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After spending the last two days hearing arguments over the controversial sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, a Hasidic Jew convicted of fraud related to how he ran Agriprocessors, the now-defunct kosher meat plant based in Postville, Iowa, U.S. District Court Judge Linda Reade announced she will issue her ruling on May 27. Prosecutors had initially recommended a…

In his recent interview with PBS Newshour, Cardinal William Levada indicated that Pope Benedict will be issuing a formal apology to clergy abuse victims in June, at the end of his — unfortunately timed, given the global pedophilia revelations — “year of the priest.” Levada himself has been criticized for how he handled clergy abuse cases,…

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a federal court ruling that had ordered the removal of a war memorial cross at the Mojave National Preserve in California. The Associated Press reports that the large cross, erected by the Veterans fo Foreign Wars more than 75 years ago, has been covered with plywood…

As promised, here are the notes from my conversation with Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican’s U.S. counsel, who recently talked with me for my Religion News Service feature concerning the lawsuits filed by Catholic clergy abuse victims against the Holy See. In contrast to victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson, Lena doesn’t like to give interviews, so people following the abuse scandal haven’t…

Last August, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a body of about 10,000 churches with more than 4 million members, became the latest denomination to allow openly gay clergy. (This category includes the Episcopal Church and Judaism’s Conservative and Reform branches.) In her recent piece for the Huffington Post, the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love explained the decision, made official this month…

This story doesn’t pass my smell test, but it’s certainly making religion headlines: a Chinese-Turkish group of Christian explorers from Noah’s Ark Ministries International claims to have found the remains of Noah’s Ark on Turkey’s Mt. Ararat. According to Abrahamic tradition, the massive wooden ship ferried Noah’s family and pairs of all the animal species to safety during the…

Jeff Anderson has represented hundreds of Catholic clergy abuse victims, going back to the 1980s when he was one of the few attorneys taking on these kinds of cases. Two of his lawsuits currently seek damages from the Holy See — in other words, Pope Benedict. In these cases, he is going up against Jeffrey…

As part of his ongoing efforts to repair America’s relationship with the Islamic world, President Obama is hosting a gathering of Muslim enterpreneurs in Washington this week. The two-day Presidential Summit on Entrepeneurship has brought together about 250 people from more than 50 countries, Agence France-Presse reports. The AFP notes that in his opening remarks, Commerce Secretary Gary…

A Haitian judge has dropped charges against nine of the 10 Baptist missionaries from America, but group organizer Laura Silsby remains in jail there at this time. (The rest of her group had already been released in February and March.) The Christian Post has the story. The volunteers, predominantly from two Idaho churches, had tried to take 33…

In his weekly column yesterday, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt defended the newspaper’s coverage of the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal. The NYT has received hundreds of letters complaining about its investigation, mainly from lay Catholics who agree with high-ranking church officials that the coverage unfairly and erroneously links Pope Benedict’s current and former…
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