Author: LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31papal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

When Pope Benedict XVI makes his first papal trip to the United States in April, he will be guided by a seasoned Vatican ambassador who sees the visit as an opportunity to introduce a little-known pope to a complex set of audiences: American Catholics, Americans in general and global opinion leaders.

“...

Author: ALESSANDRA RIZZO

Source: ABC News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4553209

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'...

Author: TERRENCE STUTZ

Source: The Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/032908dntexbiblecourse.bb4bbdd.html

Broad guidelines for a Bible course in Texas high schools were approved by the State Board of Education on Friday, but board members delayed action on specific curriculum requirements until the attorney general has ruled whether all school districts...

Author: KAREN VANCE

Source: The Enquirer

http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080328/NEWS0103/803280387

At first glance, Northern Kentucky doesn't appear religiously diverse, with most of the area's non-Christian residents attending worship at synagogues, Hindu temples, Buddhist adherents and other houses of worship on the Ohio side of the river.

But some Northern Kentucky residents want to make...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Yahoo! News

Wire Service: AP

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080327/ap_on_el_pr/obama_muslim_myth_poll

One in 10 voters believes Barack Obama is Muslim, a mistaken impression that lingers across party lines, a poll showed Wednesday.

Fourteen percent of Republicans, 10 percent of Democrats and 8 percent of independents mistakenly think he is Muslim, according to a...

Author: Amanda Beck

Source: Yahoo! News

Wire Service: Reuters

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/us_nm/court_commandments_dc;_ylt=AiexzanuzoGm4rdmiH7Dsm47Xs8F

A nearly 50-year-old monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments does not violate the Constitution just because it sits nearly alone on public grounds in a Washington city, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7313870.stm

A Muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert.

Aref Ali Nayed, the head of Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act.

The Vatican has not yet commented, but its...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The New York Times

Wire Service: AP

Author: Hannah Goff

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7311178.stm

Head teachers should allow imams, rabbis and priests to offer religious instruction to pupils in all state schools, teachers' leaders have said.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the move would be a way to reunite divided communities.

The NUT said parents had a right to have specific schooling in their own faith, if that was what they...

Author: Tom Heneghan

Source: Canwest/The Gazette

Wire Service: Reuters

Author: Michael Foust

Source: Baptist Press

http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=27689

Two days after delivering a much-publicized speech on race, Democrat...

Author: Ashling O’Connor

Source: The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/london_2012/article3599689.ece

The Olympics is meant to promote solidarity – but the 2012 Games has become a question of faith for some in East London as Christianity and Islam vie to become the most visible religion around the 500-acre park.

Muslim leaders have begun a charm offensive with residents in the borough of Newham over...

Author: Paul Eakins

Source: Press Telegram

http://www2.presstelegram.com/news/ci_8666950

Before moving to California in 2004, Elyssa Taylor-Stewart attended the same South Side Chicago church as Barack Obama and listened to the same sermons that since have enveloped the Democratic presidential candidate in controversy.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s criticism of America at Trinity United Church of Christ has shocked and outraged many people....

Author: Staff Writer

Source: AOL News

Wire Service: AP

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/protestants-jews-african-influenced/n20080321141709990003

Although 85 percent of Cubans were nominally Roman Catholic before the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, church experts say fewer than half of Cubans identify themselves as Catholics today, with a very small percentage ever...

Author: Keith O'Brien

Source: The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/21/holiday_or_not_schools_gird_for_absences/

For as long as anyone here can remember, Good Friday, the most solemn of Christian holy days, has been a holiday for public school students, a day set aside for prayer and quiet reflection.

But not today, not in Winchester.

In the quest to create...