DR Congo crisis: Why a trainee nun was shot dead at church
Source: BBC News The BBC’s Africa editor Fergal Keane reports on how the Catholic Church has become the main opposition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By the time […]
Weaponising faith
Source: CT Now, it’s quite possible to argue that this is just a recognition that the state is historically Christian (and Catholic, actually) – as Bavaria’s chief minister Markus Söder does. But that’s not how it’s being seen by many Christians today. According to Evangelical Focus, a survey in Bild […]
Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City ‘under threat’ from settlers
Source: The Guardian Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem Church leaders claim priests are being verbally abused and spat at while property is being vandalised in ancient walled city The Greek Orthodox […]
Australian nun ordered to leave Philippines has no regrets
Source: Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — An Australian nun whose missionary visa in the Philippines was revoked after the president complained about her joining opposition rallies said Thursday that […]
New Jersey Ruling Could Reignite Battle Over Church-State Separation
Source : The New York Times By NICK CORASANITI The Morristown Presbyterian Church is one of a dozen churches on the losing side of a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that […]
Aging Quebec church looks to salad for salvation
Source: The Star By ALLAN WOODSQuebec Bureau MONTREAL—For much of the past 166 years, the silver-spired church in St-Pacôme, Que., has been nourishing souls. But over the next few months, the church will be decommissioned and transformed for a new, secular mission: nourishing people’s stomachs. The past decade has been a […]
New South African church celebrates drinking alcohol
Source: Associated Press By ANDREW MELDRUM ORANGE FARM, South Africa (AP) — Dressed in a red robe and a gold-trimmed bishop’s miter, the clergyman pours whiskey into his cupped hand […]
Mormonism’s Global Future
Source: The Wall Street Journal By John G. Turner It took a long time for a quintessentially American church to go global. In April 1853 Hosea Stout and two other Mormon missionaries stepped off a boat in Hong Kong. They expected immediate success: Their church’s apostles had promised they […]
Cyprus church defrocks priest for 1st time over sex offense
Source: Associated Press NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A senior cleric says Cyprus’ Orthodox Christian Church has for the first time defrocked a priest for sexually abusing his step-daughter when she […]
Visiting LDS president salutes Kenya’s Mormon ‘pioneers’
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune By Bob Mims LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson assured throngs of Kenyan Mormons that they share the pioneering spirit of faith with Latter-day Saints who settled Utah’s Salt Lake Valley nearly two centuries ago. “You perhaps don’t think of yourself as pioneers, but you’re […]
PATRIARCH KIRILL AND MR. PUTIN
Source: First Things by George Weigel The annals of sycophancy are, alas, replete with examples of churchmen toadying to political power. Here in the United States, we’ve seen too much of that among certain evangelical leaders recently. In today’s Sycophancy Sweepstakes, however, it’s hard to top Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and […]
‘Greater Jerusalem means no churches and no mosques’
Source: Al Jazeera ‘There can never be peace until the Jerusalem file is satisfactorily resolved,’ says chairman of Jerusalem Endowment. The 9th International Conference on the Holy City of Jerusalem […]
Prosecutor: minors at risk of forced labor at Brazil church
Source: Associated Press By SARAH DiLORENZO and PETER PRENGAMAN FRANCO DA ROCHA, Brazil (AP) — Minors remain at risk and are being forced to work against their will by a […]
Young Catholics tell Pope Francis the church is indifferent and judgmental
Source: The Washington Post By Amanda Erickson March 25 Email the author Pope Francis waves as he celebrates the Vesper prayer in the Church of San Gregorio al Celio, in central Rome. (Andreas […]
‘Two or three illegal’ church crosses torn down in central China
Source: Reuters BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese authorities have torn down “two or three” crosses adorning Christian churches in one county because they were “illegally built”, state media quoted an official as saying on Tuesday. The officially atheist ruling Communist Party has tightened restrictions and oversight of religious practice in China […]
Mormon church to celebrate end to ban on blacks entering the priesthood
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune By Peggy Fletcher Stack On an otherwise unremarkable June day nearly four decades ago, the LDS Church made a momentous declaration: It was opening its priesthood to “all worthy males,” ending a centurylong ban on black men and boys being ordained, and on black women […]
Macron’s overtures to Catholic Church make waves in secular France
Source: Reuters Reuters Staff PARIS (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron has blurred a line that has kept French government free of religious intervention for generations, critics said on Tuesday, after he […]
When I Drank, I Knelt on the Bathroom Floor to Throw Up. When I Got Sober, I Did it to Pray
Source: Time By LESLIE JAMISON Leslie Jamison is the author, most recently, of The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath. The second time I got sober, I started praying with a sense of […]
At Korean-American churches, a struggle to retain language and tradition
Source: Religion News Service By Aziza Kasumov LOS ANGELES (RNS) — Stephen Han’s sermon has the cadence of a TED Talk. Wearing jeans and a loose button-up shirt, he paces energetically […]
With Millennials less likely to believe in God, churches work hard to buck trends
Source: ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES BY John Boyle, jboyle@citizen-times.com The statistics are daunting, particularly when it comes to the “nones.” Fewer younger people, particularly Millennials, attend church or believe in God, and they’re less likely […]