(The Christian Science Monitor) When 200 British Muslim imams declared that they would refuse to say funeral prayers for the perpetrators of the recent terrorist attack near London Bridge, their statement marked a striking and unprecedented rejection of terrorism.
Grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts do not make the cut, but parents, siblings, half-siblings, and in-laws apparently do.
The Supreme Court partially revived the Trump administration’s travel ban affecting six Muslim-majority countries. But it made clear the ban should not apply to those with “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
Former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey stepped down from an honorary role after a report on child sexual abuse accused the Church of England of collusion under his leadership.
Carey resigned after current archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made the unprecedented decision to ask him to step aside from his post as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, a position often given to retired senior clergy.
Two new studies find that many clergy are both ill-prepared and reluctant to engage in end-of-life conversations with terminally ill congregation members and their families.
The result, both studies suggest, is that more believers may be spending their final days enduring painful treatments with little chance of success in intensive care units rather than receiving comfort care at home.
Oscar Bolioli, 83, a Latin American ecumenical leader, died June 18 in Uruguay after an illness.
He was head of the Methodist Church in Uruguay, serving three terms in different decades. The first was 1975–1979, when the country was ruled by a dictator and many community leaders, including pastors and laypeople, suffered imprisonment, exile, torture, and disappearances. Bolioli helped people in danger to flee the country and distributed aid to relatives of political prisoners, among other human rights work.
(The Christian Science Monitor) The Supreme Court decided to allow President Trump to prohibit entry into the United States of some (but not all) people from the majority-Muslim countries he declares to be dangerous.
What the justices’ 9-0 ruling did not say may indicate volumes about the Supreme Court’s approach to this defining issue of Trump’s early presidency.
The news came to Fahim Aref while he was on pilgrimage in Mecca: a teenage girl in Virginia had been slain walking to services at her mosque during Ramadan.
Like Aref, she had been trying to deepen her observance of the holy Muslim month.
Aref’s umrah (religious pilgrimage) changed. He walked around Mecca’s Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam, not for himself, but for Nabra Hassanen, who was bludgeoned to death on June 18. Many Muslims and others believe she was the victim of a hate crime.
“I was devastated,” said Aref, writing from Saudi Arabia.
Susan Frederick-Gray, 41, an Arizona pastor and immigrant advocate, recently became the first woman elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
She succeeds three copresidents appointed after the resignation of Peter Morales in April amid controversy about diversity in the UUA as criticism mounted over hiring practices.
“It is clear to me that I am not the right person to lead our association as we work together to create the processes and structures that will address our shortcomings,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
Ancient frescoes have been rediscovered inside the 1,600-year-old Catacombs of St. Domitilla in Rome after Italian art experts used laser technology to remove centuries of grit and grime.
The underground cemeteries are considered the most extensive in the Italian capital, drawing thousands of tourists.
The painstaking seven-year restoration, backed by the Vatican, focused on two burial chambers commissioned by successful bakers working in ancient Rome in the fourth century.
The Supreme Court ruled for a Missouri church that claimed religious discrimination after it was refused state funds to improve its playground.
Ruling 7-2, the court determined that the state had unfairly treated Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.