Religion News

In its continued effort to tie itself in knots over gay issues, the Church of England has a new policy.

When a Broadway show, even one with the unlikely name “The Book of Mormon” rakes in nine Tony awards including Best Musical plus a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, chances are you'd like to find out what all the excitement is about.

A Roman Catholic religious order released an unusually candid report Tuesday outlining how its leaders failed for decades to stop sex abuse in its schools and other ministries.

Some time in the next week, either on Thursday or Monday, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down two big rulings on same-sex marriage. Around the time the high-court justices were hearing the high-profile cases in March, the media was dedicating a lot of ink and pixels to the subject — and the coverage wasn't evenly divided between supporters and opponents of gay marriage, according to a new study from Pew.

In fact, it wasn't even close, say Paul Hitlin, Amy Mitchell, and Mark Jurkowitz at Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In nearly 500 articles and TV segments from March 18 to May 12, "stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1."

In the news media, supportive stories — where pro–gay marriage views outnumbered opposition by at least a 2-to-1 margin — made up 47 percent of coverage, versus 9 percent favoring anti–gay marriage views, Pew found. The Huffington Post — which, to be fair, has a dedicated "Gay Voices" section — had the most, and most tilted, coverage (62 percent pro, 9 percent anti) of a mainstream news source, Pew says, while The Wall Street Journal and USA Today "stood out for higher levels of mixed or neutral reporting, 70 percent and 67 percent, respectively, and more even ratio of supporting versus opposing stories."

'I don't want people to think that I've failed. We've not failed. We're being forced to go,' Belmont said PRINCETON -- The owners of Princeton Wine and Liquor say they are being forced out of business after 16 years because their landlord, a local church, does not want a liquor business in its building, and there is literally no place for them to ... (more)

Not surprisingly, a high percentage of area Catholics have left the church over the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the organization in the past decade.

Few religious communities have gone as far in fighting climate change as a church in Queensland, Australia, which has 24 solar panels bolted to the roof in the shape of a Christian cross.

Venezuela and the Vatican haven't always seen eye-to-eye. During his 14 years in power, President Hugo Chavez often battled with the church, accusing leaders of participating in a coup against him and calling a Venezuelan cardinal a "troglodyte" on national television.

Two Salvadorans who mediated in a gang truce in their country that cut the homicide rate by at least 50 percent met Monday with gang leaders in Honduras, where they will help do the same.

VATICAN CITY a?? One-hundred days after becoming the first non-European pope since the eighth century, the main difference between Francis and his European predecessors is one more of style than of concrete action.

There were smiles at many Broadway box offices last week as a big financial bounce followed the Tony Awards, with the biggest winners being "Pippin," ''Matilda the Musical" and "Motown the Musical."

A woman who was sentenced to death at age 16 for taking part in the torture and murder of a 78-year-old bible studies teacher was released from an Indiana prison Monday after growing to middle age behind bars.

Speaking at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Monday, she took aim at cases of ultra-Orthodox Jews targeting women.

Remember the power ballad? It was a subgenre of rock music pioneered by Boston in 1976 and Styx a year later.

Thailand's national Buddhism body said Monday it is monitoring monks nationwide for any inappropriate behavior following complaints ignited by a video showing Buddhist monks on a private jet.

On Saturday morning a parishioner discovered the graffiti on the wall of the Saint John the Baptist church in Bourgoin-Jallieu.

An opposition candidate for mayor of Bet Shemesh has accused incumbent Moshe Abutbol of sending municipal workers to remove his campaign signs in locations throughout the city.

Police say a gunman walked into a Catholic church and shot a man in the back of the head during Mass on Sunday in Ogden.

An Indiana woman put on death row at age 16 for killing an elderly Bible school teacher is being released.

Egypt's official news agency says a hardline Muslim cleric has received an 11-year suspended sentence for tearing up and burning a Bible.