WASHINGTON (RNS) In 2008, Safoorah Khan, a math teacher in Illinois, asked for 15 days of unpaid leave (19 days including weekends) to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligation for all Muslims. The local school board refused, but the Justice Department stepped in last December and sued on behalf of Khan, saying she was…

WASHINGTON (RNS) A new multimillion-dollar, high-tech, interactive museum of the Bible was announced Thursday amid 130 artifacts of the Good Book at a private exhibition at the Vatican Embassy. The exhibit was a sample of Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant treasures from the future museum’s 10,000 manuscripts and texts, one of the world’s largest biblical…

OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) Two members of a controversial Oregon City church that rejects medical treatment were released from prison Wednesday (March 30) after serving time in the faith-healing death of their teenage son. Jeffrey and Marci Beagley were convicted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide last year and sentenced to 16 months in…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned a book by Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a prominent feminist theologian, charging that her attempts to forge new understandings of God depart from traditional Catholic theology. The bishops’ Committee on Doctrine on Wednesday (March 30) said Johnson’s 2007 book, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in…

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