It will be hard to top last year’s Al Smith Dinner, when Barack Obama and John McCain made jokes at their own and each other’s expense (and some funny ones).

It seemed that all eyes were on the Waldorf-Astoria.

I was fortunate to be there. One lingering memory: Watching Renee Fleming warm up—singing effortlessly and stopping on a dime to complain about the sound.

It was a special night, although Cardinal Egan took some heat through the following weeks for hanging with the Democratic candidate (who supports abortion rights).

The 64th annual dinner—which raises money for charitable causes in NY—will be held tomorrow night. And the keynote speaker will be Admiral Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I don’t suppose there will be as much joking as usual, although you have to figure that Archbishop Dolan will have some good one-liners for his first shot in the Al Smith Dinner limelight.

The way things are going in Afghanistan and Pakistan—and remember Iraq?—Mullen should have plenty to talk about.

And the cause remains a good one.

I’ve written a few times in the past about the work of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative, evangelical lobbying group in Albany.

I just noticed a new motto on an email alert from the group: “Influencing Legislation and Legislators for the Lord Jesus Christ.”

That cuts to the chase, no?

Among other things, the email includes this: “On Tuesday, October 13, A State Senate Select Committee on Budget and Tax Reform will meet in Albany.  The purpose of the meeting is to evaluate the need for and costs of New York State property tax exemptions.  Christians should be paying attention to what sounds like a very droll subject, because it could have great impact on ministries across the State of New York.”

NYCF probably feels that it’s swimming against the tide these days. One of the group’s lobbyists, the Rev. Tom Stiles (that’s him with his wife, Barb), writes on the website that “America is becoming a socialist state.”

He writes:

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Socialism does not work because it provides no real incentive to work hard or produce, because no matter how hard you work, you get no extra pay or reward. People stop exerting themselves and become dependent on the State. Government replaces God.

The Federal government under President Barack Obama has taken over the banking, finance, and auto industries, and is now looking at the environment and health care. Both the President and Congress continue to push our country further in debt in an attempt to buy our way out of the recession.

It won’t work – America needs to come back to God and Biblical principles. But the evidence suggests that we are moving in the opposite direction. American Christians should heed the words spoken to Israel by the prophet Jeremiah, “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

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NYCF has banquets coming up across New York State, in Painted Post, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Oneonta, Binghamton and Long Island.

But none in NYC or the Lower Hudson Valley.

Ever wonder what the Yankees—or any sports team—does with their left over concession-stand food?

Since I’m spending a few weeks contributing features for our Yankees coverage, I wanted to mention a really nice story from the United Methodist News Service about a church in the Bronx that is helping the Yankees distribute all those uneaten hot dogs to Bronx people who need it.

Woodycrest United Methodist Church was built in 1913, a decade before the old Yankee Stadium, and seats only about 180 worshippers. But now the church is part of the Yankees’ team.

The UMNS’ Linda Bloom writes:

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If there was a temptation to join critics who see the new stadium as a temple of excess that displaced local parkland, Woodycrest leaders have chosen instead to be thankful for the team’s outreach to the community.

On select days after home games, the congregation sets up tables outside the church to distribute the abundant leftovers from concession stands, usually right around the dinner hour.

(Church member Kenny) Wood, who assists with the distribution, is glad to see the Yankees giving back to their own neighborhood. “It shows they do care,” he says.

The partnership is facilitated by Rock and Wrap it Up, an organization started in 1990 by Syd Mandelbaum, who asked rock bands to donate leftover prepared food from concerts to local charities. The concept has since spread to 31 sports teams, including eight in the New York metropolitan area.

The pastor has nothing but praise for its organizers and the generosity of the sports teams. “We’ve had many more pickups than were scheduled because we’re so close (to Yankee Stadium),” she adds.

Being able to share this food has helped the church fulfill the commandment of Jesus to “feed my sheep,” a scriptural message that Pickett takes “very seriously,” according to Hailey.

A Yankees fan back in the late 1970s when Reggie Jackson was playing, she considers the food the team donates after home games to be “a blessing.” Up to 80 people have been served at a time. One woman tearfully told Hailey that she hadn’t been sure how she was going to feed her family that day “but you have given me my dinner.”

People who can’t afford tickets to the game still get excited about a hot dog or hamburger in a container bearing the Yankee logo, Hailey reports. “It’s been very, very rewarding. I have to respect the Yankees for that.”

