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Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it would agree to some aspects of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war, including releasing hostages and handing over administration of the enclave, but that it would seek negotiations over many of its other terms.

In a copy of the statement seen by Reuters, Hamas issued its response to Trump's 20-point plan after the U.S. president gave the Palestinian militant group until Sunday to accept or reject the proposal. Trump has not said whether the  terms would be subject to negotiation, as Hamas is seeking.

Muvija M, Reuters 10-03-2025
Archbishop of Canterbury-designate Sarah Mullally poses inside Canterbury Cathedral, in Canterbury, Britain, October 3, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The Church of England named Sarah Mullally on Friday as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to hold the 1,400-year-old office, prompting criticism from conservative Anglicans mainly based in Africa who oppose women bishops.

Mullally will also become the ceremonial head of 85 million Anglicans worldwide and, like her predecessors, faces a tough challenge in bridging the divide between conservatives - especially in Africa, where homosexuality is outlawed in some countries - and generally more liberal Christians in the West. 

Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Catechists in St.Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 27, 2025. REUTERS/Francesco Fotia

Pope Leo on Tuesday appeared to offer his strongest criticism yet of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, questioning whether they were in line with the Catholic Church’s pro-life teachings.

“Someone who says I am against abortion, but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,” the pontiff told journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo.

Angela Thompson married a youth pastor when she was 17 under pressure from her Christian evangelical church.Ian Curcio/The 19th. Used with permission

Angela Thompson soaked in the garden tub of her new apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With a freshly cut bob and a lease penned in her name, she reflected on the 30-year marriage she had just left behind. “I put down a deposit, I got the utilities and I furnished the [apartment] off Facebook Marketplace,” she told Uncloseted Media and The 19th

At just 17 years old, Thompson married a youth pastor six years her senior due to pressure from a non-denominational evangelical church she described as “close to a cult.”

“The message from my church was: ‘You find a man, you marry a man, you have his babies, you stay married forever, whether you're happy or not,’” she says. “Look around and pick a man,” they would tell her.  

Tate Young 9-30-2025
Protesters gather outside of the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Ill., after President Donald Trump ordered increased federal law enforcement presence to assist in crime prevention on Sept. 26, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska

In response to ongoing federal threats from President Donald Trump, Chicago faith leaders organized a surge of solidarity to protect the most vulnerable. Alongside a deep pride for their city, some of the organized actions share a critical motif: joy.

Community leaders in Chicago were already alert to the threat that Trump posed to immigrant communities in Chicago when the president began hinting at sending the National Guard into the city to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and cut the crime rate of what he falsely claimed to be the most dangerous city in the world. For some of the faith leaders, it was important that they protest not just the dangerous influx of troops, but also the false narrative surrounding their city.

“We’re called to be constantly rejoicing,” Rev. Juan Pablo Herrera told Sojourners. “It’s a spiritual strength that we can have in times of negativity coming against us, that we can choose to live with joy as a way of defying the forces of principality.”

Tate Young 9-10-2025
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the Family Leader’s 2025 Family Leadership Summit at Iowa Events Center on July 11, 2025, in Des Moines.  

Faith leaders are speaking out against Arkansas’ efforts to expand its options for carrying out the death penalty, calling for the state to address the root causes of violence rather than doubling down on punishment.

“Some will say, if you really do the research, you’ll find a more humane way for us to kill each other. I say, if you really do the research, you’ll find the laws that won’t put us in that position to begin with,” said Rev. Paul Beedle of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Little Rock.

Beedle joined more than 40 faith leaders signing onto a letter urging Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to refrain from authorizing nitrogen gas as an execution method. Seven leaders gathered and spoke at the state’s capitol in Little Rock on Aug. 21, then delivered the letter to the governor’s office themselves.

A person holds up an artwork on the day Pope Leo XIV leads a Holy Mass for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who will become the first millennial to be made a Catholic saint, and Pier Giorgio Frassati, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Matteo Minnella

A teenager who died of leukemia in 2006 became the first Catholic saint of the millennial generation on Sunday, in a Vatican ceremony led by Pope Leo XIV and attended by an estimated 70,000 young worshippers from dozens of countries.

Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who died aged 15, learned computer code to build websites to spread his faith. His story has drawn wide attention from Catholic youth, and he is now at the same level as Mother Teresa and Francis of Assisi.

Leo, the first U.S. pontiff, canonized Acutis on Sunday along with Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian man who was known for helping those in need and died of polio in the 1920s.

Mitchell Atencio 8-28-2025
Faith in Public Life’s logo against an image of a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C, on Dec. 1, 2021. Original photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.

Faith in Public Life, a nonprofit that organizes clergy and faith leaders toward progressive causes, laid off 90% of its staff, CEO Jeanné Lewis confirmed to Sojourners.

Lewis said the decision, which reduced FPL’s staff from 19 to just two on Aug. 1, was both strategic and financial, in response to changes from institutional philanthropy and grant-makers. FPL and its sister organization, Faith in Public Life Action—which Lewis also heads—will scale back programming as a result of the shift.

Law enforcement officers gather outside Annunciation Church following a mass shooting event, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., August 27, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans

Two children were killed and 17 other people were injured on Wednesday after a gunman opened fire on schoolchildren who were attending Mass at a Minneapolis Catholic school, authorities said.

The assailant, wielding a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, fired dozens of rounds through the church windows, officials said. The shooter then took his own life, they said.

