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Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup

Security forces killed at least seven people in Syria as they emerged from a mosque after prayers marking the end of Ramadan, according to activists.

The sculptor of the controversial statue of the late Pope John Paul II that now stands at Rome’s main train station says he’s open to making minor changes in the work. Some have called his depiction of John Paul’s head “excessively spherical,” among other criticisms.


Speaking of popes, Pope Benedict XVI says cradle Catholics have fallen down on the evangelical front.

A federal judge has blocked the Alabama immigration law that church leaders, the Obama administration and civil rights activists have decried as unusually cruel and unconstitutional.

The AP reports that polygamist pastor Warren Jeffs is in a medically-induced coma

The Oregon couple who tried to faith-heal their daughter may have to pay medical bills that mounted when the state took custody and brought her to specialists who saved her eyesight.

Americans confuse the words of the Bible with the words of Captain America. That’s just one finding from the American Bible Society’s new survey, timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Also, four times as many people rely on the Bible than on professional counseling to help them deal with trauma.

Another study shows that Muslim-Americans are generally pretty happy with their lives.

Cincinnati’s Roman Catholic Mother of Mercy High School cancelled its goodwill Ramadan dinner after parents, supported by the archbishop, said it would be inappropriate. Said one parent, “It would really have given Mercy a bad name.”

A state-owned California science museum has settled a lawsuit over its 2009 cancelled showing of a documentary that promotes intelligent design.

Protesting religious leaders and scientists are getting arrested at the White House for their opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would send crude oil from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas. The protesters are trying to sound the alarm on climate change.


The father of Leiby Kletzky, whose killer confessed to kidnapping and killing the ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn boy, is suing the killer and his family for $100 million.

– Lauren Markoe

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