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TAIPEI, Taiwan – China on Thursday denounced Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s decision to allow the Dalai Lama to visit the self-ruled island, casting a shadow over rapidly improving relations between Taipei and Beijing. However, Beijing appeared to stop short of deliberately undermining Ma’s stature and jeopardizing the budding ties across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-) wide Taiwan…

The outgoing general secretary of the World Council of Churches said Wednesday (Aug. 26) that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories should be declared a “sin against God”. “Occupation, along with the concomitant humiliation of a whole people for over six decades, constitutes not just economic and political crimes but, like anti-Semitism, it is a sin…

A Kentucky court has ruled that a state law that declares the state Office of Homeland Security cannot do its job without God’s help is unconstitutional. The New Jersey-based group American Atheists filed suit last December against the Commonwealth of Kentucky for a 2002 law that says “the safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot…

WASHINGTON (RNS) Conservative Christian groups on Wednesday (Aug. 26) ramped up opposition to health care reform, saying the current system “has problems” but “it is working.” Members of the newly formed Freedom Federation, comprised of some of the largest conservative religious groups in the country, say they oppose taxpayer-supported abortion, rationed health care for the…

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – A Muslim woman on Wednesday sued a Michigan judge for telling her to remove her headscarf in his courtroom, claiming he violated her First Amendment right to practice her religion. Raneen Albaghdady, 32, says she felt humiliated when Wayne County Circuit Judge William Callahan ordered her to remove her hijab at a…

(RNS) Two years after Pope Benedict XVI eased restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass, more than six in 10 American Catholics have no opinion on the return of the traditional liturgy, according to a new survey. In 2007, Benedict told priests to work with local parishioners when there is a “stable group” interested in the…

(UNDATED) Talk about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In Quentin Tarantino’s blood-soaked new film “Inglourious Basterds,” Brad Pitt and his merry band of Jewish soldiers bash Nazi soldiers’ heads with a baseball bat and collect their scalps in a bid to avenge their people and stop the Holocaust. At…

(RNS) Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein will face trial Sept. 7 for wearing trousers in violation of government decency statutes derived from Sharia law. If convicted, she faces 40 lashes and a fine. But it’s the Sudanese government, not Hussein, who wants the trial to go away. “This is a turning point. We have a woman…

WASHINGTON — Two Florida school officials will be in court next month to answer charges that they violated a court order when they prayed in public after a school secretary was cleared on similar charges. The case, which defense attorneys say is an unprecedented display of government intrusion into the right of personal religious expression,…

Aug. 24–HACIENDA HEIGHTS — Thousands of people visited the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights over the weekend to offer prayers for departed loved ones and ancestors. The observance is part of an ancient Buddhist tradition known as Ullambana. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar — which this year runs from mid-August to mid-September…
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