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NEW YORK, Sep 29, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) — Bernard Madoff, architect of the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, had the opportunity to ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur. Officials at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons would not comment on whether Madoff took advantage of the day, the most sacred in the Jewish Calendar,…

NEW YORK – Organized religion was already in trouble before the fall of 2008. Denominations were stagnating or shrinking, and congregations across faith groups were fretting about their finances. The Great Recession made things worse. It’s further drained the financial resources of many congregations, seminaries and religious day schools. Some congregations have disappeared and schools…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Visiting the Czech Republic 20 years after a Velvet Revolution overthrew the nation’s communist regime, Pope Benedict XVI called on one of the world’s most secular societies to reclaim its Christian heritage as the basis for “true freedom.” “True freedom presupposes the search for truth — for the true good– and hence…

(RNS) In the beginning was the Dude. And the Dude was with God, and the Dude himself was kind of godly, if you’re into that sort of thing. In his right hand the Dude carried a cocktail, and in his left, a bowling ball, and all of his ways were righteous and mellow altogether. And…

(UNDATED) Rabbi Peter Berg plans on reminding his congregants this month that the first question God asks when they reach heaven’s gates is whether they have dealt honestly in business. “The rabbis of the Talmud have always believed there is no question that’s more important,” said Berg, the senior rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta,…

(RNS) Members of Westboro Baptist Church, the anti-gay church that protests military funerals, won a court victory Thursday (Sept. 24) when a federal appeals court overturned a $5 million judgment against them. The father of a Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2006 sued Westboro pastor Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka, Kan.,…

WASHINGTON — Swapping prayer rugs for massive plastic rain tarps, an estimated 3,500 Muslims gathered at the foot of the U.S. Capitol on Friday (Sept. 25) to pray for “the soul of America” in a grassroots demonstration of religious and national pride. The rally, organized by the Dar-Ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, N.J., was billed as…

ELIZABETH, N.J. — Plans to attract thousands of Muslims to Capitol Hill on Friday (Sept. 25) for prayer have drawn anxiety, praise, enthusiasm and criticism, but they’ve also made unlikely allies of the New Jersey mosque where the idea was born and a conservative Christian group. Organizers at the Dar-Ul-Islam mosque would seem to have…

Sep. 24–Religious groups gathered in the North Side and Strip District this morning to protest human rights violations in Asia as the group of 20 economic summit prepared to begin. More than 100 people gathered in the Strip District this morning to demand freedom to practice Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. Their peaceful…

(UNDATED) Alex Marmur wanted to go to synagogue on Yom Kippur, but didn’t want to pay temple membership dues to get tickets. So he turned to Craigslist. “I use it for buying and selling all types of concert tickets,” said Marmur, a 44-year-old business analyst from San Francisco. “So I figured Yom Kippur is not…
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