Pastor Doug Wilson speaks at the 2024 National Conservatism Conference On July 10th, 2024. Photo by Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Reuters

“In my ideal society, we would vote as households,” a pastor tells CNN. “And I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household.”

Another agrees, saying he’d back an end to a woman’s right to vote: “I would support that, and I’d support it on the basis that the atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.”

The discussion of 19th Amendment rights was part of a news segment focused on Doug Wilson — a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist pastor based in Idaho — that was reposted to X by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The secretary is among Wilson’s supporters, and his involvement with Wilson’s denomination highlights how a fringe conservative evangelical Christian belief system that questions women’s right to vote is gaining more traction in the Republican Party. 

Nick Fulton 8-04-2025
Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr. shakes hands of supporters after speaking to a crowd on stage at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, while announcing he will be running for Detroit mayor.  

For the first time in more than 10 years, Detroit will choose a new mayor without an incumbent on the ballot. Among the candidates are a City Council president, a nonprofit leader, a former police chief, and a reverend.

The Rev. Solomon Kinloch gained early traction as a spiritual leader and community-first candidate. Recent polling shows Kinloch in tight competition for second or third place as Detroit heads into a tightly contested primary on Aug. 5.

Kinloch currently leads Triumph Church, a large, multisite congregation with seven campuses and 40,000 members across the region. He has led Triumph Church since 1998 and has stated he intends to retain his pastoral duties if elected. His long tenure pastoring a large church body is part of Kinloch's appeal to be a credible candidate for public office. But that same tenure raises questions among some potential constituents about his willingness to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ Detroiters.

Olga Urbina carries baby Ares Webster as demonstrators rally on the day the Supreme Court justices hear oral arguments over U.S. President Donald Trump's bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, during a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

The Supreme Court dealt a blow on Friday to the power of federal judges by restricting their ability to grant broad legal relief in cases as the justices acted in a legal fight over President Donald Trump's bid to limit birthright citizenship, ordering lower courts that blocked the policy to reconsider the scope of their orders.

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., July 1, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday backed a bid by an arm of a Catholic diocese in Wisconsin for a religious exemption from the state's unemployment insurance tax in the latest ruling in which the justices took an expansive view of religious rights.

Apr 30, 2025; Washington, DC, USA; Demonstrators rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices hear oral arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond in Washington D.C., on April 30, 2025. At issue in the case is the establishment of the nation's first religious charter school. Mandatory Credit: Josh Morgan-USA TODAY

One of the most awaited Supreme Court rulings of the year ended in a deadlocked decision that led to triumph for supporters of church-state separation in schools. 

Jordan Owens 5-14-2025
Supporters of parental rights in schools demonstrate outside the Supreme Court on April 22, 2025, as justices hear oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor. It raises First Amendment questions about who decides what young children should learn about sensitive matters such as gender identity and sexuality.

As protesters gathered on the front steps of the Supreme Court, the justices inside heard arguments in a Maryland case that could determine whether parents, due to their religious beliefs, have the right to pull their children out of classes that teach about gender and sexuality. 

Pope Leo XIV greets the faithful during an audience with representatives of the media in Nervi Hall at the Vatican Featuring: Pope Leo XIV Where: London, United Kingdom When: 12 May 2025 Credit: Phil Lewis/WENN

Leo’s papacy comes at a time of tension between the Vatican and the Trump administration. A few months before he died, Pope Francis issued a letter to the church’s American bishops condemning the president’s approach to immigration and took direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s attempts to use his Catholic faith to justify the administration’s deportation policies. Pope Leo XIV, then a cardinal, publicly agreed with Pope Francis and posted on social media that “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” 

Here’s what Pope Leo XIV has said over the years on a number of issues.

Isabel Brown, Isabel Brown, a Gen Z influencer who blends Catholic faith with conservative politics, is seen on set of "Candace" on April 19, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Davis/Getty Images)

Until recently, the young women at the forefront of conservative politics were largely evangelical Protestants. They looked like the kind of young women you might see showing their OOTDs on RushTok, marrying a certain Southern-bred feminine aesthetic with a defense of President Donald Trump. These young women aren’t fading into the background during the start of the second Trump administration, but they now have company. Young Catholic women have emerged as instrumental messengers of the MAGA message.

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Rev. Mark Francis, a friend of Prevost since the 1970s, told Reuters the cardinal was a firm supporter of his predecessor's papacy, and especially of the late pontiff's commitment to social justice issues.

"He was always friendly and warm and remained a voice of common sense and practical concerns for the Church's outreach to the poor," said Francis, who attended seminary with Prevost and later knew him when they both lived in Rome in the 2000s.

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV, becoming the first U.S. pontiff.

Erin Drumm 5-05-2025
President Donald Trump, joined by lawmakers and religious leaders, signs an executive order establishing the Commission on Religious Freedom during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 1, 2025. The National Day of Prayer is a congressionally recognized observance that encourages people of all faiths to participate in a day of prayer and reflection. (Photo by Probal Rashid/NurPhoto)NO USE FRANCE

During the first White House National Day of Prayer of his second term, President Donald J. Trump said he is making America “rich, healthy, and religious again.”

Trump’s approval ratings have dropped sharply since he returned to the White House and stand at 42% after his first 100 days in office, according to a poll by NPR. Still, Trump claimed that the spirit of the country shifted positively since Nov. 5, the day he was elected. Trump said his administration was “bringing religion back” to the United States of America.