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Crystal Cathedral Ministries, the Southern California megachurch known for its weekly “Hour of Power” TV show, has filed for bankruptcy court protection. Founded by televangelist Robert Schuller in the 1950s, the church more than $40 million in debt. His daugher, senior pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman, addressed reporters yesterday: “Tough times never last, every storm comes to an end.…

In a letter to seminarians around the world today, Pope Benedict has once again denounced abusive priests for causing “profound shame and regret,” while encouraging aspiring clergy to continue their studies and insisting that celibacy still “makes sense.” An excerpt: Recently we have seen with great dismay that some priests disfigured their ministry by sexually abusing…

Halloween has my vote for most fun holiday, so this jumped out at me this week: Catholic News Agency reports that a British Catholic leader has launched a “window light campaign intended to ‘reclaim’ Halloween as Christian holiday.” Damian Stayne, founder of the community Cor et Lumen Christi (Heart and Light of Christ), said the…

New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop, has contributed a video to the “It Gets Better” project, aimed at assuring gay teenagers who are considering suicide that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel of high school hell.   The gist: “I know a lot of you are feeling in that…

The 33 Chilean miners have been miraculously rescued from their two month underground ordeal, answering the world’s prayers. As an update to my post yesterday on this topic, check out GetReligion’s latest roundup of the faith-related coverage. Now that everyone is safe and sound, assuming that Stephen Prothero is right and God Is Not One, who…

Rescue efforts for the trapped Chilean miners are going slowly but smoothly, as I type this. All we can do now is hope and pray, as the families in that predominantly Catholic country have done for the past two months — with an extra boost from Pope Benedict himself. Here are some links to faith-related stories…

Over the holiday weekend, it looks like my prediction about gay news overtaking Islamophobia (Obama’s Muslim roots, Park51, etc.) came to fruition: National Coming Out Day meets polarized American politics meets tragic bullying-related suicides… brace yourselves. While I catch up on last night’s “God in America” installments on PBS, here’s a sample of the religion news…

I’m looking forward to catching Monday night’s debut of God in America, a six-part series that aims to explore how deeply religion has influenced and informed public life in the United States, from Catholic missionaries’ first encounter with Native Americans to the political marriage between the GOP and conservative Christians. The joint presentation from PBS “American Experience”…

This week’s episode of Glee focused on religion, with lunkhead leading man Finn Hudson’s creation of a “Grilled Cheesus” (burned toast resembling Jesus) prompting him to coax New Directions to sing about faith. The glee club’s musical numbers included covers of “Only the Good Die Young,” “Losing My Religion,” “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” “One of…

The new (now with more Jews!) Supreme Court has heard from Pastor Fred Phelps today, defending his Westboro Baptist Church’s right to picket military funerals with signs that say things like “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Gay Soldiers.” (The deceased soldiers weren’t gay, that we know of — though that would certainly lend another tragic…
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