%1

Bryan Massingale accepted the Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice from the Paulist Center on November 13. Mas­sin­gale, a Catholic priest and theological ethicist, was given the award for his work toward justice and inclusion for Black and LGBTQ people in the Catholic Church.

Previous recipients of the award include Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, and Helen Prejean.

In a statement, the Paulist Center said that for more than four decades Massin­gale had “addressed these twin bases of discrimination,” calling him a modern prophet.

Marvin Olasky, the longtime editor in chief of World, a magazine that has long aimed to pair a conservative Chris­tian viewpoint with careful, detailed re­porting, resigned on November 1, effective January 31.

Olasky had hoped to end his tenure, which began in 1994, next summer. Those plans changed after World’s publisher announced the launch of a new online opinion section, overseen by Albert Mohler, a prominent Southern Baptist seminary president known for his conservative commentary.

William Sterling Cary, a pioneering minister and civil rights activist who was the first Black person in prominent church leadership roles, including president of the National Council of Churches, has died, according to family members. He was 94.

Cary died November 14 at his suburban Chicago home following heart failure stemming from a long illness, his daughter Yvonne Cary Carter said.

Like most of his fellow Italians, Mattia Nanetti, 25, from the northern city of Bologna, grew up with the teachings and sacraments of the Catholic Church in parochial school.

But in September 2019 he decided the time had come to leave the church behind. He filled out a form that he had found online, accompanying it with a long letter explaining his reasons, and sent everything to the parish in his hometown.

Canceled worship services. Closed Face­book accounts. Extra security at churches.

That’s some of the fallout from a viral video showing a Hispanic woman being told to leave a United Methodist church that focuses on prison and addiction recovery ministry.

Lucía Giménez still suffers pain in her knees from the years she spent scrubbing floors in the men’s bathroom at the Opus Dei residence in Buenos Aires for hours without pay.

Giménez, now 56, joined the conservative Catholic group in her native Paraguay at the age of 14 with the promise she would get an education. But instead of math or history, she was trained in cooking, cleaning, and other household chores to serve in Opus Dei residences and retirement homes.

A new study from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research provides a look at the state of churches in the wake of the ongoing pandemic.

The study surveyed 2,074 churches from 38 denominations this summer and, according to Scott Thumma, the study’s principal investigator, showed that “the pandemic had a profound impact across the religious spectrum, and that some churches are faring better than others.”

Thumma, in an interview, said he was surprised that a third of the clergy did not say the last year was their most difficult in ministry.

More than half a century after the assassination of Malcolm X, two of his convicted killers were exonerated after decades of doubt about who was responsible for the civil rights icon’s death.

On November 18, Manhattan judge Ellen Biben dismissed the convictions of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers said a renewed investigation found new evidence that the men were not involved with the killing and determined that authorities withheld some of what they knew.

Religions for Peace’s deputy secretary general, Kyo­ichi Sugino, has resigned his position to take on the role of president of Gakurin Seminary, a lay Buddhist training institution in Tokyo. Sugino served in leadership at Religions for Peace for 23 years, becoming deputy secretary general in 2011.

This summer, Donald Ottenhoff, a former Century senior editor, retired from his position as executive director of the Collegeville Insti­tute for Ecumenical and Cultural Re­search. Ottenhoff led the institute, located on the property of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, for 17 years.

Ottenhoff is credited with expanding the institute beyond its original residential scholars program where, beginning in 1968, scholars could come to the campus for either a year or a semester of independent study, prayer, and ecumenical dialogue.