Religion News Service

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have called the reports by two Texas newspapers of hundreds of sex abuse cases in affiliated churches evidence of "pure evil" and "satanic" behavior within their ranks.

Pope Francis' 2018 trip to Peru included a visit to a biodiverse region, where a Swiss priest has sought to bring global attention to devastation caused by illegal gold mining. But despite the pope's visit, little has changed.

President Donald Trump began his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast by renewing his commitment to the religious conservatives who helped lift him into office.

Every morning when Khadra Abdo wakes up, her mind turns to her children. "My first thought is that I hope they are safe today, and that stays on my mind throughout the whole day," Abdo told Religion News Service.

Hours before post-shutdown conversations began on immigration and border security on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of Christian educators gathering in the nation’s capital this week that she intends to uphold her responsibility to "act upon our beliefs in the dignity and worth of every person."

Signs of the Times: The meeting is not aimed at the American church, which has been working on the sex abuse crisis for decades. The meeting is aimed at bishops around the world who do not understand the crisis and are making the same mistakes that the American bishops made in the past.

An emotional debate over whether Muslim students may wear hijab in Christian schools took a new turn last week Jan. 24 when the Kenyan Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed female students to wear Muslim headscarves to school.

Pakistan's Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by Islamists to overturn the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman previously convicted of blasphemy, freeing her to leave the country and join her daughters in Canada.

Two reports on extremist attacks in the United States document a marked decline in the number of Muslim Americans associated with extremist acts.

Signs of the Times: There is something exciting about living in extraordinary times — times of surprises, special events and even challenges. These are the days when it is easier to get out of bed in the morning. You have something to look forward to.

“The issues of returning recent converts has been of great concern to us. As leaders, we have been talking about it and urging Christian communities to account for all the youth,” said the Rev. Wilybard Lagho, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, which has experienced attack recently. “They can be very dangerous since they are hard to suspect.”

Nathan Philips, a Native American man seen in a viral video of an encounter with a group of Kentucky Catholic school students, says he wants to meet with them and church officials to discuss the incident and turn it into a “teachable moment.”

A Catholic high school in Kentucky is apologizing after videos surfaced of students dressed in the school's garb confronting and mocking a group of Native Americans in Washington, D.C.

Advocates and legal scholars say that for arguably the first time since 1973, undoing Roe isn’t just a dream of anti-abortion activists and the faith-based groups that back them — it’s likely to happen in some form. Less clear is what this possible dismantling will look like, how long it will take and what happens afterward

Signs of the Times: There are five reasons why next month's meeting in Rome, called by Pope Francis to deal with the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, may well be a failure before it even starts.

For nearly 30 years, the Rev. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral was not only a religious landmark, but an architectural wonder and an embodiment of flush times in Southern California's Orange County. Now Crystal Cathedral is almost ready to open as a church again — this time as Christ Cathedral, seat of the Diocese of Orange.

The Northeast province of the Society of Jesus has released the names of 50 men it says have been credibly accused of child sex abuse since 1950.

Analysts argue Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's controversial letters — and the international media firestorm they sparked — are a sign of the National Catholic Register's growing influence alongside its parent organization, the Eternal Word Television Network, which also owns the Catholic News Agency. 

Signs of the Times: Most bishops do not oppose making Catholic clergymen mandatory reporters except when it comes to what a priest hears in the sacrament of confession. 

Signs of the Times: "Grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust" is how former New York Times religion reporter Peter Steinfels describes last August's Pennsylvania grand jury report in its sweeping accusation that Catholic bishops refused to protect children from sexual abuse.