Religion

Catholic church closures spread in the Northeast and Midwest. Not all are upset

4:48pm June 05, 2022

by Adora Namigadde

Catholic churches are closing and merging in response to dropping participation and giving. It's a trend exacerbated and accelerated by COVID-19 and will affect U.S. worship life for years to come.

Pope Francis arrives on a wheelchair for an audience with children in the San Damaso courtyard at the Vatican, June 4, 2022.

Religion

An upcoming trip by Pope Francis has rumors swirling about his future at the Vatican

9:40am June 05, 2022

by The Associated Press

Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old Francis might be planning to follow in his predecessor's footsteps and step down as pope.

Sally Jane Priesand became the first woman in the United States to be ordained as a rabbi in 1972.

Religion

It was only 50 years ago this month that the first female rabbi was ordained

4:27pm June 03, 2022

by Deena Prichep

Female rabbis have become a way of life these days, but Sally Priesand changed the course of women and Judaism when she became the first female rabbi in the United States in June 1972.

Cardinal Blase Cupich stands outside of the Archdiocese of Chicago Pastoral Center on Wednesday. Cupich has served as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago since 2014.

Chicago archbishop adds his voice to the calls for gun safety legislation

10:15am June 03, 2022

While some cardinals have sidestepped political discussions, Cupich spoke out against gun violence on Twitter hours after the shooting at Robb Elementary School.

A look at Jewish extremism in Israel

4:39pm June 02, 2022

by Daniel Estrin

After violence by Jewish nationalists in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem on Sunday, Israel is debating who is an extremist.

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How the Southern Baptist Convention covered up its widespread sexual abuse scandal

1:49pm June 02, 2022

by Terry Gross

In 2019, Houston Chronicle journalist Robert Downen helped break the story about sexual abuse within the SBC. That led the church to commission its own independent study, which suggested a coverup.

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Ahmed Quraishi (second from left), a Pakistani TV news anchor, stands at the Western Wall prayer site in Jerusalem in May. His participation in the rare Pakistani visit sparked a backlash back home, prompting Pakistani state-run TV to fire him.

A rare visit by Pakistanis to Israel has caused furor in Islamabad

3:17pm June 01, 2022

Pakistan doesn't recognize Israel. After a delegation visited Israel and even met with its president, Pakistani senators were outraged and one visitor got fired.

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Religion

It's been 5 decades since the first female rabbi was ordained in the U.S.

7:35am May 31, 2022

by Deena Prichep

Next month it will be 50 years since Sally Priesand was ordained as the nation's first female rabbi. Today, about 1,000 women rabbis have changed the course of American Judaism.

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This image provided by the New York City Police Department shows a missing tabernacle and damaged angel statue in St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood in New York, which was stolen between Thursday and Saturday.

A $2 million relic was stolen and an angel statue was beheaded at a Brooklyn church

10:11pm May 30, 2022

by The Associated Press

The incident happened between 6:30 p.m. Thursday and 4 p.m. Saturday at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church, known as the "Notre Dame" of Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood.

Firemen extinguish a fire at a gypsum manufacturing plant after shelling in the city of Bakhmut, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, on Friday. Russia pressed on with a deadly offensive to capture key points in the Donbas this week.

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (May 27)

5:31pm May 27, 2022

by NPR Staff

A roundup of key developments and the latest in-depth coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.