RELIGION

A funeral has been held for the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, a week after the renowned Zen master died at the age of 95 in Hue in central Vietnam.

The century-old Mayfield First United Methodist Church has long been an anchor in its Western Kentucky town, home to countless worship services, weddings, funerals and baptisms.

Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls.

Federal prosecutors described Henry “Michael” Williams as being a felon who was not allowed to possess a firearm. He confirmed that he sold the weapon to the synagogue suspect in South Dallas, authorities said.

Pope Francis is urging parents not to condemn their children if they are gay.

Two more people are in custody in connection with the 11-hour hostage situation at a North Texas synagogue earlier this month.

The Vatican is strongly defending Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

Pope Francis is suffering from an inflamed ligament in his right knee that makes walking and going up and down stairs painful.

Andrzej Sitkowski was 15 years old when his mother told him that she had been asked by a neighbor to hide a little Jewish girl from the Nazis at their home during World War II.

Pope Francis has expressed his concern over “rising tensions” in Ukraine that threaten peace, and called for political talks that put at the center "human brotherhood instead of partisan interests."

Attacks on houses of worship like the 2017 Sutherland Springs shooting have prompted many religious groups to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours to bolster security.

The Roman Catholic Church beatified two priests and two lay people who were victims of right-wing death squads during El Salvador’s civil war.

Rabbis, public officials and others made statements of defiance against antisemitism at Sabbath services a week after last weekend's hostage siege at a Texas synagogue.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Zen Buddhist monk who helped spread the practice of mindfulness in the West and socially engaged Buddhism in the East, has died.

Pope Francis has vowed to provide justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse a day after an independent audit faulted his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, for having botched four cases.

A long-awaited report on sexual abuse in Germany’s Munich diocese has faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of cases when he was archbishop in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Knights of Malta, an ancient Catholic order, are warning that the Vatican's proposals for reforming the order risk its internationally recognized status as a soverign state.

Pope Francis has issued a plea on behalf of prison inmates, saying they should never be deprived of hope and always have the opportunity to redeem themselves.

For many Jewish leaders, the hostage standoff in a Texas synagogue was all too familiar.

A White House spokeswoman says an armed British man who took four people hostage during a 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue that ended in his death entered the United States without raising any red flags during multiple checks against law enforcement databases.

The Vatican press office says that Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra have both tested positive for the coronavirus.

A cold case team that combed through evidence for five years in a bid to unravel one of World War II’s enduring mysteries has reached what it calls the “most likely scenario” of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family.

Jewish community leaders in San Antonio are adding security measures in the aftermath of the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation on Saturday. The <a href="https://www.ksat.com/news/national/2022/01/17/texas-rabbi-security-training-paid-off-in-hostage-standoff/" target="_blank">situation</a> ended with the suspect, 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram, dead and four hostages unharmed.

A new effort to preserve historic Black churches in the United States has received a $20 million donation that will go to help congregations.

The tight-knit congregation at a Texas synagogue where four people were held hostage by an armed captor during a 10-hour standoff over the weekend traces its roots back to a gathering organized over 20 years ago by a handful of families who were new to the area.

The rabbi of a Texas synagogue where a gunman took hostages during livestreamed services says he threw a chair at his captor before escaping with two others after an hourslong standoff.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eldest son has condemned the inaction of federal lawmakers on voting rights.

Biltmore United Methodist Church of Asheville, North Carolina, is for sale.

Thousands of miles away from the Tigray war a lawsuit between trustees and clergy over the language of services is tearing apart an Ethiopian church in Ohio.

A Bronx community is paying its final respects to loved ones, a week after a fire filled a high-rise apartment building with thick, suffocating smoke that killed 17 people, including eight children.

A man held people hostage for more than 10 hours at a Texas synagogue where he could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

Police in England say they have arrested two teenagers in their investigation into an armed British national holding four people hostage during a 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue.

A man held people hostage for more than 10 hours at a Texas synagogue where he could be heard ranting in a livestream and demanding the release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan.

Pope Francis has long lamented that he can’t walk around town unnoticed like he used to before becoming pope.

A federal court has again rejected a Louisiana pastor's lawsuit over Gov. John Bel Edwards' past COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings.

Pope Francis grew up listening to the opera on the radio, is a fan of Argentine tango and thinks Mozart “lifts you to God.”.

