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Associated Press TORONTO – Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the Dalai Lama to Canada on Monday with the red-carpet treatment, risking the anger of China, which has been critical of western leaders who meet with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. Monday’s meeting is the first time a Canadian prime minister has met with the Dalai Lama…

By Beckie Supiano Religion News Service Two years after Anglicans and Roman Catholics said they had reached a common understanding on the Virgin Mary, there’s still something about Mary that doesn’t quite sit right with some Anglicans. Specifically, some Anglicans remain skittish about Catholic dogmas on the Immaculate Conception (that Jesus’ mother was born free…

Associated Press WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court explored Tuesday whether it could limit the reach of a child pornography law so that it would not apply to legitimate creative expression, vivid adolescent imaginations or innocent e-mails with provocative headings. The court took up a challenge to a provision of a 2003 federal law that sets…

Associated Press Vatican City – Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholic pharmacists on Monday to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing drugs with “immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.” In a speech to participants at the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, Benedict said that conscientious objection was a right that must be…

Associated Press Washington – The Bush administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to bar a Muslim inmate from suing prison officials who allegedly confiscated two copies of his Quran and prayer rug. The inmate should be limited to filing an administrative complaint as thousands of other prisoners do every year for a variety of…

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service A small group of evangelical leaders met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday (Oct. 26) to support a two-state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. The meeting follows a July 27 letter that a larger coalition of evangelical leaders sent to President Bush to “correct…

Associated Press WASHINGTON – Sen. Sam Brownback pronounced himself “much more comfortable” with Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion after the one-time rivals for the Republican presidential nomination discussed the issue Thursday. Giuliani flew to Washington for a meeting he requested with Brownback in the Kansas senator’s Capitol Hill office. Brownback dropped out of the race…

By Shona Crabtree Religion News Service Proud of their liberal views, spiritual skepticism and religious diversity — counting atheists, neo-pagans and Buddhists in their ranks — Unitarian Universalists are not known as heavy-duty evangelizers. But with just 250,000 members nationwide and growth relatively stagnant at 1 percent a year, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is…

Associated Press NEW YORK – A U.S. government attorney urged a judge not to interfere with the decision to block a prominent Muslim scholar from entering the country. But an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer told U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty on Thursday that the government violated the First Amendment rights of the groups…

By Heather Donckels Religion News Service Cindy Cathcart was angry with God and on the brink of divorce and suicide on Oct. 30, 1998, when her nephew dragged her to “Hell House.” Though raised Lutheran, she had repeatedly refused her sister’s invitations to come to church and had no desire for a relationship with God.…

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