Religion News Service

It should come as no surprise to Pope Francis, the author of the encyclical "Laudato Si'," that at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic we find a relationship between human beings and the rest of God's creation that has gone terribly wrong.

It’s important to understand that the Mary we meet on Mother’s Day in 2020 is not the same Palestinian Jewish girl who gave birth to Jesus 2,000 years ago. Nor is Mary a sentimentally perfect woman, meek, mild and passive, a religious Hallmark card who has come to represent the idealized mother figure most of our own mothers would struggle to measure up to.

Like the flood that came and wiped away everything and everyone, a pandemic is sweeping across all households and street corners, stealing life and breath from so many. We grieve now, maybe the way that Noah grieved then, or, in the Potawatomi flood story, the way that Original Man may have grieved after the world was destroyed, drowned by water. 

The National Day of Prayer, like most events amid the coronavirus, will have a different look this year as it is marked on May 7.

Refugees and displaced persons live under conditions ideal for the spread of COVID-19: packed together in tents or crowded into housing where social distancing is impossible.

A new poll released April 30 from PRRI shows Trump's approval has fallen on average by 6 percentage points and is now more in keeping with 2019 levels among most demographic groups.

From hashtagged travel photos posted on Instagram to immersive apps, a number of digital pilgrimages are making spiritual journeys possible for the faithful and the curious alike, even as they stay home.

With issues of access and technical ability among some congregants, and a pandemic that has closed their church doors and scattered congregations, African Americans have been scrambling to sustain crucial connections to their houses of worship.

Signs of the Times: Many believe that "normal" is just around the corner, this summer or at least next fall. The truth is that we will not get back to normal until the American population is protected from the virus by a vaccine.

In 2014, the Rev. Anna Woofenden moved to Los Angeles to try a bold experiment: to reenvision church as an outdoor community centered on a garden. As a church, the community would grow food, prepare it and eat it together, and share it with the neighborhood.

One year after the Cathedral of Notre Dame was nearly destroyed by a fire, its future remains uncertain. Prominent voices in France continue to argue about what should happen to the medieval gothic structure once its complex reconstruction is completed.

A conservative law firm launched a "ReOpen Church Sunday" initiative this week, calling on churches to begin gathering in person again despite reports of the deadly novel coronavirus being spread during worship services.

When you think about the mechanics of Sunday Eucharist, it's difficult to imagine a system better designed to spread contagion.

Meditation and mindfulness apps like Calm and Headspace have boomed in the last decade, part of the trend of the year that Apple noted in 2018: self-care apps, particularly those focused on mental health.

Across the country, black clergy say the coronavirus is touching — and sometimes taking — the faithful who until a month ago were accustomed to meeting weekly in their pews. Some are mourning losses in the highest echelons of their denomination. Others are counting the dead, sick and unemployed.

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center archives Mexican American life before, during and after the Chicano Movement.

The wages of all essential workers should be immediately raised to at least $15 an hour, with government subsidies to businesses that need them.

In response to the coronavirus, 22 Trappist monks living in New Melleray Abbey in eastern Iowa, about 13 miles from Dubuque, decided to offer pine caskets to financially strapped families with members who have died from Covid-19.

Lawmakers, religious leaders and health experts across the U.S. are wrestling with the question: Does religious freedom mean the freedom to risk infecting your fellow believers — not to mention neighbors — with a deadly virus?

Has President Donald Trump put the lives of his supporters at risk because of his early downplaying of the coronavirus epidemic?