Religion touches nearly every corner of public life — from courtrooms in Australia to city halls in New York to podcasts examining faith, democracy, and technology. Religion News Service has gathered a wide-ranging set of stories and conversations that reflect how religious questions are shaping news across the globe this week.
Posts published in “Christianity”
A place of prayer became a scene of shock and grief when an Ohio Hindu temple was vandalized, leaving worshippers shaken and searching for answers. The incident has drawn renewed attention to the safety of religious minority communities across the United States.
Religion touches nearly every corner of American public life — from the Vatican's evolving stance on family to armed Jewish worshippers in the United States, from immigrant detainees on hunger strike to a Catholic archbishop taking the Trump administration to court.
Religion and public life are colliding on multiple fronts this week, from a historic legal battle between a Catholic archbishop and the federal government to fresh debates about Jewish security, papal priorities, and the fate of a prominent divinity school.
Three years after the Hamas attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, American Jewish communities are wrestling with a deeply personal question: how far should they go to protect their houses of worship? For a growing number of synagogues, the answer now includes armed congregants standing guard during prayer services.
The 2026 midterms are not a normal election. There's a risk of attempts to disrupt results. Faith groups urge action.
I'm at a loss for words about Palestine. Since Oct 7, 2023, over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, and despair looms.
When families make decisions about when to have children, access to reproductive healthcare — including abortion and contraception — sits at the center of those choices. A new legal confrontation at the nation's highest court could reshape how those decisions are made, and which states get to make the rules.
When Pope Leo XIV knelt in prayer at one of the world's most famous shrines to the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France, on September 26, 2026, he then rose and presented a golden rose to Our Lady of Lourdes — a gesture that stretches back nearly a thousand years. That single ornate gift carries within it the entire arc of how the Catholic Church has exercised, negotiated, and ultimately reimagined its authority across ten centuries.
When a major religious denomination formally declares that breaking the law can be a sacred act, it marks a rare and consequential moment in American religious life. The Unitarian Universalist Association has done exactly that, releasing what it describes as a historic statement affirming faithful dissent, noncompliance, and civil disobedience as legitimate expressions of religious practice.