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TEHRAN, Iran – The Iranian government brushed aside a Persian New Year’s message Friday from President Barack Obama offering to resolve years of hostility, saying it wants concrete change from Washington before it’s ready to enter a dialogue. Obama released the video to coincide with the major Iranian festival of Nowruz, a 12-day holiday that…

LUANDA, Angola – Pope Benedict XVI, welcomed to this sweltering capital Friday by the biggest crowds of his African pilgrimage, condemned sexual violence against women in Africa and chided those countries on the continent that have approved abortion. Benedict arrived in Luanda on the second leg of his African tour, with tens of thousands pouring…

WASHINGTON – A former Nazi concentration-camp guard was deported from Wisconsin to Austria on Thursday, despite objections from his lawyer that the guard was simply present at the camp but committed no acts of persecution. Prosecutors said 83-year-old Josias Kumpf (yoh-SEE’-uhs KOOMF) served as a guard at the Sachsenhausen (ZAHK’-zen-how-zen) concentration camp in Germany, the…

Indiana officials have dropped a provision that bans references to religions or deities on personalized license plates after a woman sued when her “BE GODS” personalized license plate was not renewed. “Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), in a release.…

The Episcopal Church’s bishops said Wednesday (March 18) that they have been too “preoccupied” with internal disputes to pay adequate attention to suffering caused by the deepening economic recession. Gathered in Hendersonville, N.C., March 13-18, for their annual spring retreat, about 125 Episcopal bishops unanimously approved the pastoral letter, the bishops’ first joint statement on…

Luanda, Angola – In Africa, some Roman Catholic priests have children and nuns counsel patients to use condoms against the scourge of AIDS. Faithful consult medicine men even though the church condemns that as witchcraft. As Pope Benedict XVI makes his first pilgrimage this week to the continent that has the world’s fastest-growing congregation of…

(RNS) A Kentucky museum that advocates creationism unveiled an exhibit on Sunday (March 15) that affirms Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection even as they reject his teachings on evolution. “All we’re doing is helping people to understand that natural selection is not evolution (even though) it’s portrayed that way in public schools,” said Ken…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon – The Vatican defended Pope Benedict XVI’s rejection of condoms as a way to stop HIV after international criticism Wednesday that he was weakening the fight against the disease. France and Germany sharply critiqued Benedict’s declaration that distributing condoms “increases” the AIDS problem. The French foreign ministry said the statement could “endanger public…

(UNDATED) When the economy heads downward, pastors sometimes expect the pews to get a little more crowded. But an analysis of polling data by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life indicates that, in general, worshippers are not reporting a corresponding increase in attendance as the stock market has fallen. While the stock market…

A federal appeals court on Monday (March 16) upheld a Texas law that requires public school students to observe a daily minute of silence following the Pledge of Allegiance. “The statute is facially neutral between religious and nonreligious activities that students can choose to engage in during the moment of silence,” a three-judge panel of…
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