At the risk of devolving into a crazy cat-lady blog, yesterday we mourned the retirement of Catherine of Tarragon, the official house cat of Washington National Cathedral. Today we introduce you to her successor, Carmina (photo, left), who takes the reins this Sunday. And yes, she was named after the opera.

The developer behind the disputed “Ground Zero mosque” plans to use interest-free Islamic loans to finance the $140 million project, according to the NYT.

Good story from WaPo on aging white churches struggling to survive in the nation’s richest black county. Black pastors in Brooklyn asked the NYPD to help stem a wave of violent crime. Bail has been set at $3 million for the suspect in the shooting death of an elderly man near a church in Youngstown, Ohio.

Montana officials say they’ll now allow the conservative Montana Family Foundation to participate in a program that allows state employees to make charitable donations directly from their paychecks. WaPo looks at the delicate dance between the GOP and gay-rights groups and the risk of alienating the conservative base.

The AP looks ahead to next week’s SCOTUS hearings on whether it’s kosher to ban Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps and his obnoxious signage, and the Denver Post looks at efforts by Christian Scientists to get spiritual care covered by health insurance plans.

The Christian Science Monitor asks whether Bishop Eddie Long‘s 25,000-member church can survive the sexual abuse allegations swirling around its pastor; one accuser says the encounters occurred on church grounds before and after services.

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who struck down California’s Prop 8 ban on gay marriage, plans to retire at the end of the year. A company is offering four-hour “Polygamy Experience” bus tours the polygamous heartland in Colorado City, Ariz.

The WSJ’s real estate section has a groovy slide show of condos fashioned out of a shuttered Methodist church in Brookline, Mass.

Threshold alert: the number of never-married young American has surpassed (for the first time) the number of married young people. The Reason? Blame the recession.

Two Dutch political parties have agreed to form a minority coalition with far-right Islamophobe Geert Wilders. The EU has warned France of possible sanctions if Roma Gypsies are not allowed to move freely or more are deported. Denmark‘s foreign minister met with reps from 17 Islamic nations to head off tensions ahead of the 5th anniversary of the Muhammad cartoons.

Ed Milliband, the new head of Britain’s Labour Party, says he doesn’t believe in God but “I have great respect for those people who do.”

The pope’s official astronomer said he would gladly baptize an alien, but only if asked, because “any entity — no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul.” The Vatican has tapped a Spanish archbishop to head the probe of Regnum Christi, the lay group associated with the scandal-scarred Legionaries of Christ.

Yesterday we told you about the verdict on the fate of a disputed holy site that had India on edge — a court ruled it should be divided evenly between Muslims and Hindus, and both sides plan to appeal. Another update from yesterday: the head of the Filipino Catholic Bishops Conference warned President Benigno Aquino III that giving condoms away could lead to excommunication.