Mark A. Kellner

A number of churches are lobbying local, state and federal officials to limit the reach of predatory payday lending operations. In some instances, churches are offering small-dollar loans to members and the community as an alternative.

With the words "religious freedom" becoming ammunition in the ongoing culture wars, Catholic leaders hope a weeklong campaign titled "Serving Others in God's Love" will shift the focus more toward essential human rights and dignity.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine, is withdrawing from the Maine Council of Churches in a bid to distance itself from LGBT advocacy and other stances that the church says could compromise its public moral witness.

Despite the slaughter of nearly a million Jews — as well as hundreds of thousands of Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others — at the World War II Nazi death camp, a survey found that 66 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 "cannot identify what Auschwitz was."