Latest Articles
Pope denies appeal of Boston parish closings
(RNS) After a lengthy appeals process, the Vatican has ruled that
nine Boston-area Catholic parishes should be closed despite six-year...
Assassination complicates controversial blasphemy law
BANGALORE, India (RNS) Church officials in Pakistan say the
assassination of Salman Taseer, an outspoken critic of Pakistan's...
Rubashkin appeals conviction, sentence
(RNS) Convicted businessman Sholom Rubashkin, former executive of
the now-defunct Agriprocessors kosher meat plant, has filed an appeal in...
Poll finds very religious have good health habits
Americans who are "very religious" are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are less religious, a Gallup survey shows....
Church leaders praise nuclear arms treaty
Catholic bishops and leaders from Protestant organizations are hailing the Senate's ratification of a treaty with Russia that would reduce both countries' nuclear arms by about 30 percent....
Church bombing in Egypt causes anguish, anxiety
The New Year's Day suicide bombing outside a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, which killed at least 25 people and injured dozens more, brought tightened security measures from Egyptian author...
‘Radicalization’ hearings worry U.S. Muslims
Mass protests against planned mosques in New York City and
Tennessee. An Oklahoma referendum to ban Islamic law. A media circus...
Constitution thumpers
Today, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio) as the Speaker of the House. That's a routine gig for a Supreme Court chief justice, but yesterday's was unprecedented: on Boehner's request, Roberts also swore in the new Speaker's staff.
Pursuing happiness
Unlike justice or courage, happiness is perceived as subjective, even inscrutable. So what does it mean to say that a person who claims to be happy is not?
A review of The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel
The classic tale of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd who journeys to Egypt to find the "Soul of the World," has been adapted as a graphic novel for the first time....
A stinging critique
In the late 1970s a colleague handed me a copy of Douglas John Hall's Lighten Our Darkness: Towards an Indigenous Theology of the Cross. "I think you'll like this," she said....
Sunday, January 16, 2011: John 1:29-42, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, Isaiah 49:1-7
He saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29)...
Poll: Americans see religion's role declining
(RNS) Seven in 10 Americans say religion's influence on the country
is waning, and 61 percent say they belong to a church or synagogue,...
Worker's memory plants seeds for trees outside Katrina homes
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) The last time Matt Sloan saw Sylvia Blanchard's
house after he and Episcopal volunteer crews reclaimed it from Hurricane...
Technology unites missionaries, families around the world
(RNS) Janine Winkler loves reading books to her 2-year-old grandson
Judah, but instead of sitting on her lap at her home in Michigan, he's...
Priest finds new love with wife, loses love for church
(RNS) The Rev. Albert Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a
Catholic priest while church officials looked the other way: priests who...
The cost of buying in
Back when I was
co-directing a six-year study of militant religious fundamentalisms around the
world, critics used to ask me to define "modernity" and "modernization." To...
Against religion: The case for faith
Faith, unlike religion, is ready to confess its radical incompleteness and insufficiency--indeed, its brokenness.
Nuns hopeful on U.S. prelate's role in Vatican probe
(RNS) The recent appointment of an American archbishop to the Vatican
office overseeing a wide-ranging investigation of U.S. nuns has the...
Atheists' diversity woes have no black-and-white answers
(RNS) Alix Jules is an atheist, but for years he felt uncomfortable at
gatherings of nonbelievers. The reason: he's black.
...