Source: The Morning Call

On June 25, 2001, the Allentown Morning Call reported that "Bethlehem police stopped by [Tea Javashvili's] party...after receiving reports that partygoers were slaughtering sheep, a violation within city limits." Javashvili's Orthodox Catholic family had immigrated from Georgia, the former Soviet republic. They said the lamb they were using "was dead when they bought it from a local butcher, and they were cutting it up in their back yard as part of a religious practice."

Source: The Washington Post

On June 24, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "concerned about the loss of traditionally Catholic Latinos to Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal churches that energetically proselytize for new members, more Catholics have decided to respond in kind...About 200 Catholic Latinos from local parishes...fanned out in heavily Latino neighborhoods of Northwest Washington ...in an evangelization effort sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington...In the Washington archdiocese,...170,000 of the 510,000 Catholics are of Hispanic...

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On June 23, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Southside Bosnian Services Collaborative in St. Louis, which is an organization formed last year to help Bosnians in the region. It is composed of representatives from 40 organizations, including south St. Louis churches, Christian faith-based social agencies, medical clinics and hospitals. Several churches are trying to make Bosnian immigrants in the region feel more welcome.

Source: Newsday

On June 23, 2001, Newsday reported that many Catholics have begun practicing Zen, a Buddhist form of meditation. One of them explained that "practicing meditation doesn't mean you have to give up your Catholic faith. I find it helps me to bring more to...my Catholic exercises." Another said "he believes Zen is becoming more popular because the world 'is shifting away from the dogmatic religion and moving toward a meditative type of spirituality.'"

Source: The Boston Globe

On June 23, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on Ukraine, "an extraordinarily tense spot on the map of world religion, where three branches of Orthodoxy and two branches of Catholocism vie with one another, with Protestant missionaries, and with the legacy of 70 years of state-enforced atheism. 'Ukraine is ground zero of Orthodox-Catholic tension in the late 20th and early 21st century, and the tension has spilled onto the international scene,' said one member of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. "From the vantage point of...

Source: Religion...

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On June 22, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "a former Contra Costa County social worker sued the county for $1 million..., alleging he was demoted and verbally harassed for being a Muslim and for being black."

Source: Rocky Mountain News

On June 22, 2001, the Rocky Mountain News reported that "Denver U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel refused the ACLU's request that he order the Ten Commandments removed immediately" from Grand Junction City Hall. Daniel said he is bound by an earlier ruling that said that a display of the Ten Commandments in Salt Lake City was "'primarily secular, and not religious in character.'...Grand Junction will immediately order granite to surround the Ten Commandments with five new monuments depicting documents important in British and U.S...

Source: Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week443/pluralism.html

On June 22, 2001 Religion and Ethics Newsweekly reported, "R. Scott Hanson wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago on 'City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, New York.' He is a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University. Flushing, Queens is the most religiously and ethnically diverse...

Source: The Washington Post

On June 21, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "four churches in Hyattsville that were once all-white have morphed into a polyglot of faith and racial togetherness[, as] Prince George's County has changed from a predominantly white county to one that is predominantly black...At First United Methodist Church...[an] African American pastor booms out sermons to pews filled with blacks, whites, Hispanics and immigrants from 38 nations. At the Redeemer Lutheran Church...the son of German immigrants... [preaches to] congregants...

Source: The Kansas City Star

On June 21, 2001, The Kansas City Star reported that "the leader of the National Conference for Community and Justice called on churches and synagogues to quash racism, bigotry and bias" at the organization's regional conference in Kansas City...He said faith-based groups in America have gotten away from fighting social ills such as racism because they have gotten too caught up with other issues."

Source: The Morning Call

On June 20, 2001, The Morning Call reported that "young Mexican men eager to earn American dollars have found a home in a town whose history is closely linked with coal mining, not farming," Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. "Beginning in 1989, in large part due to the Catholic church, migrants began renting inexpensive houses once occupied by coal miners and working the farms in Schuylkill and nearby Columbia counties...The Allentown Catholic Diocese administers to their religious needs. Almost all are Catholic."

Source: The New York Times

On June 19, 2001, The New York Times reported that "it is in the United States that the consciousness of being part of a single Hispanic world -- absent in Latin America -- has been emerging as varied Hispanic peoples experience identical conflicts with American culture...Such conflicts are essentially religious." Hispanics share similar values, which can follow the Republican or Democratic policies, depending on whether these policies "have their origin in Catholic social thought."

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On June 19, 2001, The Houston Chronicle reported that "a year after striking down student-led prayers before high school football games in Santa Fe, the U.S. Supreme Court...let stand a lower court's ruling [in Alabama] allowing such prayers." Having previously ruled that the student-led prayers violated the separation between church and state, "the justices did not explain why they chose to pass on hearing the [Alabama] case...Lawyers for the American Center for Law and Justice...hailed the action as a 'critical victory for...

Source: The Boston Globe

On June 18, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on the arrival of Brooklyn-born Hasidic Jews and immigrants from Russia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Nigeria and Mexico to Postville, Iowa. "At first, the Iowans smiled stretched out their hands. But over time, they resented what they saw as the newcomers' unfriendly ways...[Some] say Postville, which has become a real-life model of diversity, immigration, and demographic shifts, proves Iowa is not [psychologically and socially] ready for a mass immigration...Of all the newcomers...the Hasidic Jews...