The Catholic Church in Rome is strongly condemning a funeral procession outside a local church in which the casket was draped in a Nazi flag and mourners gave the fascist salute.

The Serbian Orthodox Church says the Patriarch, Porfirije, has tested positive for COVID-19.

Pope Francis has taken a step to reorganize the Vatican’s powerful doctrine office.

Pope Francis is now speaking about getting the coronavirus vaccination as a “moral obligation.”.

Pope Francis has baptized 16 babies in the Sistine Chapel to resume a decades-old Vatican tradition.

For the first time in years, Víctor Escobar has stopped taking most of the medicines needed for his lung disease.

Orthodox Christians in Russia, Serbia and other countries are observing Christmas amid restrictions aimed at dampening the spread of the coronavirus.

Christians around the world have marked Epiphany with a series of celebrations.

Workers for an Ohio-based missionary organization say an unidentified person made a ransom payment that freed three of their kidnapped colleagues from a Haitian gang in early December.

The Catholic church has been the dominant religious force in Spain for centuries.

The remains of South African archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu have been interred during a private family service at Cape Town's Anglican cathedral.

Pope Francis has used his New Year's Day appearances to encourage people to focus on the good which unites them and to decry violence against women.

Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has been remembered at his funeral for his Nobel Peace Prize-earning role in ending South Africa’s apartheid regime of racial oppression and for championing the rights of LGBTQ people.

A crowd surge at a popular Hindu shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir has killed at least 12 people and injured 15 others on New Year’s Day.

She is one of Californias two elected members of the Republican National Committee, and shes a co-chair of Women for Trump that is part of the presidents reelection campaign. She chaired the city's Republican Party before winning election as vice chair of the state GOP in 2013. The governor's policies and the policies of counties are falling more heavily on Democrats than Republicans because there are more Democrats than Republicans in the state, Dhillon said. Dhillon represented the California Republican Party in a successful challenge last year to a law aimed at requiring Trump to release his tax returns to be on the California ballot. In fact its reinforcing the bad image of the Republican Party," he said of Dhillon's recent lawsuits.

(AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)ATHENS One by one, the children and adults line up for the centuries-old ritual of Holy Communion, trying to keep a proper social distance. Contrary to what science says, the Greek Orthodox Church insists it is impossible for any disease including the coronavirus to be transmitted through Holy Communion. In mid-March, the Russian Orthodox Church released instructions on adjusting the sacrament during the pandemic. In Ethiopia, which has the largest Orthodox Christian flock outside Europe, the ritual is unchanged, as it is in the Georgian Orthodox Church. For scientists, concern is tempered by knowing that opposing the powerful Orthodox Church, with a majority of Greeks as believers, could be counterproductive.

(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)CONSTANTA Stretching the church calendar, Orthodox Easter arrived over a month late in a Romanian city on the shores of the Black Sea. Wanting to give worshippers the opportunity to take part in what is considered to be the most important Christian celebration, Romanian Orthodox Archbishop Teodosie held an unprecedented Easter service Tuesday night that continued into the early hours of Wednesday. The rescheduled event, which was frowned upon by the leaders of Romanias Orthodox Church, the countrys dominant faith, was attended by hundreds of people. Christ is risen.The great majority of worshippers used masks to cover their faces, though Archbishop Teodosie and many of the services other celebrants did not. Some people traveled to the service, held outside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, from as far away as Romanian capital Bucharest, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) to the west.

VATICAN CITY The founder of the Knights of Colombus, the influential U.S.-based lay Catholic organization, is moving a step closer to possible sainthood. Michael McGivney, a Connecticut priest who died at age 38 of pneumonia in 1890 during a pandemic similar to the current coronavirus outbreak. He would be the first U.S. parish priest to be beatified, the first major step before canonization. The organization is also an insurer, boasting more than $100 billion in financial protection for members and their families. No date has been set for the beatification, which the Knights said would be held in Connecticut.

On Monday, the state released a framework that will permit counties to allow in-person worship services. Orange County supervisors may consider a resolution being introduced Tuesday to reopen houses of worship next weekend under federal and state health guidelines. The state guidelines limit gatherings to 25% of building capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower. Our church and places of worship across California have suffered greatly because our leaders chose to marginalize and criminalize faith-based gatherings," Pastor Jon Duncan said in a statement. Two church services that already were held without authorization have been sources of outbreaks; one in Mendocino County and the other in Butte County.

The Trump administration is warning Nevada's Democratic governor that his plan for reopening the state during recovery from the coronavirus fails to treat religious and secular gatherings equally. That phased-in reopening restricts the size of in-person worship services, while allowing restaurants and other secular establishments to reopen with less stringent occupancy restrictions, the federal official said. We are concerned, however, that the flat prohibition against ten or more persons gathering for in-person worship services regardless of whether they maintain social distancing guidelines impermissibly treats religious and nonreligious organizations unequally." Gavin Newsom later released guidelines for resuming in-person religious services in his state. A spokeswoman for Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford referred a request for comment to the governor.

Published: May 25, 2020, 1:53 am Updated: May 25, 2020, 8:02 amIndian Muslims gather for Eid al-Fitr prayers inside their house in New Delhi, India, Monday, May 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)DHAKA Muslims in India and Bangladesh joined prayers to celebrate a subdued Eid-al Fitr on Monday, marking the end of the Ramadan holy month by seeking blessings for a world free from coronavirus. Across India, government leaders and imams appealed to Eid celebrants to follow lockdown norms and maintain social distance. Its been 1,400 years since the Islam religion was founded, ... even our elders could never imagine that we will have to celebrate Eid in such a way, said businessman Shehzad Khan. "That money we have given them so that they too can celebrate Eid with us, Khan said.

FILE - In this April 6, 2020 file photo, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, front, celebrates the Chrism Mass for the faithful of the nation's largest Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles. Others with outbreaks such as Los Angeles County, which has about 60% of Californias roughly 3,800 deaths may choose to delay. Two church services that already were held without authorization have been sources of outbreaks; one in Mendocino County and the other in Butte County. The nonprofit Center for American Liberty, which has filed several lawsuits over church restrictions, said the guidelines dont go far enough. More than 150 employees at a Farmer John meatpacking plant in Vernon, an industrial city south of Los Angeles, contracted the coronavirus.

Andy Beshears temporary ban on mass gatherings from applying to in-person religious services, clearing the way for Sunday church services, with guidelines. They made their plans to hold in-person services three weeks ago. Copeland said Fridays CDC release of religious guidelines made it all the more legit for the timing of their return to in-church services. While many announced they would resume in-person services next Sunday on Pentecost, others joined Stithton today in returning to their places of worship. Many in California had already announced they would violate the state order and hold in-person services next Sunday, on Pentecost.

Organizers hand out treats during a drive through Eid al-Fitr celebration outside a closed mosque in Plano, Texas, Sunday, May 24, 2020. Many Muslims in America are navigating balancing religious and social rituals with concerns over the virus as they look for ways to capture the Eid spirit this weekend. The Eid prayer normally attracts particularly large crowds. The Fiqh Council of North America, a body of Islamic scholars, encouraged Muslims to perform the Eid prayer at home. In Florida, the Islamic Center of Osceola County, Masjid Taqwa held the Eid prayer outdoors in the parking lot after announcing social distancing rules.

WYLIE, Texas The mayor of a Dallas suburb told a fellow City Council member in an email that women shouldnt be allowed to lead prayer at public meetings because he believes it goes against teachings in the Bible. Wylie Mayor Eric Hogue quoted two New Testament scriptures in the email sent to City Council member Jeff Forrester in which he suggested that the council instead select young men to give the invocation at the next meeting on May 26. All I ask is that those leading the public prayer be young men, Hogue, who is currently serving his last term as mayor after 12 years, wrote on May 17. I believe a lady can be CEO of a company, the superintendent of a school district. But I believe, and this is me, when it comes to (picking) somebody to lead the invocation at a City Council meeting, because of those two sets of verses, Im going to choose a male.

We got to get our churches open.The church guidance is coming out hopefully soon, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said Thursday afternoon. More than a month ago, the CDC sent the Trump administration documents the agency had drafted with specific steps different types of organizations could follow as they gradually reopened. The Trump administration initially shelved all the documents, but they were obtained by The Associated Press and other news organizations. But on Thursday, Trump painted a different picture, suggesting he had prodded CDC to put out guidance to help churches reopen. Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said administration officials did have concerns on religious freedom but those were resolved.

Martinez lost both parents to the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit New York's Hispanic population particularly hard. With her parents now gone, Martinez and her daughter dont have family in the U.S. When pandemic restrictions ease, she said she hopes to send the ashes of her parents to the Mexican countryside they loved. The family has been helped by the Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Academy, where Stephany attends third grade. My parents, my grandparents just died,' said Jeanette Felix, the schools administrative assistant.

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)NEW YORK U.S. health officials have quietly released more reopening guidance that was created more than a month ago but initially shelved. More than a month ago, CDC gave White House officials a more detailed version of decision tools and additional pages of guidance. The White House initially shelved all the guidance, though news organizations including The Associated Press obtained copies. Since then, the White House authorized release of some of the information. But the faith-related guidance was taken out after the White House raised concerns about the recommended restrictions.

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)NEW YORK New York will allow religious gatherings of up to 10 people as hospitalization rates continue to decline. More tests and outreach efforts are planned for hard-hit New York City neighborhoods. Coronavirus developments in New York:___RELIGIOUS SERVICESNew York will allow small religious gatherings starting Thursday as the state gradually loosens pandemic restrictions, Gov. Religious gatherings of up to 10 people will be allowed statewide as long as participants wear masks and practice social distancing. ___MORE NEIGHBORHOOD TESTINGCuomo said targeted testing and outreach will be expanded in low-income New York City neighborhoods that have been hotbeds of the outbreak.

ATLANTA Evangelist Ravi Zacharias, who built an international ministry that strives to defend Christianity on intellectual grounds, has died in Georgia. Zacharias died Tuesday at his home in Atlanta after a brief battle with sarcoma, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries said in a statement. Billy Graham invited Zacharias to preach at the inaugural International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists in Amsterdam in 1983, the organization said. The ministry's mission is helping the thinker believe and the believer think," it said in announcing the death of Zacharias. In an emotional video message, professional athlete Tim Tebow asked for prayers for Zacharias' family and ministry.

This combination of photos shows selfies of, Clarence Allen Rainwater and Dawn Burton Rainwater, from left, Robert Onishi and Chris Onishi, Kathryn Ray, Quinten Daulton and Eric Little. As the pandemic has changed the world, it has also revealed surprising traits within ourselves, both dormant and newly discovered. I may not be the smartest person, but I know I have a huge heart and a lot of empathy. Most of them had to use their time much differently than when we had school, Little said. Wright, a clinical psychologist and the APA's senior director for health care innovation, also studies the effects of trauma.

BEIJING China said Tuesday that a boy who disappeared 25 years ago after being picked by the Dalai Lama as Tibetan Buddhisms second-highest figure is now a college graduate with a stable job. He is generally viewed as a political figure under Beijing's control and shares none of the Dalai Lama's global fame. The Dalai Lama named the original Panchen Lama with the help of Tibetan lamas trained in reading portents and signs. Traditionally, the Panchen Lama has served as teacher and aide to the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhisms highest leader who is now 84 and is accused by Beijing of seeking independence for Tibet. The Dalai Lama denies that and says he advocates greater autonomy for the region.

The Sri Lankan couple cancelled a wedding party and instead, shared their wedding day with some of their neediest neighbors who have been economically hit due to the lock down following the new Coronavirus. (Darshana Kumara Wijenarayana via AP)COLOMBO As couples do all over the world, Darshana Kumara Wijenarayana and his fiance, Pawani Rasanga, spent months planning a grand wedding. And everything was on course for the Sri Lankan couple until the coronavirus struck the island nation off India's southern tip, leading to an indefinite lockdown. Then on March 11, the first Sri Lankan a tour guide tested positive for the virus, triggering fear and the closure of schools and universities and many businesses. As the couple's wedding day approached, the local curfew was lifted during daytime hours, so they were free to host the wedding as planned, albeit under strict social distancing guidelines.

FILE - In this 1979 file photo, Pope John Paul II, left, poses with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope on April 19, 2005 and chose Benedict XVI as his papal name. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is honoring St. John Paul II on the centenary of his birth and floating the idea that he should be called the Great, as only two other popes have been. (AP Photo/File)WARSAW St. John Paul II was honored on the centennial of his birth Monday with special Masses at the Vatican and in his native Poland, an anniversary that comes as the Polish church finds itself confronted by new allegations of clerical sex abuse. Celebrating the memory of Saint John Paul II lets remember this: The Lord loves his people, he visited his people, he sent a shepherd.To Poles, John Paul is best remembered for using the papacy to shake the foundations of an oppressive communist system that was toppled across Eastern Europe 11 years into his papacy. And that issue has also been on people's minds in recent days because of a new documentary exposing alleged sex abuse in Poland's church.

