Churches & Religion

People line up to pay their respect to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI lying out in state inside St. Peter's Basilica at The Vatican, Monday, Jan. 2, 2023. Benedict XVI, the German theologian who will be remembered as the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died, the Vatican announced Saturday. He was 95.

More than 60,000 view Benedict XVI’s body at Vatican

January 2, 2023, 10:45am Churches & Religion

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 's body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter's Basilica on Monday as tens of thousands queued to pay tribute to the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring a decade ago. Read story

FILE - Bremerton assistant football coach Joe Kennedy, obscured at center in blue, is surrounded by Centralia High School football players as they kneel and pray with him on the field after their game against Bremerton on Oct. 16, 2015, in Bremerton, Wash. After losing his coaching job for refusing to stop kneeling in prayer with players and spectators on the field immediately after football games, Kennedy will take his arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, April 25, 2022, saying the Bremerton School District violated his First Amendment rights by refusing to let him continue praying at midfield after games. (Meegan M.

Praying coach set to return to Bremerton school after SCOTUS win

January 2, 2023, 8:02am Churches & Religion

Bremerton High School’s 2022 football season came and went without Coach Joe Kennedy, six years after the assistant coach lost his job after praying on the field after games. Read story

FILE - Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, center, attends a Commemoration Ceremony in Schenley Park, in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021, three years after a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Shapiro will be taking office as Pennsylvania's next governor in January 2023 after running a campaign in which he spoke early and often about his Jewish religious heritage. (AP Photo/Gene J.

New Pa. governor touts Jewish faith

December 31, 2022, 6:02am Churches & Religion

Josh Shapiro will be taking office as Pennsylvania’s next governor in January after running a campaign in which he spoke early and often about his Jewish religious heritage. Read story

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, third from left, meets with the winners of the 2022 Ratzinger Prize, Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler, left, and father Michel Fedou, partially hidden at right, at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican where Benedict XVI lives, in this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022. Second from left, is the foundation's president Father Federico Lombardi, and fourth from left is Benedict XVI's long-time personal secretary Bishop Georg G?nswein.

Vatican: Benedict in stable condition, participated in Mass

December 30, 2022, 8:07am Churches & Religion

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was in stable condition Friday after experiencing a health decline and was able to participate in a private Mass in his room, the Vatican said, as the faithful in Rome prepared to honor “this last stretch of his pilgrimage.” Read story

FILE - Pope Francis, right, hugs Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI prior to the start of a meeting with elderly faithful in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. Pope Francis on Wednesday, Dec.

Vatican: Benedict XVI lucid, stable, but condition ‘serious’

December 29, 2022, 7:59am Churches & Religion Free

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is lucid, conscious and stable but his condition remains serious, the Vatican said Thursday, a day after it revealed that the 95-year-old’s health had deteriorated recently. Read story

Vermont lawmaker to seek to close clergy reporting exemption

The head of the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee says he’s going to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session to close an exemption to the state's child abuse and neglect reporting laws for members of the clergy. Read story

Identity is complex for Lebanon’s Christian Palestinian camp

Amira Mansour, center, dances as Samir Damouni playing the Oud during community Christmas dinner for elderly residents at the only majority-Christian Palestinian refugee camp, in Dbayeh, north of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 Mideast war over Israel's creation. Today, several million Palestinian refugees and their descendants are scattered across Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as well as the West Bank and Gaza, lands Israel captured in 1967.

Tucked away in the hills north of Beirut below a Maronite monastery, Lebanon’s only remaining Christian-majority Palestinian camp gives few outward clues to its identity. Unlike the country’s other Palestinian refugee camps, there are no flags or political slogans on display in Dbayeh camp. Read story

Pope warns Vatican staff an ‘elegant demon’ lurks among them

Pope Francis looks at a nativity scene as he leaves after his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022.

Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith. Read story