Religion News Service

Militants killed a Roman Catholic priest this week in Bangui, Central African Republic where Catholic and other faith leaders had made headway recently mediating between factions.

From Washington to Wyoming, well-known clergy and grass-roots people of faith plan to gather Thursday (May 3) for the annual National Day of Prayer.

President Trump plans to unveil a new initiative that aims to give faith groups a stronger voice within the federal government and serve as a watchdog on religious liberty issues.

Most religious groups now support same-sex marriage being legal, according to a study released May 1 from the Public Religion Research Institute.

James H. Cone, the scholar known as the "founder of black liberation theology," died April 28, Union Theological Seminary announced.  He was 79.

Before he was pope, before he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis spent much of his Jesuit life as a spiritual guide to young Jesuits. He was not a great theologian, although he was well read in theology. 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom cited more than two dozen countries as main contributors to an "ongoing downward trend" in religious liberty worldwide.

A new Pew Research survey finds that a slim majority of Americans believe in the God of the Bible, while about one-third of Americans believe in another higher power or spiritual force.

The tables have turned under Pope Francis. And a new type of Catholic has formed: the conservative dissenter.  In the past, conservatives prided themselves on loyalty to the pope and being in lockstep with all papal teachings, while progressives called for limits to papal power.

About 50 evangelical Christian leaders gathered to discuss the future of evangelicalism amid concerns their movement has become too closely associated with President Trump.

The catchphrase "Love means never having to say you’re sorry" was more memorable than the film "Love Story," where it was uttered twice. At first the words sounded nice, but on reflection they made no sense at all, especially to a Christian.

A municipal council in a West London suburb voted this week to allow a buffer zone around an abortion clinic — the first such zone of its kind in Britain, where abortion has been legal for 50 years.

Despite the slaughter of nearly a million Jews — as well as hundreds of thousands of Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others — at the World War II Nazi death camp, a survey found that 66 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 "cannot identify what Auschwitz was." 

A group of religious leaders is condemning a Missouri bill to permit people to carry concealed firearms in church without permission from clergy.

An initiative in San Antonio has brought together clergy from different faiths to find a solution for affordable housing in a city where 19 percent of residents live at or below the poverty line.

The Field Hospital: Brooklyn's population of residents of Guatemalan origin has more than doubled since 2007 to nearly 11,000 people, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

When PBS’ documentary “The Vietnam War” first broadcast back in September, I did not want to watch it. I had lived through the war and did not have the stomach to revisit it in a 10-part, 18-hour film, even if it was by award-winning documentarian Ken Burns.

For the International March of the Living this week, more than 12,000 Jews and non-Jews from nearly 50 countries will travel to Auschwitz to commemorate the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.

At the Red Letter Revival, near the campus of Liberty University, participants aimed to fellowship, reaffirm their values and serve as a thorn in the side of evangelicals aligned with President Trump.

They began marching just after dawn from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, 50 years to the day after the civil rights leader was assassinated.