As intellectuals stroke their chins over God’s role (or absence) in the Haitian earthquake, the American people at large have responded by opening their pocket books and donating more than $380 million _ much of it through the Interwebs _ for Haiti, a record for a foreign disaster, the Baltimore Sun reports. “It’s clear that people are rising to sacrifice,” said Mark Melia of Catholic Relief Services, which has taken in $23 million. “People are making large gifts that are not easy to make.”

The screening at the Sundance Film Festival of a movie critical of Mormons’ role in Prop 8 drew only a few protesters. “The must be in church today,” said one of the movie’s producers about the lack of anti-gay-marriage activists.

The AP got an advance look at the waterfalls that will become a part of the 9/11 memorial in NYC. A mother who starved her children, believing that “God will provide” for the impoverished family, was convicted of child endangerment in New Jersey. The WaPo finds that there are still some Catholic women who want to be priests. NPR profiled Senate Chaplain Barry Black.

Pope Benedict XVI told priests to go forth and blog, and the Vatican released an upbeat assessment of its finances. A French parliamentary panel will recommend a ban on face-covering veils in public spaces, but will not press to outlaw them in the streets, according to the AP. Christians in Nigeria have accused the military of committing genocide in the clashes that have left 320 dead. One Muslim intellectual says the way to fight Islamists to get them to go shopping.

The New York Times tracked down a Baha’i man whose younger brother is on trial for espionage in Iran. Baha’is and the U.S. State Department say the charges are trumped up and amount to religious persecution. The power-sharing agreement between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is on shaky ground. The Philippines made Eid al Adha a national holiday.

More than 100 Russian Orthodox Christians have been hospitalized after drinking holy water on the feast of the Epiphany, the source of which was a stagnant lake. Many Russians consider any water to be holy on Epiphany day. They also jump in freezing cold water, as the AP picture at top left shows.