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VATICAN CITY – The Vatican announced a stunning decision Tuesday to make it easier for Anglicans to convert, reaching out to those who are disaffected by the election of women and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church’s conservative ranks. Pope Benedict XVI approved a new church provision that will allow Anglicans to join the…

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether Guantanamo detainees who are considered no threat can be ordered released in the United States – over the objections of the Obama administration and Congress – if the prisoners have nowhere else to go. The case could further complicate the administration’s plans to close the…

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Two Republican county officials in South Carolina have apologized after they disparaged Jews in a newspaper op-ed in support of a fiscally conservative U.S. senator. The chairmen, Edwin Merwin Jr. and Jim Ulmer, wrote the newspaper in backing Republican Sen. Jim DeMint’s opposition to congressional earmarks. “There is a saying that the…

The family of a Minnesota woman who died more than a week after being overcome in an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony said Sunday that she prided herself on leading a healthy and active life. Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake suffered multiple organ damage and was in a coma before she died Saturday at a…

WILMINGTON, Del. – A bankruptcy filing by the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington was the best way to ensure reconciliation and compensation for all victims of clergy sexual abuse in the diocese, the bishop said Monday. The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Sunday after hours of settlement negotiations failed with about a dozen…

(RNS) Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, will visit New Orleans this week (Oct. 20-24) for a symposium on the environment with scientists, policymakers and religious leaders. Bartholomew, spiritual leader to 275 million Orthodox Christians around the globe, arrives in New Orleans on Tuesday and will deliver the symposium’s keynote…

(RNS) A top Southern Baptist official has apologized to Jews for saying Democrats’ proposals to reform health care are “precisely what the Nazis did.” “It was never my intention to equate the Obama administration’s health care reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust,” Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty…

(RNS) Bruce Sheiman doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in religion. Setting aside the question of whether God exists, it’s clear that the benefits of faith far outweigh its costs, he argues in his new book, “An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It.” “I don’t know…

(RNS) The issue of Playboy magazine that will start hitting newsstands Friday (Oct. 16) bears an image of a semi-nude Marge Simpson, the cartoon matriarch of “The Simpsons.” The ploy is in part a tribute to the Fox Broadcasting Company show, which at 20 years is one of the longest-running television shows in history. No…

(RNS) The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural history will open a new permanent exhibit on to the “discovery and understanding of human origins” next March and convene a panel of experts to bridge the gap between religion and science. With input from more than 50 scientific and educational organizations and 70 distinguished scientists and educators,…

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