President Obama released his own health care plan on Monday; it takes the Senate bill as its starting point. The Catholic Medical Association says Washington should tear up existing plans and start again from the beginning. A conservative Catholic group says Obama’s bill should be opposed because it doesn’t bar public funding of abortions. No word yet from the USCCB or CHA.

Thirteen Ohio clergy say Washington’s infamous C Street House, which was used as a home-base for conservative Christian politicians like S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, should not be granted a tax exemption because it’s not really a religious establishment, and have asked the IRS to revoke it (the exemption). Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University violated IRS codes against non-profits endorsing political candidates, charges Americans United for Separation of Church & State.

Syracuse wants to tax closed Catholic churches that are no longer used for worship (one such church is pictured at top left in a Syracuse Post-Standard photo). A Montana state court says a man who wants a driver’s license has to have a social security number, even if he thinks its the Mark of the Beast.

A Vermont judge says an evangelical locked in a custody battle with her former lesbian partner faces arrest if she doesn’t appear in Vermont soon. New Jersey’s new education chief said he won’t impose his religious beliefs on schoolchildren. The leader of a religious sect starved a child because he did not say “Amen” before a meal, a Baltimore prosecutor told jurors.

The Episcopal Church’s chief statistician told its executive council that the decline in membership continued in 2008 and now sits at 2.2 million. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she was struck that the decline began “long before” the church ordained an openly gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire. Yes, but the decline accelerated once he was elected, critics say. The council also pledged to raise $10 million to help rebuild its Haitian diocese.

CNN tried to figure out why Americans so love that darling Dalai Lama. The censure has been lifted from an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America parish that hired a lesbian pastor 10 years ago. The Catholic diocese of Scranton has a new bishop – and a massive deficit, six months after its former bishop retired early. The USCCB will hold a series of 22 workshops nationwide to introduce priests and diocesan leaders to the new Mass translations.

The Vatican’s top bioethics official rejected calls for his resignation after he defended doctors who performed an abortion on an 9-year-old incest victim. Pope Benedict XVI said airport security measures must “respect the primacy of the person” and a council of North American Muslim scholars says Muslims should avoid full-body scanners because they immodestly peer beneath clothes.

An Israeli archaeologist says he’s unearthed ancient fortifications from the time of King Solomon that support biblical accounts of his reign. Indian Christians are pushing for a blasphemy law to make sure that no more pictures of a beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking Jesus turn up in textbooks.