NEW ORLEANS (RNS) For nearly a decade, hundreds of Boy Scouts have learned the virtues of the Ten Commandments on an annual hike to local churches, synagogues and mosques. But this year, Touro Synagogue says it's no longer willing to take part because the Scouts deny membership to gay troop leaders and gay adolescent Scouts. By Bruce Nolan.

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a city law that was recently used to arrest Christian evangelists who were preaching on Bourbon Street during Southern Decadence, the annual celebration of gay culture in the French Quarter. By Bruce Nolan.

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Faith-based ministries say it's already clear that the recovery from Hurricane Isaac will proceed without the national outpouring of money and volunteers triggered by Hurricane Katrina. "From our point of view, the biggest challenge with this disaster will be getting attention and money," said Gordon Wadge, president of Catholic Charities. By Bruce Nolan.

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Three days before the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that flooded their synagogue and two days before Hurricane Isaac hit landfall in Louisiana, the wandering Jews of Congregation Beth Israel are finally home. By Bruce Nolan.

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) The Archdiocese of New Orleans has launched a kind of halfway house where a woman considering a vocation can live while giving the matter thought and prayer, the first in the nation that gives would-be nuns the same environment as would-be priests. By Bruce Nolan.

(RNS) Americans’ confidence in organized religion, slowly but steadily declining since the 1970s, slipped to a new low in the latest survey, the Gallup Organization reported. By Bruce Nolan.

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Jerry DeWitt is beginning to develop a national profile in the small universe of organized unbelievers as a former Pentecostal preacher who little by little lost his faith right there in the pulpit. Now DeWitt is out of the pulpit, and public about his nonbelief. By Bruce Nolan.