New York – African drums boomed and pipe organ music swelled as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine opened for worship Sunday after years of cleanup from a fire that struck the world’s largest Gothic cathedral in 2001. The cathedral’s 98-year-old Skinner organ was played for the first time since the fire, heralding a…

Washington – Marking World AIDS Day, President George W. Bush said Monday that his presidential initiative on the deadly disease already has met its goal of treating 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. When the administration launched the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief in 2003, the goal was to support 2 million people with…

TRAPPIST, Ky. — Around the country for the next few weeks, many Roman Catholics will remember and honor the life of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who died 40 years ago on Dec. 10, 1968, in a freak electrocution accident. Merton, who influenced generations of believers with both his monastic lifestyle and his prodigious writings —…

SIDHBARI, India – Give the magnetic personality and hunky good looks of a rock star to a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and the result might be Gyalwang Karmapa, the third-highest lama in the Tibetan religious firmament. The Karmapa, as he is known, is getting more than his share of attention these days. He’s being talked about…

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