Author: Tom Heneghan

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSL748164520080727

Senior Christian and Muslim scholars and leaders are meeting in the United States this week seeking common ground in their different faiths to foster better understanding between Islam and the West.

Hosted by Yale University Divinity School, the conference is the first public dialogue launched by Muslim intellectuals in the...

Author: Jeremy Page

Source: The Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4402482.ece

Barefoot and wearing a sari, with a bindi on her forehead and a naked baby on her shoulder, the woman in the picture is unmistakably Indian. So is the man behind her, clad in a loincloth and turban.

They could be any poor family in an Indian village, or at one of the country's teeming railway stations. This, however,...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7525860.stm

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has urged Christians who fled the country after the US-led invasion to return home to help rebuild the country.

Speaking after meeting Pope Benedict XVI in Italy, Mr Maliki said he asked the pontiff to encourage Christians to rejoin Iraq's social structure.

Nearly half of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians...

Author: Akor Sylvester

Source: AllAfrica.com/Daily Champion

http://allafrica.com/stories/200807240603.htmlica.com/stories/200807240603.html

African leaders have condemned in totality violence against women, saying it is unreligious and against the law of natural justice.

The leaders also concluded to form a network across national border[s] that would tackle issues, beliefs and traditions that infringe on the...

Author: Maurice Malanes

Source: Ecumenical News International

http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2117

An Indonesian religious leader has told a visiting World Council of Churches delegation that Christians in his country are praying for the US Democratic Party presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

"We are praying for Obama because we feel he can help reduce the widespread stigma and misperception that Muslims in Indonesia are...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7520717.stm

Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of a US polygamist sect, has been indicted on charges of child sexual assault in the state of Texas.

Five of his followers also face charges. Jeffs was convicted last year of being an accomplice to rape and is currently in prison in Arizona.

Author: Edward Pentin

Source: Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147705

The Persian Gulf is not an obvious destination for the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet when Bahrain's King Hamad met with Pope Benedict earlier this month in Rome, he extended a personal invitation to visit. If Benedict takes him up on the offer, he'll become the first pontiff to set foot in Arabia.

What would make that trip so dramatic is the region's reputation for religious...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Institute for War & Peace Reporting

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=bca&s=b&o=345801&apc_state=henh

The state of religious freedoms in both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan remains as poor as ever, with both governments suspicious of Muslim and non-Muslim faith groups alike.

At a White House meeting on July 14 dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the United States’ International Religious Freedom Act, President...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24039586-2702,00.html

Leaders of non-Christian faiths have met Pope Benedict XVI, who hailed the shared moral values of the world's major religions.

About 20 religious leaders from the Jewish, Hindu, Islamic and Buddhist communities gathered to meet the Pope and the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney George Pell in the Chapter Hall...

Author: Paige Kollock

Source: Voice of America News

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-15-voa27.cfm

The neighborhood of Flushing in New York City borough of Queens, just outside Manhattan, has been a model for religious freedom since the 1600s. Back then, members of The Society of Friends, or Quakers, began arriving in what was then a Dutch colony, fleeing religious persecution in England.

The colony's director-general barred the...

Author: Anto Akkara

Source: Ecumenical News International

http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2084

A Christian father in Pakistan is trying without success through the courts to gain custody of his two pre-teen daughters who were kidnapped and made to convert to Islam.

On 12 July, a judge in Pakistan's Punjab province ignored pleas that Saba Younis, aged 12, and her 10 year old sister, Anila Younis, who went missing on 26 June from the...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: One News Now

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Business/Default.aspx?id=178632

Authorities in West Papua, Indonesia, must move fast to prevent tension between Christian and Muslim communities escalating into a Malukan-style conflict, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG). The neighboring Maluku islands erupted into bitter sectarian warfare between 1999 and 2002, leaving thousands dead, injured...

Author: Father John Flynn, LC

Source: Zenit.org

http://www.zenit.org/article-23190?l=english

The small Christian community in Algeria has undergone a rough period in the last few months. Two converts to Christianity were recently convicted of promoting their faith and given suspended sentences and fines, the Associated Press reported July 2.

Rachid Mohammed Seghir and Jammal Dahmani were sentenced for the crime of “distributing documents...

Author: Louise Brown

Source: The Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/living/Religion/article/458352

There is nowhere for Muslims to pray at McGill; the Montreal university shut the prayer room three years ago, arguing religious space has no place on a secular campus.

But at the University of Toronto, Muslims and anyone else who wants to pray between class can choose from among more than eight prayer rooms, including four at the airy new...

Author: Tim Johnson

Source: Burlington Free Press

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080711/NEWS02/807110310/1007/NEWS02

For a tour showcasing "religious pluralism" in the Burlington area, the first stop was appropriate enough: the First Unitarian Universalist Society, which not only embraces a diversity of faiths, but displays their symbols on the walls of its sanctuary....