%1

Pope visits Egypt and joins imams, Coptic church in calling for rejection of violence

Pope Francis used the political capital he has built up with the Islamic world to issue a powerful condemnation of religion-inspired violence, calling on Muslim leaders to unite against terrorist acts.

Francis made his remarks April 28 at an international peace conference held at Al-Azhar, a tenth-century mosque and university in Cairo that is a globally influential center of Sunni Muslim learning. The pontiff’s speech opened a two-day trip that came less than three weeks after Palm Sunday attacks on two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt that left 45 dead and scores injured.

Baylor University appoints first woman president

Linda A. Livingstone has been named president of Baylor University, beginning June 1. She will be the first woman to to head the Christian institution in Waco, Texas, founded by Baptists.

Livingstone is currently dean of the school of business at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Among her previous positions, she taught at Baylor as part of the business faculty from 1991 to 2002.

U.S. commission: Russia among worst violators of religious freedom

The State Department should add Russia to its list of the worst violators of religious freedom, a U.S. commission declared in its annual report.

The U.S. Commission on Inter­national Religious Freedom, founded to advise the federal government, cites the most abusive countries each year, a list consistently longer than the State Department’s.

USCIRF recommended that the United States designate Russia as a “country of particular concern” for wielding an antiextremist law to violate the religious freedom of Muslims and other minorities.