The Columbian

Churches & Religion

FILE - Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo of East Timor, sings along with participants at the National Catholic Gathering for Jubilee Justice held on the UCLA Campus in Los Angeles, on July 17, 1999. Belo has been accused in a Dutch magazine article of sexually abusing boys in East Timor in the 1990s, rocking the Catholic Church in the impoverished nation and forcing officials at the Vatican and his religious order to scramble to provide answers.

Vatican sanctioned Nobel laureate after Timor accusations

September 29, 2022, 8:06am Churches & Religion

The Vatican said Thursday that it imposed disciplinary sanctions on Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in the past two years, following allegations that he sexually abused boys in East Timor during the 1990s. Read story

The angel Moroni statue atop the Salt Lake Temple is silhouetted against a cloud-covered sky at Temple Square in Salt Lake City in 2013. The Latter-day Saints have announced plans to build multiple temples in the U.S. — including one in Vancouver.

Churches defend clergy loophole in child sex abuse reporting

September 28, 2022, 9:14am Churches & Religion

It was a frigid Sunday evening at the Catholic Newman Center in Salt Lake City when the priest warned parishioners who had gathered after Mass that their right to private confessions was in jeopardy. Read story

The Rev. Canon Dr. Mark Gatza, rector for Emmanuel Episcopal Church, talks about details in the glass as he explains the stories depicted in them during a tour of the church on Sept.

After yearslong effort, church installs last stained-glass window

September 24, 2022, 6:04am Churches & Religion

Bel Air, Maryland’s Emmanuel Church has installed its 26th and final stained-glass window, a project that began early in the last century. Read story

Ryan White, front, and Darold Madigan harvest wild rice on Leech Lake in Minnesota, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. White, who has been ricing for three decades, says the beds are "continually shrinking," which endangers the wild rice's spiritual and economic gifts.

Minnesota Ojibwe harvest sacred wild rice

September 24, 2022, 6:04am Churches & Religion

Seated low in her canoe sliding through a rice bed on this vast lake, Kendra Haugen used one wooden stick to bend the stalks and another to knock the rice off, so gently the stalks sprung right back up. Read story

FILE - A cross and Bible sculpture stand outside the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., May 24, 2022. On Tuesday, Sept.

Southern Baptists cut ties with LGBTQ-friendly church

September 21, 2022, 10:23am Churches & Religion

The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted to cut ties with two congregations on Tuesday — an LGBTQ-friendly church in North Carolina that had itself quit the denomination decades ago and a New Jersey congregation it cited for “alleged discriminatory behavior.” Read story

Students walk on the campus of Seattle Pacific University in Seattle on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. A group of students, faculty and staff at the Christian university have sued leaders of the board of trustees for refusing to scrap an employment policy barring people in same-sex relationships from full-time jobs at SPU.

Faculty, students sue Christian school over LGBTQ hiring ban

September 12, 2022, 12:14pm Churches & Religion

Divisions over LGBTQ-related policies have flared recently at several religious colleges in the United States. On Monday, there was a dramatic new turn at one of the most rancorous battlegrounds – Seattle Pacific University. Read story

Zameer Batta, 52, a local businessman of Indian origin, said he does not agree with how India treats its Muslim citizens. He hopes that marriages between Hindus and Muslims can bring communities together. Batta and his 80-years-old father Anwar Batta have lunch at a restaurant in Little India on Pioneer Boulevard on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022, in Artesia, California.

Hindu nationalism in India ratchets up tensions among immigrants in the US

September 11, 2022, 6:02am Churches & Religion

In a park in Anaheim last month, hundreds gathered to celebrate Indian Independence Day. Read story

Dan Sideris and his wife, Carrie Sideris, of Newton, Mass., walk along a sidewalk Sept. 1 as they return to door-to-door visits as Jehovah's Witnesses in Boston.

Jehovah’s Witnesses return to knocking on doors in U.S.

September 10, 2022, 6:05am Churches & Religion

Jehovah’s Witnesses have restarted their door-to-door ministry after more than two and a half years on hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, reviving a religious practice that the faith considers crucial and cherished. Read story

Visitors stand in 2009 outside the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, R.I., the oldest existing Jewish house of worship in the United States. (Eric J.

Oldest synagogue worshipers to stay

September 3, 2022, 6:00am Churches & Religion

The Rhode Island congregants who worship at the nation’s oldest synagogue won’t be evicted, as a judge ruled in their favor Monday. But the yearslong legal dispute over the historic building appears far from over. Read story