Race & Ethnicity
Churches face uphill fight on immigration reform
By Tracy Gordon — March 17, 2010
WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious leaders hope to bring tens of thousands of activists to Capitol Hill next week to push Congress to act on immigration reform, but at least one study shows they may have to convince the pews before they can try to sway the politicians. The Sunday (March 21) “March for America” began with […]
Muslim woman expelled from school in veil dispute
By Tracy Gordon — March 11, 2010
TORONTO (RNS/ENI) A Muslim woman has filed a human rights complaint after she was expelled from a Canadian college for refusing to remove her face veil. The Egyptian-born woman, who is a permanent resident of Canada, was enrolled in a government-sponsored French language class for new immigrants in Montreal, Quebec. The school, CEGEP St. Laurent, […]
Priest faces nine years in immigration fraud case
By Tracy Gordon — March 5, 2010
LONDON (RNS) An African man who once sought asylum and set up his own church as a cover for smuggling illegal migrants into Britain has been sentenced to nine years in prison on 14 charges of violating immigration laws. The Rev. Anthony Quarco built a reputation as a respectable pillar of society as the founder […]
Jews launch new year appeal aimed at Iowa meat plant
By Tracy Gordon — September 10, 2009
(RNS) Rebuffed after seeking a meeting with the new owners of an Iowa kosher meat plant that was devastated by an immigration raid last year, a social justice group is using the upcoming Jewish New Year to send a message from the marketplace. The Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, now owned by SHF and called […]
10 minutes with … David Plotz
By Tracy Gordon — April 8, 2009
(UNDATED) For more than 30 years, David Plotz, a self-described proud but less-than-pious Jew, would robot through religious rituals. One day, bored at a bat mitzvah, he picked up the Bible and started reading. Until, then, Plotz had always assumed the Good Book was the collection of fables and feel-good stories he’d learned in Sunday […]
Woman aids immigrants, one hot meal at a time
By Tracy Gordon — March 4, 2009
ESSEX COUNTY, N.J. — It is 30 degrees on a Friday evening, just 14 with the wind chill. Twenty-one Hispanic men, all undocumented immigrants who could use an extra layer or two, bump into each other as they form a shivering, ragged line across an empty parking lot. They arrived at this spot with hope […]
A new documentary traces the journey of leaders of genocide come foward to confess022309
By Tracy Gordon — February 24, 2009
Clergy, lawmakers launch immigration reform push
By Tracy Gordon — February 13, 2009
WASHINGTON (RNS) Members of Congress joined religious leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday (Feb. 11) to launch a coalition to promote a humanitarian approach to immigration reform. The new Interfaith Immigration Coalition seeks cooperation from the White House in reforming immigration policies, strengthening due process laws for immigrants and promoting humanitarian treatment of undocumented immigrants. “A […]
No “Doubt” about the Holocaust
By Francis X. Rocca — February 5, 2009
The culture page of tomorrow’s edition of the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano obliquely addresses the themes of this week’s two big Vatican stories: sex abuse and Holocaust denial. A laudatory review of Doubt, about a priest accused of child molestation, says the movie shows that “reaching the truth is unfortunately a difficult result to […]
Hispanic Christians rally for immigration reform
By Tracy Gordon — February 5, 2009
WASHINGTON (RNS) A Hispanic Christian group plans to hold monthly prayer vigils on Capitol Hill in hopes of pushing Congress toward passing an immigration reform bill. Leaders of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders (CONLAMIC) joined Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to urge the government to stop deporting illegal immigrants and focus on […]
The face of traditionalism
By Francis X. Rocca — February 2, 2009
Bishop Richard Williamson may be under fire for his comments denying the Nazi genocide of the Jews, but his Facebook friends haven’t deserted him. According to Williamson’s page on the social networking site, the bishop’s “personal interests” include “reading and listening to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”
COMMENTARY: Bienvenidos a America
By Tom Ehrich — November 19, 2008
NEW YORK-I’ve seen my wife teach English as a second language in North Carolina and New York, and I know her classes offer three gifts: improved fluency in a difficult language; cross-cultural fellowship in the “melting pot” ideal of America, and giving America a friendly and welcoming face. It is mutual respect, not ethnic cleansing […]
Benedict talks Turkey (sort of)
By Francis X. Rocca — May 7, 2008
Meeting in the Vatican today with the leader of the Armenian Orthodox and Apostolic Church, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the “heavy persecutions suffered by Armenian Christians, above all in the last century,” an apparent reference to the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I. Especially given past tensions in […]
One flew over …
By Daniel Burke — March 19, 2008
Looking over Christianity Today’s Best Books of 2007 , I was somewhat surprised that “There is a God: How the World’s Most Famous Atheist Changed His Mind” made it on the list. Let me first confess: I have not read the book. But this New York Times story from November of last year raises significant […]
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By RNS Blog Editor — November 16, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service KIGALI, Rwanda _ Gloriosa Uwimpuhwe stopped going to church years ago. Burdened by the memory of the 800,000 victims of the 1994 genocide, she hesitates to step foot in the sacred places where women were raped in pews, where children were slaughtered against brick walls. They are events too hard […]
