Source: The Washington Post

On January 13, 2001, The Washington Post reported that " John D. Ashcroft, President-elect Bush's pick to be attorney general, told graduates at Bob Jones University in 1999 that America was founded on religious principles and that "we have no king but Jesus," according to a transcript of his remarks released yesterday." The transcript concerns some Ashcroft opponents, who worry about the signals sent when Ashcroft, then a Missouri senator, "proudly accepted" an honorary degree from the university. Ashcroft's supporters...

Source: The New York Times

On January 13, 2001, The New York Times reported that an emerging trend in Catholicism is to reach "out through advertising to men and women who might feel led toward a life of religious service. This is a response to...the continuing decline in the ranks of priests, nuns and brothers. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the number of diocesan priests in the United States declined from 1965 to 2000 by 15 percent, to 30,607, and the number of nuns and brothers by more than...

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

On January 11, 2001, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that "The Rev. Jose Soriano keeps everything he needs to preach the word of God in the back of his van. There's a bag of candles. A box of Bibles and hymnals. A cross, the communion. Even a small pad that he unrolls when his parishioners need to kneel. Every Sunday for the past nine years, he has unloaded the contents of his van into one elementary school gymnasium after another. He and the 90 members of the First Filipino Evangelical Methodist Church have...

Source: The Washington Post

On January 11, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "while many denominations make an effort to win lost souls, the Mormon church is run completely by lay clergy who maintain careers and volunteer enormous amounts of time and resources for the 11-million-member organization. The church has more than 60,000 volunteer missionaries in 162 countries, and the effort seems to be working. Since the Mormon church built its $ 16 million temple on Stoneybrook Drive in Kensington in 1974, Mormon leaders say, membership in area...

Source: New York Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-01-10/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-95252.asp

On January 10, 2001, the New York Daily News reported that "Community Board 7 shot down [The Full Gospel N.Y. Church's] request for approval of a plan to expand, but the city will have the final say." The Church wants to expand to hold up to 1,500 worshippers and construct a large gym, but "citing traffic and other concerns, Board 7...

Source: The Washington Post

On January 8, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "newly installed Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick delivered a message of inclusion yesterday to a congregation jammed with immigrants -- and asked for their prayers as a newcomer himself." McCarrick was the archbishop of Newark for 14 years, where he worked for social justice and especially to welcome immigrants. He is now serving the Archdiocese of Washington, replacing Cardinal James A. Hickey, who had worked for 20 years to support immigrants and the poor...

Source: The Boston Globe

On January 8, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "Catholics, Protestants, and Jews yesterday welcomed a Supreme Court decision upholding the right of Mormons to build a giant temple in Belmont, saying the decision guarantees continued freedom for religious groups in Massachusetts." Many religious groups were watching the case, in which neighbors asked to have the temple bulldozed, arguing that allowing the temple "violated a constitutional prohibition against the government establishment of religion."

"At stake in the...

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On January 8, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "voices in a multitude of languages joined in prayer Sunday for unity and cultural tolerance at the annual observance of National Migration Week at St.Pius V Church." 500 to 600 worshippers heard multiple languages in celebration of National Migration Week, which was "established by the National Council of Catholic Bishops to recognize the contribution every individual and every culture makes to the community." Rev. Mike Lydon, priest at St. Pius, said the...

Source: The New York Times

On January 7, 2001, The New York Times reported that, "after more than three decades of debate, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America inaugurated an alliance...that will allow them to share clergy members, churches and missionary work." Each "church will retain its own structure and worship style," but the contract, "Called to Common Mission," "brings together two denominations that have long been separated by fundamental differences over the role and authority of bishops." The alliance was celebrated...

Source: The Washington Post

On January 7, 2001, The Washington Post reported the conversion of thousands of Latinos nationwide to Islam. Hispanics are "the country's fastest-growing ethnic group," and Islam is "the nation's fastest-growing religion." There are 1 billion Muslims worldwide, and "the Muslim population in the United States is estimated at more than 4 million, nearly six times the number in 1970." The American Muslim Council, an advocacy group in Washington, estimates that 25,000 of these are Hispanic. "The largest communities are in New York...

Source: Star Tribune

On January 7, 2001, the Star Tribune reported on the Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico, which has begun to attract "the devout, and the merely curious" from all over the globe. Sometimes called the American Lourdes, a town in France which is known as a place of healing, this 200-year-old adobe church's dirt is considered sacred because it "was expressly built on land where a crucifix mysteriously appeared nearly 200 years ago." Within lies "a small, shallow pit called 'el posito,' or Little Healing Well." Pilgrims wait in lines for...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 7, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported the celebration of Christmas by thousands of Armenian Christians in southern California on January 6. They "and some other Eastern churches recognize Jan. 6, not Dec. 25, as Christ's birthday." There are an "estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Southern California Armenians," most of whom "welcomed Saturday as a chance to reconnect with their church, culture and motherland." Armenian Christianity has most of the elements of its Western counterpart, but "the traditions are practiced in...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 6, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported on Christian Unity Week, which begins Jan. 18 with a concert in Orange County. "The unity week will feature eight days of prayer and two programs designed to bring together Christian denominations." The Times calls the event "a promising truce in the bitter near-1,000-year family squabble between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches....The Great Schism of 1054 between the Roman Catholic church in the West and the Orthodox church in the East...

Source: The Tampa Tribune

On January 6, 2001, The Tampa Tribune reported that Hillsborough County's proposed 2001-2002 school calendar "includes a day off in September coinciding with the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. The calendar also shows a spring break from March 25 to April 1, 2002, which would span both Easter and Passover." Jewish parents call the proposed changes to the calendar "a step in the right direction." Phyllis Rogoff, a Jewish parent who served on the district's calendar committee, said the changes...

Source: The Denver Post

On January 6, 2001, The Denver Post reported on the increasing observance in the United States of the Christian holiday Epiphany, "which commemorates the visit by the Magi, or wise men, to the newborn Jesus." Also called the Festival of Lights, Epiphany "means appearance or manifestation, and in the Christian view it means the bodily appearance of the divine." Said the Rev. Tom Troeger, "for the first 300 years of Christianity, followers celebrated both Christ's birth and the Epiphany on the same...