Religion News Service

The call from a member of my community came at 11:30 March 15 evening. “The test came back positive. I have the virus.”

When students at Harvard University received an email from the school announcing that students had five days to pack up and move out of their residence halls, anxiety spiked across campus.

The decision to cancel church gatherings was not easy, but it was correct. Religious leaders who don't follow the advice of public health officials are being reckless and immoral by putting their congregants and others at risk.

A couple of weeks ago, Religion Communication Congress executive Shirley Struchen thought plans were set for the once-a-decade conference she had helped organize, just as she had two times before.

The process for composting a body was first introduced by the Seattle-based company Recompose. A dead body is broken down through a process known as Natural Organic Reduction by placing the body in a reusable vessel, covering it with wood chips and aerating it, which creates an environment for microbes and essential bacteria. The body, over a span of about 30 days, is fully transformed into soil.

"Social distancing" sounds un-Christian, but we need to listen to medical experts. As with doctors, the first rule of a Christian at this time is "Do no harm." That means not doing anything that might spread the virus to others.

Every week, thousands of Catholics from all walks of life swarm into St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican to participate in Mass with Pope Francis, who has put concern for the poor at the center of his papacy.

As anti-Muslim violence continues in India, the city of Albany, New York, has become the third U.S. city to pass a resolution denouncing the far-right Indian government's changes to citizenship laws that have drawn international condemnations alleging anti-Muslim bias.

If you look at the candidates for the Democratic nomination, it is hard to find any making an overt or even subtle appeal to Catholic Democrats. It is the dog that didn't bark.

I decided to give up Donald Trump for Lent, the 40-day period from Ash Wednesday (Feb. 26) to Easter Sunday when Catholics traditionally do penance.

In one of my earliest memories, my father is warning me about a famous man, "Remember, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time." I remembered this warning when I heard about the fall of another famous icon, Jean Vanier.

As the star of the play "Tolton: From Slave to Priest," actor Jim Coleman was portraying the life of the Rev. Augustus Tolton, the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest in the United States.

One year after Pope Francis called for a summit of Catholic bishops at the Vatican, abuse survivors flocked to the Eternal City on Feb. 20 to report a lack of progress and accountability in the fight against clergy sex abuse.

Signs of the Times: Netflix's new series about the return of Jesus to contemporary times is good television but bad theology.

Though 500 years have passed since the Protestant Reformation began in the eastern German town of Wittenberg, traditional and conservative Catholics find themselves eyeing the German church with concern once again.

Alana Chen's death has focused attention on how religious institutions handle the question of sexuality in their counseling, especially when the counselor's faith teaches that homosexuality is wrong or sinful. Last year, Colorado banned gay conversion therapy for minors. That ban, however, exempts religious counselors.

India's Citizenship Amendment Act, an initiative of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, fast-tracks citizenship for refugees of all major South Asian faiths from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who have been in India since before 2015 — all faiths, that is, except Muslims.

It was disappointing but not a surprise that Pope Francis decided not to respond to the Amazon synod's recommendation that the Catholic Church ordain mature, married men to make up for the huge shortage of priests in the Amazon region. Francis did not say yes to married priests, but neither did he really say no. Discussion of the matter will continue, whereas previous papacies said no to even discussing the topic. 

Excommunication is the latest step in a long journey by the three companions who, for years, have tried to cut themselves off from the sins of the world, as they see it, so they can live closer to God.

While the newly elected Pope John Paul II stood before Catholic cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on the 16th of October 1978, half a world away in Argentina a middle-aged priest named Jorge Mario Bergoglio was following the election on the radio of his car.