The climb to Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery is deliberate and demanding — 340 stone steps wind up a stark, treeless mountain ridge in the Qalamun region. But complete the journey, and you’ll find a community of Muslims and Christians committed to interfaith dialogue and healing their nation.
Read MoreFor many years, Uganda’s churches and affiliated NGOs depended heavily on international financing from the U.S., U.K. and European Union to run feeding programs, support clergy families and build schools and hospitals. Until last year, USAID was a major conduit for American support.
Read MoreA Hindu businessman was attacked by a mob in Bangladesh’s Shariatpur district on Dec. 31. He was beaten with sharp weapons, doused in petrol and set on fire. This was the third such attack in a month — part of a larger pattern of violence against religious minorities since the fall of the previous government.
Read MorePope Leo XIV urged respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty and human rights on Sunday, saying he had been following events of the last two days with deep concern after the U.S. ousted dictator Nicolas Maduro. The pope called for peace and justice, while Venezuelan bishops expressed solidarity with victims and prayed for national unity.
Read MoreAs President Nicolás Maduro is being transferred to New York to stand trial for drug trafficking and terrorism crimes, after having been captured early this morning by U.S. forces on the orders of President Donald Trump, a series of calls to prayer have been issued by evangelical leaders and church organizations in response to the situation the country is experiencing.
Read MoreMientras el presidente Nicolás Maduro es trasladado a Nueva York para enfrentar un juicio por delitos de narcotráfico y terrorismo, tras haber sido capturado en horas de la madrugada por fuerzas estadounidenses por orden del presidente Donald Trump, una serie de llamados a la oración han sido emitidos por líderes evangélicos y organizaciones eclesiales ante la situación que vive el país.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With 2025 now behind us, it was a year filled with significant developments in religion, faith and spirituality — and 2026 is likely to be just as eventful. Here are five key religion-related issues and trends to watch for over the next 12 months in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Read More(ANALYSIS) For members of the Religion News Association, this was the kind of dramatic appeal that made the Chicago native the top Religion Newsmaker of 2025. The runner-up was Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who was elected as New York City's first Muslim mayor. The assassinated evangelical activist Charlie Kirk placed third.
Read MoreThe Dec. 25 attack may have been more a shot across the bow, according to a PBS interview with J. Peter Pham, the U.S. special envoy to the Sahel region during the first Trump administration. The places hit by U.S. military, he said, were not where the genocide against Christians is taking place.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The U.S. airstrikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria on Christmas Day represents an escalation in an insurgency that their military has struggled to contain for more than a decade. The political and strategic significance is hard to miss: Washington appears willing to take a more direct role in a conflict once treated largely as a regional problem.
Read MoreNear the border with Mozambique lies Mount Darwin, a rural community 125 miles north of the capital Harare. The countryside doesn’t have much besides agriculture, but it is known as home to one of the famous hospitals in the country. Karanda Mission Hospital, operated by the Evangelical Church of Zimbabwe, has emerged as a beacon of hope.
Read More(ANALYSIS) What are called "hate" laws frequently violate freedom of speech, of the press and of religion. They also tend to be vague and, hence, their scope expands and governments use them to punish views that they simply do not like.
Read MoreHong Kong was tense and festive when I arrived for a small 1997 conference about religion coverage in global media. The reason for the odd atmosphere was obvious: In a few days, on July 1, Great Britain would yield control of that great city to the People’s Republic of China.
Read More(ANALYSIS) There are moments in our national life when a legal controversy reveals something deeper than a dispute over statutes or precedent. It exposes a fracture in our shared moral imagination — a failure to recognize what is sacred to communities whose ways of life do not mirror our own. The struggle for Oak Flat in Arizona's Tonto National Forest is one of those moments.
Read MoreActivists advocating for the repatriation of artifacts “stolen by Pope Pius XI and his missionaries” from First Nations communities are unhappy by Pope Leo XIV labeling of these items as a “gift” despite his agreement to return them. The Holy See said the pope “gifted to the CCCB the 62 artifacts belonging to the ethnological collections of the Vatican Museums” as “an act of ecclesial sharing.”
Read MoreDespite cannabis's central role in Rastafarian worship, adherents face persistent criminalization and face a minimum 10-year prison term for simple possession. Police raids on tabernacles remain routine across Kenya, with officers confiscating plants, destroying drums and sometimes forcibly cutting dreadlocks. Now, adherents are trying to legalize it.
Read More(ANALYSIS) These films give us hints as to potential “whys” behind rising Western antisemitism. When you look at the lessons the historical dramas teach, and the movies made about their legacy today, you see deep tensions. These tensions suggest that some of the popular secular lessons our culture has derived from the Holocaust are also planting the seeds of its rejection.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Until the 1960s, Quebec was the most religious part of North America. Now it is home to an aggressive secularist government that, on Nov. 27, introduced a proposed law, Bill 9, that would outlaw public prayer. For several centuries, religious minorities faced discrimination and, until the 1960s, Jehovah's Witnesses were still being arrested for their refusal to salute the flag.
Read MoreThe Rev. Emmanuel Bekomson, the parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Calabar, Nigeria, became concerned about how members of his parish with different disabilities were being engaged in church activities. He became even more unsettled and burdened when he discovered that some members did not attend Mass.
Read More(ANALYSIS) In Laos, Christian burials are barred from cemeteries, churches have to find improvised worship spaces, and Christians are often pressured to engage in activities that go against their religion. And with neighboring China’s new influence, it may get even worse.
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