From the International Herald Tribune: 

When Pope Benedict XVI addresses the United Nations today, he will be the only truly global figure in the assembly. His church has a presence in every nation, yet it transcends them all and owes loyalty to none. His flock numbers more than a billion and grows by 28,000 every day.

Fifty years ago, nobody would have thought the papacy would wield influence like this today.

 

From the Star Tribune: 

But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students' religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.

TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.

From The Lutheran Witness April, 2008:

Sometimes we discover the most striking information in our own backyards.

At a conference last fall, Dana Spry, a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Appleton, Minn., heard that, on average, half the people in rural communities across the country are unchurched. So he tested the information. Spry contacted all the churches in Appleton, a community of 2,800 about 150 miles west of Minneapolis, and tabulated their worship attendance. He discovered that only a third of Appleton’s residents attended church on any given Sunday.

“There is an age-old attitude that this is Minnesota, where everybody goes to church,” says Trinity’s pastor, Rev. Tim Renstrom. “The truth is different than that: The truth is that at least half the people we see have no church connection.”

From Haaretz:

Criminal case 482/04, the State of Israel v. Oded Golan and others, lays out the details of one of the biggest forgery scandals ever in the history of archaeology. According to the indictment, those miseld by Golan, a well-known Tel Aviv antiquities collector, included renowned experts who were ready to confirm the authenticity of the many and controversial findings he supposedly discovered, such as the Jehoash Tablet inscription and an ossuary that supposedly held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus.

 From the Chicago Tribune:

Should reporters, like the rest of the public, have full and unfettered access to houses of worship? Or is there a time when churches should guard their gates to protect their flocks?

At a news conference Thursday, Trinity's leaders laid down the law for reporters who want to cover the church in the future. Permission must be granted on Thursday for reporters to attend Sunday worship services. All media must check in, wear a badge at all times and refrain from interviewing members on church property.

Melissa Jones is a Christian. Patricia Gorham isn't affiliated with any particular religion. But both women have the same concern about Seattle Public Schools arranging for their children to hear the Dalai Lama speak Monday.

Would the pope, they wondered, be received as warmly and without question?

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Spotted by SasyMomaCat at MSN, by way of the AP:

An elementary-school event in which kids were encouraged to dress as members of the opposite gender drew the ire of a Christian radio group, whose angry broadcast prompted outraged calls to the district office.

Students at Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg [WI] had been dressing in costume all last week as part of an annual school tradition called Wacky Week. On Friday, students were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex.

A local resident informed the Voice of Christian Youth America on Friday. The Milwaukee-based radio network responded by interrupting its morning programming for a special broadcast that aired on nine radio stations throughout Wisconsin. The broadcast criticized the dress-up day and accused the district of promoting alternative lifestyles.

From The News Herald:

Paula Holmes said she was worshipping in her Fairport Harbor church Easter Sunday morning when police entered the church doors.

Police came to the door during services saying the music was too loud," said Holmes, a Painesville resident. "It hurt my heart; I felt the dagger."

A Saudi blogger has made a short video featuring Bible texts allegedly calling for war and Christian extremists preaching violence, in response to an anti-Koran film by a Dutch lawmaker that has sparked angry street protests across the Muslim world.

From Inside Catholic:

What would our unmarked pontiff observe upon entering St. Pat's in Everytown, dipping his finger in the font, and taking an inconspicuous seat a few rows up from the cry room? Many good things, make no mistake. Faithful families doing their duty; worthy priests "saying the black and doing the red"; pockets and patches where earnest and unpretentious shepherds lead well-formed sheep in the universal prayers of the Church.

Naturally, in other places there'd be travesties of a flamboyant variety: garish innovations, petulantly illicit formulas and postures, purposeful smudging of lay and clerical roles, and all the well-documented rest of it.

But one phenomenon I'd especially like him to see, after rejoicing in the good and setting the dogs upon the egregiously bad, is not so notable, but more common -- and maybe even more dangerous than any clown Mass. I call it eusebephobia: the curious and pathological fear of being (or appearing) too reverent.