News
The U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2022 ended its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, on Wednesday agreed to hear a bid by President Joe Biden's administration to preserve broad access to the abortion pill, setting up another major ruling on reproductive rights set to come in a presidential election year.
Christian ministries with child poverty, hunger, and health in their mission are aware that extreme weather exacerbates or causes the crisis they address. Such organizations can’t afford to ignore the worsening climate, said Andrew Leake, a Salta, Argentina-based program design specialist with Compassion International, which uses a sponsorship model to fund anti-poverty and community development work across the world. “We have a program that is designed to release children from poverty through a social process,” Leake said. “That long-term process is now interrupted rather violently by extreme weather and the backdrop of changing climate.”
Through the last decades of the 20th century, evangelical parenting advice from people like James Dobson or Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo emphasized parental authority and children’s obedience. Now that many of the kids who grew up under those rules are parents themselves, they’re determined to raise their own kids differently — even while finding it hard to break inherited patterns.
At a vigil for peace in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday, Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac spoke about the approaching Christmas season in his home of Bethlehem in the West Bank.
“How can we celebrate when we feel this war — this genocide — that is taking place could resume at any moment?” he said.
Hundreds of Catholic institutions around the globe have announced plans to divest their finances of oil, gas, and coal to help fight climate change since Pope Francis published his landmark encyclical on environmental stewardship in 2015 urging a break with fossil fuels.
“Jimmy Carter’s importance to faith and public life was reintroducing into the public square the principles that animated nineteenth-century evangelicals: concern for the poor, racial equality, peacemaking, human rights and equality for women,” Randall Balmer, professor of religion at Dartmouth told Sojourners. “He did so as an avowed and unapologetic Baptist, which means that he respected the First Amendment and the separation of church and state.”
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who President Jimmy Carter called “an extension of myself” owing to his wife’s prominent role in his administration even as she tirelessly promoted the cause of mental health, died on Sunday at age 96, the Carter Center said.
The Vatican on Wednesday signed an agreement with German carmaker Volkswagen to replace the city-state’s entire car fleet with electric vehicles by 2030.
The visit is the first trip by a mainland Chinese bishop since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997 and follows a landmark visit to the Chinese capital by his Hong Kong counterpart in April. For decades mainland Catholics have been split between an official church loyal to Beijing and an underground flock loyal to the Pope and the visit by Bishop Joseph Li will be closely watched given lingering tensions between China and the Vatican.
Transgender people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings, and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop.
Voters approved an amendment to add abortion rights to the state constitution by a wide margin (more than 56 percent voted for the ammendment and 43 percent voted against, with 99 percent of the vote counted according to CBS News), ending a tumultuous year of uncertainty over the future of legal abortion in the state.
Fifty protesters gathered for a “pray-in” in Lafayette Square on Thursday afternoon, holding signs directly facing the White House that said, “Catholics say ceasefire now.”
The Episcopal Church’s executive council voted to form a committee to investigate the church’s involvement with forced adoptions that occurred between the 1940s and ’70s.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers at a recent House hearing vowed to uphold religious freedom — yet disagreed about the biggest threats and whether that work should start at home or abroad.
Over the past two decades, the United States has saved millions of lives by investing $110 billion in the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which aims to end the AIDS crisis by 2030. More than 25 million lives have been saved since PEPFAR launched in 2003, and 5.5 million babies who would have been born with HIV were born virus-free.
When Francine Gurtler gave birth at age 15, she felt like she lost her voice. Gurtler lived at an Episcopal home for unwed mothers and said the workers of the home coerced her into placing her baby for adoption. “They literally took him from my arms,” she said. The adoption record notes she was “tearful,” but Gurtler said, “I was sobbing, hysterically, uncontrollably, on the ground begging the social worker to let me keep my baby.”
Christians around the world called attention to the context of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, especially the Gaza Strip, even as they condemned Hamas’ actions and called for ceasefires and a diplomatic resolution.
“We had a prayer meeting [Monday] morning with dozens and dozens of people from all different traditions, from bishops to people sitting in the pews,” Cannon told Sojourners. “We’ll have another prayer gathering on Wednesday morning. We’re grieving, we’re lamenting, and we’re also working really hard.”
Pope Francis called for an end to attacks and violence in Israel and Gaza on Sunday, saying terrorism and war would not solve any problems, but only bring further suffering and death to innocent people.
Pope Francis on Wednesday appealed to climate change deniers and foot-dragging politicians to have a change of heart, saying they cannot gloss over its human causes or deride scientific facts while the planet “may be nearing the breaking point.”