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Vatican City – In a sign the credit crunch is sparing no one, the Vatican is set to raise its staff retirement age by two years to help make ends meet. From January 1, 2010, newly hired lay staff will retire at 67 instead of 65, while newly hired members of religious orders and priests…

DUBLIN – Ireland’s Roman Catholic religious orders resisted growing demands Friday for them to pay more for the abuse of thousands of children behind the closed doors of state-funded schools. The Irish government expects to dole out more than euro1.1 billion ($1.6 billion) in legal costs and compensation to 14,000 people molested, beaten or terrorized…

CHESAPEAKE, Va. — On a peaceful afternoon in a suburban home garage, Demetrus Leslie, 17, jerked like he was dosed with strychnine. His arms lashed menacingly, then he dropped to the floor, only to rear up smoothly. His chest popped in and out, convulsing as if an alien larva heaved within. He ranged around the…

TEL AVIV/RAMALLAH — Israel is ready to open peace talks with Syria immediately and without preconditions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday after talks with US President Barack Obama. The offer followed Obama’s first White House meeting with the Israeli leader, who said he agreed on the need to widen the peace process across the…

As authorities search for a missing 13-year-old cancer patient whose mother shunned chemotherapy, an expert on faith healing said the case demonstrates just how these cases can get out of hand — and the need to prevent them in the future. On Tuesday (May 19), Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye, Minn., and his mother, Colleen,…

U.S. victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy say the Vatican should publicly rebuke the religious order that fought to keep abusers’ names out of a damning report that details thousands of crimes against minors in Ireland. The 2,600-page report, released on Wednesday (May 20), describes sexual and violent crimes committed against thousands of young…

Synagogues in New York and throughout the country were unaware of a plot to bomb two temples in New York City until it was foiled late Wednesday (May 20). New York City police arrested four men who allegedly believed they were planting bombs near two synagogues in the Bronx. The men also had plans to…

NEW DELHI – Krishna Pattabhi Jois, a yoga teacher and practitioner famous for popularizing Ashtanga yoga in the West, has died. He was 93. Jois died in the southern Indian city of Mysore on Monday, a press statement from the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute said. He was born in Kowshika village in the…

SLEEPY EYE, Minn. – A courtroom clash between medicine and faith took a criminal turn, with police around the country on the lookout Wednesday for a Minnesota mother who fled with her cancer-stricken 13-year-old son rather than consent to chemotherapy. A court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed a tumor growing in Daniel Hauser’s chest, and doctors…

(RNS) Mainline Protestant clergy are generally more likely than most Americans to endorse gay rights, but only one in three supports same-sex marriage, according to a new study. About one-third of mainline clergy support civil unions and one-third oppose any legal recognition for gay couples, found Public Religion Research, a Washington-based consulting firm, which released…

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