Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On June 23, 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Southside Bosnian Services Collaborative in St. Louis, which is an organization formed last year to help Bosnians in the region. It is composed of representatives from 40 organizations, including south St. Louis churches, Christian faith-based social agencies, medical clinics and hospitals. Several churches are trying to make Bosnian immigrants in the region feel more welcome.

Source: Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week443/pluralism.html

On June 22, 2001 Religion and Ethics Newsweekly reported, "R. Scott Hanson wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago on 'City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, New York.' He is a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University. Flushing, Queens is the most religiously and ethnically diverse...

Source: Rocky Mountain News

On June 22, 2001, the Rocky Mountain News reported that "Denver U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel refused the ACLU's request that he order the Ten Commandments removed immediately" from Grand Junction City Hall. Daniel said he is bound by an earlier ruling that said that a display of the Ten Commandments in Salt Lake City was "'primarily secular, and not religious in character.'...Grand Junction will immediately order granite to surround the Ten Commandments with five new monuments depicting documents important in British and U.S...

Source: Religion...

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On June 22, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "a former Contra Costa County social worker sued the county for $1 million..., alleging he was demoted and verbally harassed for being a Muslim and for being black."

Source: The Kansas City Star

On June 21, 2001, The Kansas City Star reported that "the leader of the National Conference for Community and Justice called on churches and synagogues to quash racism, bigotry and bias" at the organization's regional conference in Kansas City...He said faith-based groups in America have gotten away from fighting social ills such as racism because they have gotten too caught up with other issues."

Source: The Washington Post

On June 21, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "four churches in Hyattsville that were once all-white have morphed into a polyglot of faith and racial togetherness[, as] Prince George's County has changed from a predominantly white county to one that is predominantly black...At First United Methodist Church...[an] African American pastor booms out sermons to pews filled with blacks, whites, Hispanics and immigrants from 38 nations. At the Redeemer Lutheran Church...the son of German immigrants... [preaches to] congregants...

Source: The Morning Call

On June 20, 2001, The Morning Call reported that "young Mexican men eager to earn American dollars have found a home in a town whose history is closely linked with coal mining, not farming," Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. "Beginning in 1989, in large part due to the Catholic church, migrants began renting inexpensive houses once occupied by coal miners and working the farms in Schuylkill and nearby Columbia counties...The Allentown Catholic Diocese administers to their religious needs. Almost all are Catholic."

Source: The New York Times

On June 19, 2001, The New York Times reported that "it is in the United States that the consciousness of being part of a single Hispanic world -- absent in Latin America -- has been emerging as varied Hispanic peoples experience identical conflicts with American culture...Such conflicts are essentially religious." Hispanics share similar values, which can follow the Republican or Democratic policies, depending on whether these policies "have their origin in Catholic social thought."

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On June 19, 2001, The Houston Chronicle reported that "a year after striking down student-led prayers before high school football games in Santa Fe, the U.S. Supreme Court...let stand a lower court's ruling [in Alabama] allowing such prayers." Having previously ruled that the student-led prayers violated the separation between church and state, "the justices did not explain why they chose to pass on hearing the [Alabama] case...Lawyers for the American Center for Law and Justice...hailed the action as a 'critical victory for...

Source: The Boston Globe

On June 18, 2001, The Boston Globe reported on the arrival of Brooklyn-born Hasidic Jews and immigrants from Russia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Nigeria and Mexico to Postville, Iowa. "At first, the Iowans smiled stretched out their hands. But over time, they resented what they saw as the newcomers' unfriendly ways...[Some] say Postville, which has become a real-life model of diversity, immigration, and demographic shifts, proves Iowa is not [psychologically and socially] ready for a mass immigration...Of all the newcomers...the Hasidic Jews...

Source: The Arizona Republic

On June 17, 2001, The Arizona Republic reported that "Massachusetts has exonerated by name 14 of the 19 men and women" who were convicted for witchcraft and hanged in Salem in 1692. The Massachusetts Legislature is considering "a bill to erase the [remaining five] of the 309-year-old convictions. Descendants [scattered from Maine to Utah] and historians...insist it's time to set the record straight: These were not witches. They were heroic Christian martyrs who refused to renounce their faith."

Source: The Record

On June 17, 2001, The Record reported that 150 people "stood outside Our Lady of Czestochowa in protest...after [their] pastor, the Rev. Thomas Iwanoski, announced the [Polish-language] Mass would be canceled at the Roman Catholic church, saying the attendance had dwindled to 55 for the service...Polish immigrants...said the cancellation is the latest indignity in an effort to remove their traditions from a church that is now catering to wealthy urban professionals...Polish families founded Our Lady of Czestochowa in 1911."

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

On June 17, 2001, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Linda Hauber, 29, who has become an observant Muslim. "Her rejection of Catholocism; the head scarf; her avoidance of church weddings and funerals...Christmas and Easter gatherings -- all have distanced her from family and old friends...The lingering estrangement arose not simply because [of] her conversion, but also because of her devout observances of Islamic convention."

Source: Star Tribune

On June 17, 2001, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Guy Paulson, who "built a full-sized replica of a 13th-century stave church -- one of those uniquely Norwegian wooden structures with soaring spires, hand-carved beasts and a heavily shingled roof" -- with his own hands and his own money. "He built the church to honor his Norwegian and Christian heritage...But really, 'I just wanted to,' he said...The Hopperstad Replica Stave Church stands on...the Red River."