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WASHINGTON (RNS) More than 40 retired military chaplains warned President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that allowing gays to serve openly in the military will force current chaplains to choose between obeying God or men. “This forced choice must be faced, since orthodox Christianity — which represents a significant percentage of religious belief in…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. government is not doing enough to protect religious freedoms abroad, the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said Thursday (April 29) in its annual report to Congress and the White House. “The problems are above and beyond what we saw last year, and the administration must do more,” said Leonard…

ST. LOUIS (RNS) When the nominations for president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod were tallied and released earlier this month, a collective gasp went up from Lutherans who pay attention to things like presidential nominations. It wasn’t just that nine-year incumbent Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, 67, received 755 nominations, but that the Rev. Matthew Harrison, 48,…

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI may issue a mea culpa for the church’s handling of clerical sexual abuse cases when he attends a meeting of the world’s clergy in June, the Vatican official in charge of handling abuse cases said. Cardinal William Levada also said he intended to hold up the U.S. policy dealing…

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Wednesday that a lower court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote outcropping in California. Signaling support for keeping the cross, the justices ordered the federal court in California to look again at Congress’ plan…

(RNS) What do homosexuality, health care reform, and British advertising standards all have in common? They’re all things that have ticked God off, some religious leaders say, and he’s venting his frustration with the angry fires of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Moscow’s Interfax newswire reported that the Association of (Russian) Orthodox Experts blamed the April 14…

ORLANDO, Fla. — Are people really responsible for all the things they do? Do they have what theologians call God-given “free will” to choose between right and wrong? Those questions are at the heart of a four-year research project underway at Florida State University that aims to determine whether, and how, free will exists. Funded…

WASHINGTON (RNS) Days after evangelist Franklin Graham was disinvited from a Pentagon observance of the National Day of Prayer, a Muslim organization has asked members of Congress to follow suit. Corey Saylor, national legislative director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, questioned Graham’s inclusion in a Capitol Hill event on May 6 because of his…

BEIJING – The Chinese government promised to focus on repairing monasteries damaged in an earthquake in an ethnically Tibetan region of the country, days after monks assisting in relief work were told to leave the disaster area. The death toll from the massive quake that flattened houses rose by nine to more than 2,200, state…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos’ ability to make headlines landed him on many journalists’ short lists as a possible future pope — but lately, those same headlines also show why he was probably never a serious contender. The retired Colombian cardinal has become the most prominent lightning rod for controversy in the Catholic…
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