The Christian Century

c. 2013 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Friday (March 29) dismissed criticism of Pope Francis' decision to wash the feet of two women during a Maundy Thursday Mass at a Rome youth prison.

After two years of civil war, the Syrian refugee crisis is reaching a boiling point. The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Syrians are displaced within Syria and that another million have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt according to Daryl Byler, a Middle Eastern representative of the Mennonite Central Committee.

Gordon Cosby, the founder of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., and a pioneering Christian activist whose ministry foreshadowed both the missional and emergent church movements, died March 20 at 95.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio has reversed his longtime opposition to same-sex marriage after reconsidering the issue because his 21-year-old son, Will, is gay.

Portman, 57, said his son, a junior at Yale University, told his wife, Jane, and him that he’s gay, and “it was not a choice, it was who he is and that he had been that way since he could remember.”

By ADELLE M. BANKS

c. 2013 Religion News Service

(RNS) When some people recently started questioning whether the Satan character on "The Bible" miniseries resembled President Obama, others posed a broader question: Why does Satan need to be dark-skinned at all?

c. 2013 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis on Thursday (March 28) washed the feet of 12 young inmates, including two girls and two Muslims, during a Maundy Thursday Mass at a youth detention center in Rome.

c. 2013 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) Isn't it remarkable, attorney Ted Olson said after arguing for same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 26), that the other side wasn't really arguing against it?