Photo: Reed Galin/United Methodist News Service

One in 4 people in the world are now Muslim, according to a major new study from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

A study of more than 200 countries estimates that there are 1.57 billion Muslims. Most estimates have hovered around 1.3 billion.

The finding that is likely to get the most attention: more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa.

The AP’s Eric Gorski frames it well:

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The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
“This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report,” said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.

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The world’s largest Muslim nation? Indonesia, with 203 million Muslims (or 13%).

The Sunni-Shia breakdown? 87-90% Sunni, 10-13% Shia

And where does Christianity stand? 2.1 to 2.2 billion followers.

Here’s an interesting “trailer” from the Pew people:

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These findings on the world Muslim population lay the foundation for a forthcoming study by the Pew Forum, scheduled to be released in 2010, that will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and project Muslim populations into the future. The Pew Forum plans to launch a similar study of global Christianity in 2010 as well. The Pew Forum also plans to conduct in-depth public opinion surveys on the intersection of religion and public life around the world, starting with a 19-country survey of sub-Saharan Africa scheduled to be released later this year. These forthcoming studies are part of a larger effort – the Global Religious Futures Project, jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation – that aims to increase people’s understanding of religion around the world.

So I was at Yankee Stadium last night for the first playoff game, talking to fans about the high cost of seeing Yankee baseball these days.

Being there was not unlike covering the pope’s visit to NY a couple of years back.

First you have to go through security and line up for your press credentials. Granted, security was not nearly as extensive for the Yanks as it was for B16.

Then you have to find some room to work, with armies of media people all around you. The media section at the new Yankee Stadium is much more comfortable and roomy than at the old stadium, but it’s still real crowded. The Japanese reporters alone, who follow Hideki Matsui’s every move, take up a lot of room.

The Yankees have a lot of people who assist the media. They are constantly bringing out stacks of paper—statistics, quotations from the pre-game pressers, background info. It was the same with the pope, but the Yankee people produce more stuff.

I had a bit more freedom to move around during the game than I did during a papal event. And that’s understandable.

Interviewing fans at Yankee Stadium is not all that different from chatting with the faithful at the old Yankee Stadium (where B16 celebrated Mass) or at St. Joseph’s Seminary, where the pope held a massive youth rally.

Yankee fans, like pope fans, were thrilled to be at the big event. But they often have trouble explaining why.

It’s obvious to them.

Who wouldn’t want to see the pope? Who wouldn’t want to see the Yanks in the playoffs?

What else? Pope followers wore special T-shirts from their parish, their youth group or the papal event itself. Yankee fans wear T-shirts sporting Derek Jeter’s name and number.

The papal events offered much memorabilia. But no one can compete with the Yanks when it comes to selling stuff.

Other than that, papal events and Yankee games each have some formality, serious moments, opportunities to cheer, and really loud PA systems.

And when they’re over, you have to wade through the crowd. It takes a while.

In my new role as a GA reporter, I’ll be writing some features about the Yankees’ playoff run.

I have an article going tomorrow about…Yankee haters.

As a nearly life-long sports fan in New York, I know that the Yanks have a large and passionate fan base. But I also know that many baseball fans can’t stand the most prominent team in sports.

Many are Mets fans. Some are old Dodger fans. Most decry the arrogance of the Yankees and their fans. Not to mention the team’s fat payroll and all the free agents.

I thought it would be fun to let Yankee haters vent, so we put a few queries on LoHud and in the JN to find some “haters.”

The reaction reminded me oh so much of covering a conflict between religious traditions.

Not only were many Yankee haters truly over-the-top in denigrating the team they love to hate. But Yankee fans wrote to me to protest my desire to highlight what everyone knows is true: that many New Yorkers don’t like the Yanks.

Yankee fans wrote that I was trying to polarize New York at what should be a time of unity. Lighten up!

It’s like a Clash of Civilizations out there in baseball land.

Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “haters.” How about non-Yankee fans?

It appears that the Diocese of Bridgeport’s long struggle to keep secret stacks of legal documents related to sex abuse is finally over.

And the diocese has lost.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused today to block the release of 12,000 pages of documents from 23 lawsuits against 6 priests.

The records have been sealed since the cases were settled in 2001, but the Connecticut courts have ruled that they should be released.

The Diocese says:

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We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to extend the stay.

