Victims of child sexual abuse linked to the Roman Catholic Baltimore Archdiocese will have a third chance to be seen and tell their stories.

On Monday, Judge Michelle Harner ordered a two-hour status conference for Oct. 6 at 1 p.m., meant to raise awareness of and understanding for sexual abuse victims of the Baltimore Archdiocese.

In February...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — A court has dismissed a lawsuit by a former state senator against the Idaho Department of Education that accused the department of infringing on his family’s freedom of religious expression.

Chris Trakel, a former senator from Caldwell who helped advocate for bills that would have allowed families to use taxpayer money for ...Read more

Pope Leo XIV is calling for the release of eight hostages in Haiti, including a 3-year-old boy and a longtime Irish missionary who remain in captivity after being abducted from a mountaintop orphanage by armed gangs in the middle of the night.

“I make a heartfelt appeal to all responsible parties to release the hostages immediately,” the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — For nearly 70 years, a little-known tax code provision has served as a firewall between U.S. politics and its nonprofit sector.

Now, Minnesota nonprofit leaders say that wall is showing cracks — and if it falls, public trust could collapse with it.

At issue is the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law named for then-Sen. Lyndon B. ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The message for the dozens of volunteers who would soon be supporting immigrants at their court hearings was clear.

“We’re not there to obstruct or prevent any arrest,” said the Rev. Hung Nguyen, associate pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Logan Heights. “We’re there to accompany people.”

The orientation ...Read more

MIAMI -- The past two years have been rough for Christopher Saunders.

Saunders, originally from Ohio, moved to North Miami Beach in 2023 seeking a warmer climate to relieve his arthritis. Things were going fine, until costly car and rental bills forced him into chapter 13 bankruptcy. Around the same time, the rent on the 43-year-old’s less-...Read more

MIAMI — After months of requesting permission to hold religious services at Florida’s controversial detention center for migrants in the Everglades, the Archdiocese of Miami finally got an answer.

“I am pleased that our request to provide for the pastoral care of the detainees has been accommodated,” said Archdiocese of Miami Archbishop...Read more

New guidance from President Donald Trump’s administration outlining how federal employees may engage with faith practices in the workplace garnered mixed reactions from religious groups, with some raising concern about the blurring boundary between church and state.

The guidelines, announced by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in a ...Read more

Eleven religious groups are suing the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Trump administration policy reversal ending a decades-long practice protecting houses of worship, schools and hospitals from immigration officials looking to enforce action.

The lawsuit, filed July 28 by Democracy Forward and the Washington Lawyers’ ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Safehouse, the nonprofit aiming to open a supervised drug consumption site in Philadelphia, is legally entitled to argue that it has a religious right to prevent overdoses by operating a facility where people can use drugs under medical supervision.

The decision overturns a previous ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Amid a wave of arrests and apprehensions of undocumented immigrants, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced plans to bolster delivery of hot meals, groceries and prescription medicines to parishioners living in fear of deportation and ongoing enforcement raids.

The archdiocese’s donation-funded Family ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Pérez has released a letter calling for solidarity with immigrants, as ICE increases its enforcement in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

“You are not alone. The Church is a community of faith, and the divine person of Christ, who was forced to flee his homeland as a child, holds you in his ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Joseph O’Connor, pastor of the Sacramento Fijian Seventh-day Adventist Church, doesn’t mind that his congregation meets in a rented space off Arden Way.

On Saturdays, the church is one of many spaces where Sacramento’s Fijian community explores fellowship, food and faith within California’s capital city. Sacramento...Read more

The Internal Revenue Services is reversing a long-standing policy and will now allow religious institutions to endorse political candidates without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status — a move that has divided faith leaders and advocacy groups.

Earlier this month, the IRS sided with the National Religious Broadcasters, an evangelical media ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Rev. John MacArthur, among the country’s most influential evangelical pastors with a prolific media reach — and whose San Fernando Valley megachurch became the face of religious resistance to California’s COVID-19 public health orders — died Monday. He was 86.

MacArthur’s death was announced on the website of Grace...Read more

MIAMI -- Most people who show up to meditation class over what used to be a popular Thai restaurant in Coral Gables are just looking to relieve some stress.

The spiritual part may come later, says Buddhist monk and resident teacher Gen Kelsang Tashi. Or it may not.

Either way, it’s all good here. After all, the mission of the Kadampa ...Read more

A longstanding tax exemption preventing nonprofit organizations from engaging in political campaign activity that favors individual candidates has been reinterpreted — signaling that religious organizations may now be excluded from the rule.

The decades-old Johnson Amendment does not apply to speech by houses of worship to its congregation ...Read more

DOLTON, Ill. -- The village of Dolton, which is where you may find yourself if you’re traveling south through Chicago and run out of Chicago to travel through, which we have heard more about in the past 30 days or so than since it was established 130-odd years ago, which is now best known to the world as the hometown of Pope Leo XIV, is like a...Read more

LAS VEGAS — A megaresort on the Strip agreed to pay a six-figure sum to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Venetian hotel-casino will pay $850,000 and implement “significant policy changes” via a three-year consent decree to settle the suit, the EEOC ...Read more