Posts in News
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Questions Archbishop's Decision Regarding Communion Ban

In an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned whether San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was applying a double standard by banning her from receiving Holy Communion because she supports abortion rights but not supporters of the death penalty.

Read More
Religious Press Suffers Major Blow With Planned Shuttering Of CNS, Catholic New York

The Catholic press — print, online and television — is one of the most active and vibrant in the United States, but the changing journalism landscape — spurred on by the internet — has made it tough for even religious media to thrive. This trend manifested itself recently with the pending closures of two highly venerated and popular Catholic news organizations: Catholic News Service and Catholic New York.

Read More
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Banned From Receiving Communion Over Abortion Support

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week that she is not eligible to receive Holy Communion when attending Mass in the Archdiocese of San Francisco given her support for abortion rights. Cordileone notified Pelosi of his decision on May 19 and announced it to the public in two separate letters.

Read More
One Week Later, Buffalo Shooting Sparks A Familiar Refrain With Few Solutions

The fatal mass shooting inside of a New York grocery store has shaken the faith of national political leaders by echoing a tragic and familiar refrain across the country — another mass shooting that appears motivated by race and hate.

Read More
Buffalo Church Members Help Save Lives During Grocery Store Shooting

Ten people died — including a relative of one church member, Patrick Patterson — in a supermarket massacre in Buffalo, New York. Patterson is a manager at the store and helped people escape during the shooting, which authorities have said was a hate crime targeting the Black community.

Read More
Hindus In Kashmir Are Protesting A Man's Death, Demanding Security From Militants

Protests by Kashmiri Hindus, also known as Kashmiri Pandits, have continued daily since the killing of Kashmiri Hindu Rahul Bhat on May 12 by, police allege, militants fighting against the Indian rule in Kashmir. Hundreds of Pandit government employees with families are protesting and demanding security.

Read More
Lessons From The Hall Of Men On The Kansas Plains

Kansas’ Hall of Men has meetings offering beer, cigars, an open bar, some kind of “guy food” and lots of chatter around a giant wooden table. But then there are the evening prayers, icons, Bible readings and lectures about authors whose portraits hang on the walls — C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, W.H. Auden, Dorothy Sayers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, J.R.R. Tolkien and many others.

Read More
At A Popular Evangelical Tourist Site, The Ark Encounter, The Image Of A ‘Wrathful God’ Appeals To Millions

(ANALYSIS) The Ark Encounter boasts a re-creation of the story of Noah’s Ark from the Bible. But what is particularly striking about Ark Encounter is that it is a tourist site devoted to emphasizing — with great specificity — the wrathful nature of God and the eternal damnation that awaits unrepentant sinners.

Read More
Love For Many Wrong Reasons: Three Years After The Cathedral’s Fire, A Look Back At Victor Hugo’s Passion For Notre Dame

(ANALYSIS) “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and its popularization in films and cartoons have greatly shaped our perceptions of the famous cathedral and the story of Quasimodo and Notre Dame is one of many stories that have become part of our collective worldview. For that reason alone, how and why Victor Hugo portrayed the cathedral are worth a close look.

Read More
Urban Ministry Conference Discusses Pros And Cons Of Federal And State Funding

At the National Urban Ministry Conference’s first in-person meeting since 2020, COVID-19, new ministry initiatives and resources — including the use of government grants — dominated the discussion. Accepting government funding can be a boon to faith-based organizations but places stipulations on religious activities and evangelism.

Read More
Russian Religious Communities Opposed to Ukraine War Face Pressure And Censorship

State censorship and control of religious communities increased following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Lutheran Archbishop Dietrich Brauer, who has left Russia, said that, at the start of the war, President Putin's administration made “a clear demand” of religious leaders to speak out in favor of the invasion.

Read More
Mission Berlin: The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints And Its Nearly 170 Years In Germany’s Capital City

A tireless desire to share their message with the people of Berlin — and Germany as a whole — has helped the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ mission in Berlin persevere over the years, up to the present day.

Read More
Trio that Defrauded Churches With Bogus Building Loans Sentenced to Years in Prison

Last week, the last of the three criminals confessed to conspiring to defraud churches as part of a scheme they cooked up back in 2013. The news was announced by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which charged the three men in 2019.

Read More
Vatican Expresses ‘Concern’ Over Cardinal Zen Arrest For Ties To Pro-Democracy Fund

The humanitarian activist and religious freedom fighter Cardinal Zen, who had previously served as bishop of Hong Kong from 2002 to 2009, was detained, along with four others, in connection with his role as administrator of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which supported pro-democracy demonstrations by paying for the legal and medical fees of protesters.

Read More
Theoretical Physicist Dr. Frank Wilczek Receives 2022 Templeton Prize

In an interview with ReligionUnplugged.com, theoretical physicist and Templeton Prize winner Dr. Frank Wilczek said he was raised in New York City by parents with Italian and Polish backgrounds who wanted him educated in the Catholic tradition: “As a child, I took it very, very seriously and I think it had a residual influence in my later life in helping me to think big and look for the hidden meaning of things.”

Read More
Senate Hearing Examines Political Role Of Tax-Exempt Organizations

Politicians from both parties benefit from the abuse of the tax code, but they differ over who’s responsible, claiming that those on the other side are guilty of the greatest abuse. But they agree on one thing: Abuse has skyrocketed since 2010 and the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision.

Read More
Lawsuit Accuses Liberty University Of Inadequately Addressing Rape Complaint

A Washington, D.C.-area law firm has filed a complaint in a Virginia district court alleging Liberty University failed to properly investigate a student’s report that she was raped by another student and retaliated against her after she made the report.

Read More