Author: Allison Goodman

Source: The Miami Herald

https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/search/#query=...

Author: Editor Choice

Source: PR-CANADA

Author: Staff Writer

Source: WFTV

http://www.wftv.com/news/16688136/detail.html

From the outside it looks like any other house, but it's what's going on inside that's causing a huge controversy in Waterford Lakes. People inside have been holding religious animal rituals and neighbors say it's gone too far.

Because it's considered a religious act, sheriff deputies say they can't do anything about the issue. Now the homeowner's association is...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: ABC

Wire Service: AP

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8138532

A Santeria priest who lost a federal suit alleging Euless's ban on animal slaughter encroached on his religious rights is appealing the case.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an appeal Tuesday on behalf of Jose Merced to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Merced is an Oba, or...

Author: MARC LACEY

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/world/americas/05beauvoir.html?scp=20&sq=religion&st=nyt

THE goat tethered to a tree outside Max Beauvoir’s home is doomed.

Mr. Beauvoir, tall and majestic with closely cropped white hair, is a voodoo priest who was just named the religion’s supreme master, a newly created position that is aimed at reviving...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: AOL News

Wire Service: AP

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/protestants-jews-african-influenced/n20080321141709990003

Although 85 percent of Cubans were nominally Roman Catholic before the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, church experts say fewer than half of Cubans identify themselves as Catholics today, with a very small percentage ever...

Author: David Olson

Source: The Press-Enterprise

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_nigerian14.4260d79.html

Chief Fama chanted as she stood on a straw mat in a bamboo-walled room behind her home near San Bernardino.

The priestess sprinkled water in a white ceramic pot containing a single sacred kola nut and then prayed to God for peace, longevity, protection and good health. Her husband...

Author: JORGE RUEDA

Source: The Providence Journal

Wire Service: AP

[projo.com/religion/content/LB_Santeria_02-09-08_1E8TQN5_v8.21a1f49.html]

The man says he is possessed by a god. He shouts, his body trembles and he lifts a sacrificed lamb to his lips, drinking its blood from the jugular.

This initiation ceremony, seldom witnessed by outsiders, has become increasingly common in Venezuela, as the Afro-Cuban traditions of Santeria and other folk religions...

Author: Michael Grabell

Source: The Dallas Morning Star

[dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/011908dnmetsanteria.36ae749e.html]

A Santeria priest who sued Euless for the right to sacrifice goats in his home lost a key round in court Thursday when a judge ruled that one of the laws he sued under doesn't apply. Jose Merced filed the federal discrimination lawsuit in December 2006 after city officials told him he couldn't kill goats for a ceremony.

Followers of the African-...

Author: Gary Nelson

Source: CBS4

[cbs4.com/local/animal.sacrifice.vodoo.2.633345.html]

Scholars, priests and spiritual leaders gathered in South Florida on Friday, seeking an understanding of African culture and religion in the mainstream.

The aim is to achieve mainstream acceptance of practices that some might view as extreme.

Voodoo rituals, spells and ritual sacrifice are the stuff movies are made of, but at Florida International University, it was the topic of academia. It was the...

Author: Jennifer Bordelon

Source: www.kristv.com

Author: Madison Park

Source: The Baltimore Sun

[baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.kwanzaa.31dec31,0,3256398.story]

Baltimore museums held Kwanzaa celebrations yesterday with craft activities, musical performances and art tours on the fifth day of the holiday.

Visitors packed into the Baltimore Museum of Art for an annual Kwanzaa family day, a tradition of more than 10 years. Families crammed into an auditorium to watch a performance by an African-American dance ensemble, Kulu...

Author: ERIKA BERAS

Source: The Miami Herald

[miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/360425.html]

Those who came to Oba Ernesto Pichardo's fall semester course at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay campus expecting chicken heads, seashells and drum circles probably left disappointed.

The controversial, charismatic and enterprising Pichardo, a Yoruba priest and the country's leading expert on Santeria, spent hours talking about the transatlantic slave trade, paraded in cultural...

Source: United Press International

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/11/30/santeria_principal_agrees_to_leave/3649/

NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A New York school principal has admitted using city funds to pay for a Santeria ritual at the school.

Source: News Tribune

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/religion/story/211741.html

A Norwich man’s religious belief was not enough to convince a judge to reduce his jail time for marijuana possession.

Vernon Smith, 43, is a Rastafarian who believes his use of pot is a God-given right. He had pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of marijuana with intent to sell after police found him with more than 20 pounds of the drug in July.

In...