Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Beliefnet News

PARIS, Oct 27, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) — The Church of Scientology Tuesday was convicted of fraud and six of its members ordered to pay as much as $595,000 each, prosecutors in France said. The two plaintiffs in the trial testified the church and its members defrauded them through the use of a so-called electropsychometer,…

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Monday came out strongly against efforts by Islamic nations to bar the defamation of religions, saying the moves would restrict free speech. “Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom…

Prospective jurors lined up in a cold rain Monday outside a municipal building that will serve as a makeshift courthouse for the first of a dozen polygamist sect members charged with abuse of underage girls. Raymond Jessop, 38, is set to stand trial Monday, 18 months after agents raided the group’s remote ranch in West…

The Vatican said talks held Monday with a group of breakaway traditionalist Catholics were cordial and will continue over the coming months. The Vatican issued a statement at the end of an inaugural meeting between Vatican officials and a delegation from the Society of St. Pius X, which split from Rome following the modernizing reforms…

DHARMSALA, India – The Dalai Lama is going ahead with a scheduled visit to India’s remote northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh next month, ignoring protests by China, which claims the region as its territory, a spokesman said Thursday. The Tibetan spiritual leader will visit the Tawang Buddhist monastery in the state bordering China on Nov.…

(RNS) Religious institutions may be waning in the U.S, but private religious practices like prayer are actually on the rise, a new University of Chicago report reveals. While weekly attendees of religious services dropped from 32 to 26 percent of the population between 1983 and 2006, people praying daily rose from 54 to 59 percent…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) An international meeting of Catholic bishops called on Africa’s political leaders to be “saints” who “clean the continent of corruption.” The unusually strong language came in the official message of the Vatican’s Synod for Africa, which was released on Friday (Oct. 23), the day before the meeting’s concluding session. “We tried to…

(RNS) Religious leaders are urging their colleagues and politicians to keep comparisons to Nazism and the Holocaust out out of American public policy debates. The Interfaith Alliance responded to a recent onslaught of references to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, particularly as an analogy to the current discussion on health care reform. “There is no…

NAIROBI (RNS/ENI) An Anglican bishop in Uganda has rejected proposals that gays and lesbians should face the death penalty for sexual assault in some cases, but says prison terms should remain as a deterrent to homosexuality. “We want to state categorically that homosexuality is unacceptable,” Anglican Bishop Stanley Ntagali of Masindi-Kitara diocese said in an…

(RNS) The Department of Homeland Security has amended its uniform and grooming policies after a Sikh man lost his job for wearing a turban and refusing to shave. Federal standards had required security guards to be clean-shaven and to wear a specified uniform and hat, two things that conflict with Sikh requirements to wear a…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners