“American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story” — a new feature-length documentary narrated by actor Martin Sheen — premieres in theaters Aug. 25 and 26 in English and Aug. 27 in Spanish. An Oklahoma farm boy who grew up to become a priest, Rother spent 13 years as a missionary to Guatemala. He died in 1981 at age 46 when three masked assassins entered his rectory during that Central American nation’s civil war.
Read MoreBoko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, warps Muslim theology into an extremist ideology in order to attract young men to its ranks. Now, a unique program aims to de-radicalize former fighters through counseling and showing them how to live a peaceful Muslim life.
Read MoreThey’ve survived ISIS, genocides and persecution. Their homeland has been destroyed. Now the Yazidis in Iraq are rallying together to build their own soccer stadium — a symbol of resilience and hope despite their difficult past.
Read MoreOn hills just east of Ramallah is the village of Taybeh. Its population has fallen to 1,200 today, while more than 80% of the town's sons and daughters now live abroad. What sets Taybeh apart from every other village in the West Bank is that all of its residents remain Christian — Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Latin — making it a symbol of a presence that is fading but refusing to disappear.
Read MoreA Florida woman who impersonated the father of a Camp Mystic flood victim to solicit donations through GoFundMe has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to online fraud.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The Vatican’s latest statement on the canonical trial of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik was intended to quash rumors that one of the Catholic Church’s most controversial abuse cases had quietly ended in acquittal. Instead, it highlighted a different issue: The secretive process by which the church’s judicial system operates and whether it’s capable of delivering justice.
Read MoreAmid a civil war, the government army finally reclaimed Emelda Vonve’s home city. She could finally go back to her church. She saw the priest. She saw faces she hadn’t seen since before the war. They prayed together, aloud, as a congregation, as they used to. Outside, 15 police cars were waiting to arrest them.
Read MoreFather Vladimiras Seliavko risked everything when he decided to condemn the Russian war against Ukraine. As a result, his parishioners turned into his enemies, his relatives abandoned him and he was branded a traitor. On the other hand, he said it was impossible to be a priest who blesses war criminals.
Read MorePastor Darryl Baker thought it might be best to cancel the outreach. Days before a scheduled sports camp in a Columbus neighborhood, a husband shot and stabbed multiple times his estranged wife and preteen stepdaughter, murdering them.
Read MoreThe complaint alleges there had been a “conspiracy” among private pro-Israel entities, including the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar USA, and senior Trump administration officials to target and prosecute pro-Palestinian activists. The lawsuit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, former DHS secretary Kristi Noem and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Read MorePastor Greg Locke told his Tennessee congregation that federal authorities are investigating his financial records, after conducting an early morning search of his home and media business several weeks ago.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A new international Community-Based Truth Commission will examine the failure to deliver justice for Yazidis after the genocide of 2014. Scheduled for hearings in Berlin this year, it will hear survivor testimony and propose pathways to accountability, including universal jurisdiction and possible international tribunal mechanisms.
Read MoreA new Pew Research Center study found religious hostilities increased sharply around the world in 2023, driven by harassment of religious minorities and fallout from the Israel-Hamas war. Government restrictions on religion remained near record highs, an issue affecting billions of people across dozens of countries.
Read MoreThe St. Paul city attorney declined to file state charges against protesters who disrupted a Southern Baptist church service in January, citing insufficient evidence. Pastor Jonathan Parnell and legal advocates criticized the decision as a failure to protect religious freedom.
Read MoreEighteen pastors and church workers, including Senior Pastor Ezra Jin, remain in detention. In an interview with The Free Press published May 11, Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, also disclosed previously unreported details of a 2021 incident in which she alleges her father was drugged.
Read More(OPINION) An international investigator will visit Nigeria to assess the religious persecution occurring across the country, and there are so many issues that it’s hard to know where she should begin. Will she detail the mass kidnappings that have occurred regularly over the past decade? The religious and tribal fighting? The terrorist organizations wreaking havoc on the country?
Read MoreGuns to Gardens has been turning unwanted firearms into garden tools and art for over a decade. Since 2013, this faith-based safe disposal movement has destroyed and repurposed an estimated 13,000-plus guns across the country. The guns are clamped to a table, cut apart and transformed into a pick mattock — a hand tool for loosening soil.
Read MoreAfter yet another deadly attack, the focus turns — once again — to protecting houses of worship. The shooting at a San Diego mosque hit close to home for a Jewish engineer more than 1,300 miles away.
Read MoreThe fledgling country has yet to hold its first democratic general election, while the South Sudanese suffer from extreme poverty, ethnic violence, lack of water and more. Local and international faith groups lend a measure of stability, working to meet everyday needs while providing a measure of hope.
Read MoreThirty years ago, a woman was found dead by the side of the road in Arizona. Today, her body has still not been identified. To find out the strange reason why, I spoke to Hannah Feuer, a reporter at Forward.
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