Religion News Service

From hashtagged travel photos posted on Instagram to immersive apps, a number of digital pilgrimages are making spiritual journeys possible for the faithful and the curious alike, even as they stay home.

With issues of access and technical ability among some congregants, and a pandemic that has closed their church doors and scattered congregations, African Americans have been scrambling to sustain crucial connections to their houses of worship.

Signs of the Times: Many believe that "normal" is just around the corner, this summer or at least next fall. The truth is that we will not get back to normal until the American population is protected from the virus by a vaccine.

In 2014, the Rev. Anna Woofenden moved to Los Angeles to try a bold experiment: to reenvision church as an outdoor community centered on a garden. As a church, the community would grow food, prepare it and eat it together, and share it with the neighborhood.

One year after the Cathedral of Notre Dame was nearly destroyed by a fire, its future remains uncertain. Prominent voices in France continue to argue about what should happen to the medieval gothic structure once its complex reconstruction is completed.

A conservative law firm launched a "ReOpen Church Sunday" initiative this week, calling on churches to begin gathering in person again despite reports of the deadly novel coronavirus being spread during worship services.

When you think about the mechanics of Sunday Eucharist, it's difficult to imagine a system better designed to spread contagion.

Meditation and mindfulness apps like Calm and Headspace have boomed in the last decade, part of the trend of the year that Apple noted in 2018: self-care apps, particularly those focused on mental health.

Across the country, black clergy say the coronavirus is touching — and sometimes taking — the faithful who until a month ago were accustomed to meeting weekly in their pews. Some are mourning losses in the highest echelons of their denomination. Others are counting the dead, sick and unemployed.

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center archives Mexican American life before, during and after the Chicano Movement.

The wages of all essential workers should be immediately raised to at least $15 an hour, with government subsidies to businesses that need them.

In response to the coronavirus, 22 Trappist monks living in New Melleray Abbey in eastern Iowa, about 13 miles from Dubuque, decided to offer pine caskets to financially strapped families with members who have died from Covid-19.

Lawmakers, religious leaders and health experts across the U.S. are wrestling with the question: Does religious freedom mean the freedom to risk infecting your fellow believers — not to mention neighbors — with a deadly virus?

Has President Donald Trump put the lives of his supporters at risk because of his early downplaying of the coronavirus epidemic?

A federal judge has ordered a new environmental review for the Dakota Access Pipeline in what the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is celebrating as a “significant legal win.”

In China, efforts to control the spread of the virus in February caused carbon emissions to fall 25% — an estimated 200 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than half the amount emitted by Britain annually.

If there ever was a time for people of all nations to join forces to work together for the common good, it is now. Until the virus is under control everywhere in the world, no one is safe.

The mass transition of houses of worship to Zoom and other online video conferencing platforms has meant that religious services are more accessible than ever before. Unfortunately for digital congregants, that means they are also more accessible to online trolls who have plenty of free time to disrupt their services with obscene or hateful interruptions.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights leader who worked closely with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and prayed at President Barack Obama's first inauguration, died on March 27. Lowery was 98.

As Christian churches cancel in-person services to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, many have embraced "virtual" Communion: Some celebrate via livestream; others encourage parishioners to bring their own bread to videoconference meetings.