Oscar Bolioli, 83, a Latin American ecumenical leader, died June 18 in Uruguay after an illness.

He was head of the Methodist Church in Uruguay, serving three terms in different decades. The first was 1975–1979, when the country was ruled by a dictator and many community leaders, including pastors and laypeople, suffered imprisonment, exile, torture, and disappearances. Bolioli helped people in danger to flee the country and distributed aid to relatives of political prisoners, among other human rights work.

(The Christian Science Monitor) The Supreme Court decided to allow President Trump to prohibit entry into the United States of some (but not all) people from the majority-Muslim countries he declares to be dangerous.

What the justices’ 9-0 ruling did not say may indicate volumes about the Supreme Court’s approach to this defining issue of Trump’s early presidency.

The news came to Fahim Aref while he was on pilgrimage in Mecca: a teenage girl in Virginia had been slain walking to ser­vices at her mosque during Ramadan.

Like Aref, she had been trying to deepen her observance of the holy Muslim month.

Aref’s umrah (religious pilgrimage) changed. He walked around Mecca’s Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam, not for himself, but for Nabra Hassanen, who was bludgeoned to death on June 18. Many Muslims and others believe she was the victim of a hate crime.

“I was devastated,” said Aref, writing from Saudi Arabia.

Susan Frederick-Gray, 41, an Arizona pastor and immigrant advocate, recently became the first woman elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

She succeeds three copresidents appointed after the resignation of Peter Morales in April amid controversy about diversity in the UUA as criticism mounted over hiring practices.

“It is clear to me that I am not the right person to lead our association as we work together to create the processes and structures that will address our shortcomings,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Ancient frescoes have been rediscovered inside the 1,600-year-old Cata­combs of St. Domitilla in Rome after Italian art experts used laser technology to remove centuries of grit and grime.

The underground cemeteries are considered the most extensive in the Italian capital, drawing thousands of tourists.

The painstaking seven-year restoration, backed by the Vatican, focused on two burial chambers commissioned by successful bakers working in ancient Rome in the fourth century.

The Supreme Court ruled for a Missouri church that claimed religious discrimination after it was refused state funds to improve its playground.

Ruling 7-2, the court determined that the state had unfairly treated Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.

Freddy’s addiction started with alcohol and moved up to methamphetamines and heroin. He was in and out of juvenile detention as a teenager and ended up in jail as adult. After trying four other rehab programs, he came to Luke 15 House, a faith-based recovery center in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“I always felt like there was something missing,” said Freddy, 33, who asked that his full name not be published. “Other programs don’t talk about God or faith.”

We all bring our values, hopes, and fears to the data that science provides—whether we're religious or not. 

(The Christian Science Monitor) Like many thirtysomethings, Alen Hirmiz has tattoos. His large tattoo of a cross and one of Jesus on each arm bear witness to his Christian faith. His sister and family are now afraid they could endanger his life.

On June 11 immigration agents de­tained Hirmiz in front of his shocked parents at the family’s home in suburban Detroit and sent him to a holding facility in Youngstown, Ohio. There he waited to see if he would be sent back to Iraq.

(The Christian Science Monitor) When British prime minister Theresa May responded to the London Bridge terrorist attack this month with the words “enough is enough,” it wasn’t just campaign rhetoric.

The phrase summed up the loss of patience across Western Europe, which has endured more than a dozen major terrorist attacks in the past two and a half years.