WILMINGTON, N.C. (RNS) With one in five Americans claiming no religious connection, national atheist and humanist agencies are developing ordaining programs to establish nontheist ministers in most states to perform weddings and funerals.
(RNS) The Catholic diocese in Missouri led by Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted last year of failing to report a priest who was taking pornographic pictures of children, will pay a $600,000 settlement to the family of one of the priest’s victims.
(RNS) News that scientists in Oregon had for the first time recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos prompted dire warnings from religious leaders who say the research crosses a bioethical red line and could lead to designer babies.
WASHINGTON (RNS) “Faith leaders have a remarkable opportunity to shift the conversation, but it’s very challenging, particularly in a larger society that wants to understand everything as a battle,” said Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
(RNS) The Vatican on Wednesday said that Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned in February amid reports that he had made sexual advances to a number of priests, will do penance in an undisclosed location outside of his country.
(RNS) The IRS probe of conservative nonprofit groups included the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Samaritan’s Purse humanitarian group, evangelist Franklin Graham said.
(RNS) Citing a line from Leviticus 25, “for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and settlers with me,” Chicago’s Robert Nevel spearheaded a congregational garden to benefit a local soup kitchen, saying, “We need to be stewards of the land.”
(RNS) Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty because Dr. Kermitt Gosnell was accused of killing more than one person and because his victims were particularly vulnerable. But Gosnell’s advanced age made his execution unlikely before his appeals were exhausted.
(RNS) When rogue abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of delivering and then killing late-term infants, abortion opponents were convinced they had a case that could finally reshape a static abortion debate. Yet for a variety of reasons, those prayers for a game-changing impact may go unanswered.
(RNS) The burial ended a frustrating search for a community willing to take the body, which had been kept at a funeral parlor in Worcester, Mass., as cemeteries refused to accept the remains, fearful about gravesite vandalism and backlash from the public.
