Source: The Kansas City Star

On September 13, 2001, The Kansas City Star reported that "Kansas Citians of many races and religions are reaching out to area Muslims, offering support in response to backlashes that began after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." Following a series of threats reported by local media, the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City has since received phone calls from people who wish to apologize for the intolerance of others and to offer their support. Many of these callers were from area churches. The article...

Source: Reuters

September 13, 2001, Reuters. Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, announced that President Bush had declared Friday, September 14 as a day of prayer and remembrance. "Fleischer said Bush planned to attend a prayer service in Washington Friday and to urge U.S. citizens to take time out of their day to attend services at churches, synagogues and mosques 'to pray for our nation, to pray for the families of those who were victimized by this act of terrorism.'"

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

On September 13, 2001, The Christian Science Monitor reported on the acts of goodness that have followed the terrorist attacks. "From the terror comes humanity. Thousands of New Yorkers line up to give blood. A Presbyterian church hands out cups of cold water to parched walkers stranded in the city. Medical students volunteer their services at hospitals. The largest Jewish temple in New York asks a Christian minister and a Muslim holy man to participate in Rosh Hashana, part of the Jewish High Holidays, to show that...

Source: The Baltimore Sun

On September 12, 2001, The Baltimore Sun reported, "As the shock and horror of yesterday's terrorist attacks began to sink in, churches, synagogues and mosques opened their doors for formal services, shared petition and quiet meditation." The article also made note of an interfaith service with Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Columbia, Maryland. "Under the Star of David, Islam's crescent moon and other symbols of world religions, about 85 people prayed for the victims, their families - and for those responsible for the attacks. 'I...

Source: USA TODAY

On September 12, 2001, USA Today reported "People of every faith, and none, brought their pain, fear and helpless sadness to churches, synagogues and mosques. And clergy reached out with comfort -- and cautions." The article explained that, although the Muslim community had joined other religious groups in condemning the attack and helping the victims, "They also warned their own believers to keep a low profile. In the first few days after the attack...Muslims reported more than 200 incidents of harassment, threats and actual violence....

Source: The Boston Globe

On Sunday August 26, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that the annual festival in Boston's North End honoring St. Anthony of Padua drew thousands of Italian-Americans. At the center of the festival "stood a shrine to one of the most revered and holy saints in Catholicism: the life-size statue of St. Anthony and the 'blessed relics,' believed to be fragments of the 800-year-old remains of the saint himself...[that] made the trip from Padua, Italy...Event organizers estimated that more than 50,000 people-most of Italian decent-attended...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 25, 2001 The Boston Globe reported that Tom Green of Utah, "a man with five wives and 30 children, was sentenced...to five years in prison...Polygamy is an open secret in Utah and elsewhere in the West, where there are an estimated 30,000 people practicing plural marriage." Green took the stand and "made it clear he has no regrets." He was sentenced "to five years on each charge he faced - four bigamy charges and one for failing to support his family. The sentences will run concurrently...He is still awaiting trial on...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 23, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "a state legislator apologized...for forwarding to fellow lawmakers an email that said, 'Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity.' Representative Don Davis, a white Republican...said he didn't consider the letter racist...'Whose brand of Christianity is this? It's not mine,' [state Senator William Martin, a black Democrat] wrote. Representative Ron Sutton, an American Indian, said he had no use for such sentiments in the Statehouse."

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 20, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "over four decades as an itinerant archivist with a passion for preservation, a Mormon convert to Buddhism named E. Gene Smith has amassed a rare collection of the endangered Tibetan Buddhist canon: some original writings of Buddha, early commentaries by Indian Buddhists, and the writings of Tibetan Buddhist sages over the last 12 centuries. 'This is the best library of Tibetan works in the country,'" according to the soon-to-be chair of Buddhist studies at Harvard University...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 16, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on the nation's largest Roman Catholic cathedral, which is about to be completed in Los Angeles. "Because of its grandeur and ambitions, the cathedral...has become a growing symbol of pride and disdain." The cathedral is meant for the "nation's largest archdiocese, with about 5 million Catholics of many backgrounds, with Mass celebrated in 38 languages on any Sunday." Cardinal Roger M. Mahony addressed those who criticized him for spending so much money on the building in an...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 14, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "a local organization of Catholic women [Massachusetts Women-Church] has rented signs atop 20 Boston taxicabs demanding that the Vatican allow women to be ordained as priests...In other cities, activists have rented billboards, and one woman disrupted a bishops' meeting in Washington...The church has cited the fact that Jesus did not have female apostles as a justification [for not ordaining women], and Pope John Paul II has said the matter is not open for debate."

Source: International Society for Krishna Consciousness

http ://w ww.iskcon.net/boston

On August 14, 2001, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness reported that "the Boston Theological Institute's Dialog Program convened a panel on religious conversion at the Harvard Divinity School. Christopher Queen...of the Harvard Extension School...discussed his journey from Methodism to Buddhism...Premananda dasa spoke of his journey from Christianity to atheism to Vaishnavism...The organizers were so...

Source: The Boston Globe

On August 14, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America opted... not to overturn a ban on homosexual clergy members, deciding instead to undertake its first major study on whether to endorse the morality of homosexual relationships... A coalition of five pro-gay Lutheran caucuses and the activist group Soulforce of Laguna Beach, Calif., held a... rally...to protest what they saw as Lutheran inaction. Protesters...kneeled to pray and sing across the street from the meeting all and 48 were...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On August 12, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the ruling Taliban movement...freed dozens of children it had accused of receiving Christian teaching and imprisoned their fathers instead, the official media [in Afghanistan] reported. Meanwhile, a special U.N. envoy began a mission here aimed at pressing the Taliban to release eight foreigners, including two Americans, arrested on charges of propagating Christianity in this devout Muslim nation." The foreigners worked at Shelter Now International, where the youngsters who...

Source: The New York Times

On August 12, 2001, The New York Times reported on the on Finger Lakes region of New York. "Best known for its...bucolic beauty, [it] has become the hog farming capital of New York. But with that distinction has come controversy...casting an awkward spotlight on the people most associated with the animals, Mennonite farmers." Many of their neighbors are complaining that the stench produced by the pigs "has adversely affected the quality of life, the environment, the wine business and the tourism industry...Like their...