Columbia Faith and Values

On Wednesday, the Cardinals of the Catholic church elected Jorge Mario Borgeglio of Argentina to be the new pope. He’s the first pope from South America, and the first from the Jesuit order of priests. He’s also the first to choose the name Francis.

We spent part of Wednesday and Thursay at Fr. Tolton Catholic High School in Columbia to find out what some of Columbia's young Catholics think of the new pope. 

Like many other people, Corrine Hubbard admires his humility.

Community and campus converge in the cast of MU's production of "The Amen Corner," a play by James Baldwin that finishes its run this weekend. 

The play tells the story of an African-American woman who starts a small storefront church in Harlem in 1965. She's recently migrated there from the south with her 18-year-old son, who plays the church piano.

This story is part of True/False Conversations, a series of in-depth interviews with the filmmakers of this year’s True/False Festival.  Find the rest of them here or download the podcast on iTunes.

Awareness of death can lead people to strengthen and defend their own religious beliefs, according to a recent psychological study led by MU researcher Kenneth Vail. 

And that doesn't just apply to those who believe in a higher power already.  

The foundation of Vail's researcg comes from the idea that part of the motivation for religious belief is the awareness of death – an idea that has deep philosophical roots, Vail said. Recent experimental research also points to the notion that people use belief to help manage awareness of mortality. 

About 40 protestors gathered today in response to MU's possible hire of Larry James, a former psychologist at Guantanamo Bay, for a high-ranking position in the College of Education.

Note:  KBIA's faith and values desk is trying something new. Each week, we'll bring you a quick look at the religion news happening all over the state. Here's our first Midweek Missouri faith fix. 

On the Columbia faith front, there's quite a conversation going about faith in the workplace -- and a lot of "out" atheists have jumped right in.

It's one thing to say you'll go on a big volunteer trip. But doing it? That seems much harder. Just ask Jimi and Cristi Cook. 

The Cooks are the co-founders and directors of Be the Change Volunteers, an organization that coordinates trips to impoverished countries around the world to build schools. It's the kind of volunteer effort the Cooks refer to as "the big one" – the kind that takes people out of their comfort zones.