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BOSTON – A new lawsuit claims Catholic bishops are wrongly imposing their beliefs on victims of human trafficking by not letting federal grant money be used for emergency contraception, condoms or abortions. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the complaint Monday in federal court in Boston against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.…

WASHINGTON — After choosing an evangelical pastor to deliver the invocation at his swearing-in, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen two progressive Protestant leaders — a woman and an openly gay bishop– to bookend his inaugural ceremonies. “It reflects his commitment to pluralism,” said Shaun Casey, an ethics professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington who…

CLEVELAND (RNS) A group of Cleveland pastors who tried to trigger a referendum to overturn the city’s domestic-partner registry have come up short in their bid for signatures. The group, led by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, needed to submit about 11,000 signatures by Wednesday (Jan. 7) to put the…

NEW YORK — Parents losing their Wall Street jobs, benefactors with plummeting portfolios scaling back on donations — it’s a one-two punch that has sent many Jewish day schools reeling in recent weeks. At the prestigious Ramaz School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the financial forecast has prompted officials to slash the budget for an…

In a December 28, 2008 post to his blog, author Neale Donald Walsch posted an essay under his byline that had actually been written by another writer, Candy Chand. As a result, Mr. Walsch has decided to remove himself from Beliefnet’s blogging roster, a decision we support in order to protect the mission and integrity…

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, an eminent Catholic intellectual who tutored President Bush in Catholic social teaching and helped build the political coalition that made his election possible, died Thursday (Jan. 8) at age 72. Neuhaus died soon after 10 a.m. of complications from cancer, according to a statement by First Things, the intellectual journal…

A Sikh woman sued the Internal Revenue Service this week, alleging that the IRS violated her religious freedom by prohibiting her from wearing a small ceremonial knife to her job as a revenue agent. The lawsuit, filed in Houston federal district court on Tuesday, states that the IRS fired Kawaljeet Kaur Tagore in July 2006…

HERAT, Afghanistan — Simagol Yousefi was only 20 when her husband, Abdul, traveled to Iran to find work, leaving her and their two young sons in the care of her in-laws. Yousefi said it soon became clear she and her children were not welcome by Abdul’s parents or his five siblings. “They beat my children…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center is seeking sermons that are preached in U.S. houses of worship during inaugural week. The library said it would mark the historic inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president by adding sermons from a range of houses of worship and secular settings…

NEW ORLEANS — Police evicted parishioners from two New Orleans Catholic churches on Tuesday (Jan. 6), apparently ending a 72-day standoff that began when parishioners moved into the churches and occupied them around the clock to save them from closure. Accompanied by lawyers from the city attorney’s office, police arrived almost simultaneously at 121-year-old Our…
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