Italy partially lifted lockdown restrictions Monday after a two-month coronavirus lockdown. Before I became a priest I was a surgeon, so for me gloves are normal, he joked afterward. The Vatican has its own post-lockdown reopening norms, and as a sovereign state, is not beholden to the Italian government measures. But Wodzisz was thrilled anyway to be able to celebrate the centenary of John Paul's birth by visiting his tomb. We came to be close to the tomb, but we got a Mass!"

He delivered victorious graduation marches and bellowing birthday celebrations, blaring the pipes and vibrating the pews every Sunday in between. He was unassuming, egoless and largely anonymous, but in the lives of generations of Catholics in communities around Massachusetts, Joseph Policelli played the soundtrack. Richard Fitzgerald, pastor of St. Columbkille Parish in Brighton, where Policelli was music director. At St. Columbkilles, Policelli was mostly out of sight in the choir loft, his back to the congregation. But as Christianity's biggest week of the year approached, he fretted one last time about his duty.

In this April 7, 2020, handout photo, Japneet Singh, right, delivers pizza to health care workers at Kings County Hospital in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Now, hes all about pizza. Singh and his family have paid for and delivered hundreds of pies to hospitals, police stations and fire departments since the gurdwara suspended in-person services. In New York, 25-year-old Japneet Singh, a fellow Sikh, also thought of pizza for under-resourced hospitals and overworked, minimum wage employees in the crosshairs of the virus. These are minimum-wage workers, Singh said.

Tibets self-declared government-in-exile marked the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of the boy named as Tibetan Buddhisms second highest figure by calling on China on Sunday, May 17, 2020 to account for his whereabouts. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia, File)BEIJING Tibets self-declared government-in-exile marked the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of a boy named as Tibetan Buddhisms second highest figure by calling on China on Sunday to account for his whereabouts. The dispute mainly focuses on political power and the arcane rituals for naming a new Panchen Lama, believed to be the reincarnation of his predecessor. Traditionally, the Panchen Lama has served as teacher and aide to the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhisms highest leader who is now 84 and accused by Beijing of seeking independence for Tibet. The 10th Panchen Lama was imprisoned by China and died under what some consider suspicious circumstances in 1989 after making speeches calling for greater religious and social freedoms for Tibetans.

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)NEW YORK The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds. Even some who dont affiliate with organized religion, such as Lance Dejesus of Dallastown, Pa., saw a possible bigger message in the virus. Forty-seven percent say they feel that strongly, compared with 37% of Latino and 27% of white Americans. But the virus has prompted negligible change in Americans overall belief in God, with 2% saying they believe in God today, but did not before. Overall, 82% of Americans say they believe in God, and 26% of Americans say their sense of faith or spirituality has grown stronger as a result of the outbreak.

Fabian Arias, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a Lutheran pastor at Saint Peters Church in Manhattan, and has performed funeral services 14 times in the last two months. Saturdays service for Lpez was the first hes been able to perform in a private residence. Were trying to get him to our town, for his mom, his dad, who are still alive in Mexico. Everybody is afraid, not only for ourselves, but for our community and especially Father Fabian and all the services hes doing.Its very dangerous for him. He is an ordained Lutheran pastor, not a Roman Catholic priest and hes a pastor at Saint Peters Church not Iglesia de Sion.

Win McNamee/Getty ImagesJACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A newly proposed bill in Florida would require public school districts across the state to offer Bible study courses as high school electives. The bill, 'Study of the Bible and Religion,' was filed last week by State Rep. Kimberly Daniels, a Democrat who represents the Jacksonville area. Under the bill, schools districts would be required to "offer specified courses relating to religion, Hebrew Scriptures, and the Bible to certain students as elective courses." The courses would include:An objective study of religion An objective study of the Bible, including, but not limited to, a course on the Hebrew Scriptures and Old Testament of the Bible, a course on the New Testament of the Bible, and a course on the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible, and the New Testament of the Bible. The courses would be offered to high school students in grades 9 through 12.

Thursday on the "CBS Evening News," Scott Pelley sits down with five millennial Muslims to discuss what it's like being Muslim in America. One panelist explains why ISIS' actions go against the teachings of Islam.

Robber finds religion, turns himself in A robbery suspect in Louisiana has turned himself in for two crimes after religion turned him around. WAFB's Graham Ulkins reports.