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U.S. military chaplains asked to perform weddings will not be forced to violate their consciences nor the doctrines of their faith — and may decline to officiate nuptials for homosexual couples. The ruling came in a memo from Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The same memo says chaplains are permitted to…

More than 2 million students nationwide prayed in in front of their schools Wednesday for the annual “See You at the Pole” observance, now in its 21st year. Coordinated by the National Network of Youth Ministries in San Diego, the event is youth-led by design and takes place each year before the school day begins. Local youth ministers…

Long antagonistic to a wide spectrum of religious faiths, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan passed new regulations that critics are calling a blow to religious freedom. The Kazakh house of parliament approved the bill Thursday. Backers say it will help combat religious extremism. A day earlier, Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament had also voted in favor of the…

Does a church have the right to hire or fire the preacher without worrying about government interference? If a Catholic priest decides he doesn’t accept the authority of the Pope, can the diocese recall him without worrying about the National Labor Relations Board? Can the local Baptist church fire a youth minister who announces he speaks in tongues…

Northern Ireland farmer Alan Graham says he’d never heard of pop star Rihanna, but she was dressed too inappropriately to use his barley field, so he made her film crew pack up and leave. He did take time to counsel her to get right with the Almighty. “It was an encounter the global superstar probably wasn’t expecting as the…

New federal guidelines are so narrow that Jesus himself would not qualify for the Department of Health and Human Services “religious employer exemption,” says Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. Neither would the Good Samaritan. The HHS rules has so many rules that “it protects almost no one, said DiNarto, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee…

Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses are “mentally diseased” and should be avoided just like anybody else with an infectious disease, according to an article in The Watchtower, the official magazine ditributed door-to-door by the church’s members. The article has prompted outcries from a number of lapsed Witnesses as well as several ministries who counsel former members and teach against the…

Saying “God bless you” when a classmate sneezed got an unnamed student a reduced grade at William C. Wood High School in Vacaville, Calif. this week.    Blessing sneezers is particularly annoying to heatlth teacher Steve Cuckovich, who told KTXL News in Sacramento that blessing someone is out of date in a modern classroom. “The…

Cafe owner Jamie Murray says British police have given a partial apology for telling him that his displaying Bible verses on a TV screen was a breach of public order. Police questioned the café owner Tuesday at the peak of the lunch rush, pressuring him to pull the plug on the silent Scripture verses. Now, they…

Full annexation of the occupied West Bank and repudiation of any agreements with the Palestinian Authority are scheduled for an October vote in Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset. The West Bank consists of 3,504 square miles — smaller than Rhode Island — that include portions of ancient Judea and Samaria, including Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho and eastern Jerusalem. As part of the…
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