For many religious denominations in the United States, there were two shared preoccupations in 2020 beyond the usual matters of faith: How to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and how to respond...
NEW YORK (AP) — The Episcopal Diocese of Texas acknowledges that its first bishop in 1859 was a slaveholder. An Episcopal church in New York City erects a plaque noting the building's creation in...
Against the backdrop of a pandemic’s blight and wounds from an acrimonious election, a group of acclaimed actors on Sunday staged an online reading of a religious text with remarkable relevance to...
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Reflecting on a polarized nation in the throes of a bitterly fought election, Stephanie Christoffels started the communal prayer at a fall training of her fellow Minnesota...
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s Christian transgender people, often mocked, abused and bullied, say they have found peace and solace in a church of their own.
NEW YORK (AP) —
Black clergy leaders are joining forces with the United Way of New York City for a new initiative designed to combat the coronavirus’ outsized toll on African Americans...
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis' famous remark “Who am I to judge?” could go a long way toward explaining his initial attitude toward Theodore McCarrick, the defrocked and disgraced American cardinal who...
The newly rebuilt Tabernacle Baptist Church in Freeport, Bahamas, doesn’t see as many parishioners as it would in normal times, simply because coronavirus concerns keep a number of them from...
PARIS (AP) — As a French-born Muslim, Elyazid Benferhat’s stomach turned when he heard about a deadly Islamic extremist attack on a church in Nice. Then he decided to act.
NEW YORK (AP) — Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths prayed and sang together in post-election solidarity Wednesday afternoon in New York City, even as the outcome of...
NEW YORK (AP) — Yehudah Webster, wearing a neon vest with an “Election Defenders” tag around his neck, started his Tuesday outside a Brooklyn polling place. Only the gray yarmulke Webster wore...
ROME (AP) — The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on gay civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’...
In popular culture, exorcism often serves as a plot device in chilling films about demonic possession. This month, two Roman Catholic archbishops showed a different face of exorcism – performing...
Washington, D.C. Archbishop Wilton Gregory, soon to become the Roman Catholic Church’s first Black cardinal from the United States, hopes the U.S. hierarchy can broaden its concept of “pro-life”...
Both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden count endorsements from well-known faith leaders. But for clergy members who try to tackle thorny moral matters without overtly backing...
Two years ago, the three congregations sharing space at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue relocated after an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 worshippers. Last March, the congregations dispersed...
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis became the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions in comments for a documentary that premiered Wednesday, sparking cheers from gay Catholics and demands for...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A group of prominent Christians from both sides of the aisle, including a past faith adviser to former President Barack Obama, is forming a political action committee designed to...
APARECIDA, Brazil (AP) — Inside, there was nothing massive about the Mass: Just 1,000 people were spaced carefully across the pews of a vast basilica that normally holds 35,000 as the Roman...
After months of grappling with a pandemic that has walloped New York's Orthodox Jewish communities, prompting changes to holidays, mourning and prayers, new limits on worship and other activity in...
NEW YORK (AP) — Sukkot, the weeklong Jewish fall holiday commemorating God’s miraculous protection of the Jewish people in the desert, looks different this year.
SERIATE, Italy (AP) — If there is anything the Rev. Mario Carminati and the traumatized residents of Italy’s Bergamo province remember about the worst days of the coronavirus outbreak, it’s the...
NEW YORK (AP) — The images were vivid: President Donald Trump brandishing a Bible outside an Episcopal church in Washington that had been boarded up amid racial injustice protests. Episcopal...
Normally Teresa Stanfield spends her days in prisons talking with inmates about how she changed the course of her troubled life, and how they can do the same. But the coronavirus has locked her on...
Churches in California and Minnesota, backed by a conservative legal group, filed lawsuits this week against the governors of their states challenging restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus...
London and its environs are home to a notable diversity of faiths and flocks. Rites that have been the bedrock of their beliefs for centuries had to evolve swiftly during the pandemic lockdown to...
NEW YORK (AP) — As the new academic year arrives, school systems across the United States are struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Roman Catholic educators have an extra challenge —...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The principle of religious freedom is important to most Americans. But as President Donald Trump touts his support for it during his reelection bid, there are notable fault lines...
“I can’t breathe!’” the crowd chanted, invoking the dying words spoken by George Floyd as a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.
NEW YORK (AP) — Conservative-leaning faith leaders and their allies, outspoken in recent years about what they consider infringements on religious liberties, cheered Wednesday as the Supreme Court...
NEW YORK (AP) — Panic attacks, trouble breathing, relapses that have sent her to bed for 14 hours at a time: At 35, Marissa Oliver has been forced to deal with the specter of death on COVID-19′s...
The Supreme Court elated religious freedom advocates and alarmed secular groups with its Tuesday ruling on public funding for religious education, a decision whose long-term effect on the...
As a young student, Hind Makki recalls, she would call out others at the Islamic school she attended when some casually used an Arabic word meaning “slaves” to refer to Black people.
NEW YORK (AP) — Black Roman Catholics are hearing their church’s leaders calling for racial justice once again after the killing of George Floyd, but this time they’re demanding not just words but...
NEW YORK (AP) — One religious leader appeared with nursing home workers seeking safer conditions. Another broadcast a roundtable with colleagues in three states. Another talked about a campaign he...
NEW YORK (AP) — Had there been no coronavirus pandemic, America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination would be convening this week for a likely vote to break up over differences on same-sex...
NEW YORK (AP) — Esther Roman wasn’t even in the room when she witnessed what she describes as “probably the holiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
A doctor whose patient was suffering from COVID-19...
WINTER PARK, Fla. (AP) — Seattle resident Maggie Mohamed was looking forward to spending the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in her native Egypt.
BALDWIN, Wisc. (AP) — As the morning sun melts the last traces of snow in the surrounding farmland, the faithful, gathered to celebrate Christianity’s holiest week, cheerfully honk out their...
NOGALES, Mexico (AP) — For years, Catholic-led, U-S.-based nonprofits have been at the forefront of efforts to support migrants and asylum seekers along the Mexican border. Tough new border...
Passover and its epic story — how the Jewish people escaped to freedom after plagues struck their oppressors — are uniquely resonant this year, as Jews find ways to honor the holiday amid the...