Religion News Service

One is a Somali immigrant who came to the U.S. at age 12, knowing no English. The other is the eldest daughter of Palestinian immigrants who worked her way through college and law school. Both have a strong chance of serving in the 116th U.S. Congress.

Two days after Pennsylvania officials unveiled  a report detailing accusations that Catholic priests had sexually abused more than 1,000 children since the 1940s and that church officials shielded the abusers, Catholics are expressing dismay.

Aretha Franklin, a singer who began her career with gospel music and was later crowned the "Queen of Soul," died Thursday (Aug. 16) after battling a range of health issues. She was 76.

When forest rangers arrived at Mau Forest Complex in June to evict thousands of illegal settlers, frightened villagers started moving out.

Hundreds of Muslims are trapped on the grounds of a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern city of Bangassou, unable to leave the compound for fear of being attacked by a Christian militia.

Awful, disgusting, horrifying, sickening — one runs out of adjectives in describing the actions of abusive priests chronicled in the just-released Pennsylvania grand jury report.

The government has a duty to allow contractors to be excused from federal anti-discrimination laws if they cite a religious reason for doing so, according to a new directive from the U.S. Department of Labor.

When white supremacist groups announced plans to hold a demonstration in Washington, D.C., to mark the one-year anniversary of the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., many feared a repeat of the violence in 2017.

For thousands of South Sudanese here in the world’s largest refugee camp, the search for healing from recent horrors involves a quest for God.  

United Methodist Church officials in Alabama have dismissed a complaint signed by more than 600 church members in July that chided Attorney General Jeff Sessions for implementing the family separation policy along the border and attempting to justify it with Scripture.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has approved the release of a grand jury's report on sexual abuse of minors in six Catholic dioceses across the state.

Relationships between Russians and American evangelicals extend back more than three decades to Billy Graham’s well-publicized visit to Russia in the mid-1980s. 

Pope Francis has decided to change the catechism of the Catholic Church to make clear the church's opposition to the death penalty. By including it in the catechism, the pope ensures that the church's teaching against capital punishment will spread throughout the church.

Standing beneath the cast aluminum statue of Lady Justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a bold statement last week: "Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack."

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013, is being accused of fostering anti-Semitism after publishing a controversial essay in a German-language theological journal.

A special session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, to be held in February in St. Louis, will decide whether, how and which churches within United Methodism will allow openly gay clergy and same-sex marriage rites, and whether homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching." 

As a scholar of Christian origins and gender theory, I’ve studied the early references to God. Indeed, early Christian writings and texts, all refer to God in feminine terms. Feminist theologian Mary Daly asks, “Why must ‘God’ be a noun? Why not a verb – the most active and dynamic of all.”

Fewer adults are attending religious services in the United States, but not necessarily because they don't believe. Many cite practical or personal reasons for skipping weekly services, according to new Pew Research Center data.

A Bible placed on a memorial table at a Wyoming Air Force base is at the center of an ongoing battle over what constitutes religious liberty and what violates it.

The recent sex abuse scandal involving Cardinal Theodore McCarrick raises once again the question of how the church can punish bad priests and bishops, especially when the state cannot because of the statute of limitations or other reasons.