The content of the sealed documents soon to be released has already been extensively reported on.

For more than a decade, the Catholic Church in Bridgeport has addressed the issue of clergy sexual abuse compassionately and comprehensively.

For now, however, the serious threat to the First Amendment rights of all churches and the rightful privacy of all litigants remain in jeopardy because of the decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court. This, indeed, is regrettable.

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Dan Bartley, president of the lay reform group, Voice of the Faithful, says:

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Voice of the Faithful respectfully insists that Bishop Lori accept the Supreme Court decision and stop blocking the right of Catholics in Connecticut to know what happened. Bishop Lori must stop wasting untold hundreds of thousands of parishioners’ dollars to prevent these same parishioners, and the public, from finding out how Lori’s predecessors, including recently retired Cardinal Edward Egan, dealt with cases of sexual abuse of children.

When the pope first announced that June would begin the “Year for Priests,” I was kind of baffled.

I mean, priests play such a central role in the Catholic world—with the Eucharist and all—that it seemed odd (at least to me) that they would have their own year.

What’s next: The Year for Catholics?

But priests have had it rough in recent years and their numbers are dwindling. So why not have a Year for Priests to punch them up a bit.

On Tuesday (Oct. 6), one of those priests, a prominent fellow named Father George W. Rutler, will speak at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers about a very appropriate subject: Saint John Vianney. Vianney, a Frenchman who died in 1859, has been the patron saint of parish priests. But the pope has announced that Vianney is being upgraded to the patron saint of all priests.

Vianney is famous for his long service in a tiny French village—which was visited by thousands who wanted to hear him preach or have him hear their confessions.

Rutler, meanwhile (that’s him), hosts “Christ in the City” on EWTN and writes for many publications. He was once an Episcopal priest but turned to Rome in 1979 and was ordained by Cardinal Cooke in 1981. He once served as an associate pastor at St. Joseph’s in Bronxville and has served as pastor of the Church of Our Saviour on Park Avenue since Sept. 17, 2001.

His bio says that ”…in 1996 Governor George W. Bush made him an Honorary Texan.” Must be a good thing, right?

His presentation will be at 7:30 p.m. Free. Open to all. Call 914-968-6200, ext. 8292 for information.

Support for legal abortion is slipping, according to a new study from the Pew Forum on Religin & Public Life.

The percentage of Americans who believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases passed 60 percent at several points during the last decade, but now has dropped to 47%.

And the percentage of people who believe that abortion should be ILLEGAL in all or most cases had risen in the last year from 41% to 45%.

So we’re now looking at almost a dead heat: 47% in support of legal abortion, 45% against.

The study suggests that opposition to abortion among conservatives has strengthened during a Democratic presidency, while liberals have gotten complacent on the issue.

The percentage of liberal Democrats saying that abortion is a “critical” issue has fallen sharply from 34% in March 06 to 8% in August 09.

The Pew people say:

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The timing of this shift in attitudes on abortion suggests it could be connected to Obama’s election. The decline in support for legal abortion first appeared in polls in the spring of 2009. Overall, roughly three-in-ten (29%) think Obama will handle the abortion issue about right as president. One-in-five Americans (19%) worry that Obama will go too far in supporting abortion rights, while very few (4%) express the opposite concern that Obama will not go far enough to support abortion rights. Concern about Obama’s handling of abortion is especially evident on the right; fully half of conservative Republicans (52%) worry that Obama will go too far in supporting abortion rights. However, nearly one-in-five political independents (18%) also worry that Obama will go too far in support of abortion rights.

Two decades ago, Wade and Cheryl Hudson found themselves disappointed by the dearth of good books for African-American children.

So they published an alphabet book using “Afrocentric” themes and images.

Just Us Books was  up and running out of East Orange, N.J. Since then, they’ve published dozens of book on black history and culture.

Now the Hudsons have edited My Holy Bible for African-American Children, a New International Version (NIV) Bible that’s filled with culturally significant artwork and themes. The Bible is available this month and will be followed in February by a King James version.

“Our goal is to publish resources to help more African-American children explore God’s Word,” said Annette Bourland, publisher of Zonderkidz, a leading publisher of children’s Bibles, “and we believe that this one-of-its-kind full text Bible with its glorious illustrations, created just for the African-American community, emphasizes just how much God knows and loves them.”