Gender transitions can be lifesaving. But they're not the right path for everyone.

The image of leadership often lifted up is the strong figure at the front of the pack, with an answer for every question.

The leader of the Catholic religious order that helped found Georgetown University sought forgiveness from descendants of slaves whose sale bolstered the school financially.

“Today the Society of Jesus, which helped to establish Georgetown Univer­sity and whose leaders enslaved and mercilessly sold your ancestors, stands before you to say, We have greatly sinned, in our thoughts and in our words, in what we have done and in what we have failed to do,” said Timothy Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

Some women in Upper Egypt donned black in mourning on Easter Sunday. A week after the biggest coordinated attacks in decades against one of the oldest Christian sects in the world, many Coptic churches in Egypt held their liturgical prayers without festivity and some worshipers were afraid to attend services.

Two suicide bombings on Palm Sunday killed 45 people and wounded more than 120 at St. George’s Church in Tanta and St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, causing a surge of anxiety and anger through the 10-million-strong Coptic community.

The Gospel of Luke turns the corner in Chapter 22. Instead of Judas being annoyed or disturbed about Jesus’ behavior—as in John—he is suddenly possessed.

Barry W. Lynn, an outspoken champion for church-state separation, has announced he will retire at the end of 2017.

“The last 25 years have been amazing,” Lynn said in a statement about his pending departure as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Lynn, 68, a lawyer and ordained United Church of Christ minister, started at Americans United in 1992. Previously, he worked for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The number of countries with “high levels” of restrictions on religion due to government policies or actions by other groups increased in 2015, reversing a downward trend.

A total of 40 percent of surveyed countries registered “high” or “very high” levels of overall restrictions, according to Pew Research Center’s annual study on global restrictions on religion. That’s up from 34 percent in 2014.

The percentage had declined during the previous two years, tumbling from 43 percent in 2012 to 39 percent in 2013, said Katayoun Kishi, the primary researcher on the study.

(The Christian Science Monitor) Shortly before noon, the Muslim call to prayer rang out from the imposing Al-Omari Mosque across the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Ramla, wafting over a crowded market. No one seemed to pay heed, aside from a small group of men who assembled for the noon prayer.

Whether you're in the pulpit or the pews, give some thought to this epistle this week.

As long as people of color, queer people, and women remain an afterthought in these debates about modernity, our lives and deaths will not matter even as the fate of the world is discussed.