deal Hudson's charge that Catholic organizations that are supportive of abortion rights are "fake Catholic groups," I got a note from Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. Korzen said that his group does not consider itself to be pro-abortion rights. Catholics United was one of the organizations that Hudson attacked for supporting a healthcare reform bill even if it lacks a strict ban on federal funds for abortion coverage.

Here's Korzen's explanation of where his group stands on abortion and his response to Hudson:

Abortion is legal in the United States, and there's not much either Catholics United or Deal Hudson can do to change that. What we can do is find ways to unite Americans around common ground approaches to abortion, something Hudson and company have consistently opposed doing. Ensuring that pregnant women and children have insurance coverage should be a no-brainer for Catholics. In short, I wouldn't call us pro-abortion rights or anti-abortion rights. We're pro-common ground.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The Religion Newswriters Association surveyed more than 100 religion journalists to devise a list of 2009's top 10 religion stories. Six of them are God & Country-style faith-in-domestic-politics stories. In 2000, only three of the RNA's top ten religion stories fell into that category.

I'm guessing that the spike has to do with the increasing politization of American religion, the expanding role of faith in politics and policy, the advances and attempted advances of the gay rights movement, the shrinking number of dedicated religion reporters (hence less focus on pure religion stories), the shrinking number of U.S. foreign correspondents (hence less focus on overseas religion stories), and the media's growing interest in politico-religious controversies.

What are your theories?

Here's the list of stories in the order selected by members of the Religion Newswriters Association: