Hard on the heels of a Vatican document adamantly rejecting trans and gender fluidity and condemning gender reassignment surgery, a Catholic hermit came out publicly as trans last month with the consent of his local bishop. Judging from the social media response, the announcement…
The Reformed Church in America to vote on restructuring
In the past five years, the Reformed Church in America, one of the oldest denominations in the U.S., has lost almost half its membership and nearly a quarter of its churches. Some members see in the collapse an opportunity to…
Ruing past boarding-school abuses, US Catholic bishops approve new outreach to Native Americans
U.S. bishops on Friday approved new guidelines for ministering to Indigenous Catholics, a long in-the-works effort to reinvigorate the ministry and assure those communities that they don’t need to feel torn between their Native identity and their Catholic one.
‘Hello, Trump warriors!’ Little-known preachers and rabble rousers are the unregulated ID of the felon’s first rally
“Idon’t care about you, I just want your vote.” That’s the clip from Trump’s Sunday rally in Vegas that went viral: ex-president, navy blazer; open-necked white shirt, the sagging orange lizard hide shadowed by a bright red MAGA cap beneath…
Is Catholicism Surging Among Younger Folks?
My wife and I bought our house about fifteen years ago. It was built in 1940 and had sat empty for a couple of years before we moved in. There were a lot of problems, obviously. But, in true Midwestern…
‘It’s all about love’: Tabernacle Choir to sing with Morehouse and Spelman College glee clubs again
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square will join voices with Morehouse and Spelman colleges as well as Adassa and Alex Melecio come autumn.
There’s a strange history of white journalists trying to better understand the Black experience by ‘becoming’ Black
A peculiar desire seems to still haunt some white people: “I wish I knew what it was like to be Black.”
How reciting the Pledge of Allegiance became a sacred, patriotic ritual
The Continental Congress, the legislative body for the newly declared United States, adopted an official flag on June 14, 1777. The delegates resolved that “the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen…
More than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims arrive in Mecca for annual Hajj pilgrimage
Muslim pilgrims have been streaming into Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca ahead of the start of the Hajj later this week, as the annual pilgrimage returns to its monumental scale.
Bestseller ‘Who is Taylor Swift?’ comes out with its first international edition — in Israel
Taylor Swift’s detachment from contentious global conflicts is a hallmark of her superstardom. For some fans in Israel, it’s also a selling point.
On Religion: New Threat To Alaska’s Historic Orthodox Cathedral
The fire began in the early hours of Jan. 2, 1966, and spread through the business district of Sitka, Alaska — toward the historic St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
‘Fiddler on the Roof’ may be many Americans’ image of Judaism – but American Jews’ heritage is stunningly diverse
“Tradition!” rings out the opening line of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the Broadway play that brought Jewish life to stages around the world. The 1964 musical gives audiences a window into Yiddish-speaking, rural Jewish life in 19th-century Europe.