Latinos across Nevada, especially those with Mexican ancestry, gathered at churches this weekend for prayer of the rosary and novena, a nine-day prayer and meditation; multiple mass services; traditional Aztec dance performances; and to sing las mañanitas, a birthday song, at midnight. 

It’s all part of the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a significant spiritual event celebrating the manifestation of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, in what is now modern-day Mexico. Her history is rooted in the nation's history of colonization.

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When an opening for bishop arose in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in 2010, Teresa Jefferson-Snorton looked around to see if any women were offering to be candidates.

None were.

She knew that since its founding 140 years earlier by Black Methodists emerging from slavery, the denomination had never elected a woman bishop.

Source: Women...

As many gathered around the Christmas tree and the menorah on downtown Reading's Penn Square for the city's holiday lighting celebrations Thursday evening, the sentiment was that this year's event was especially joyous.

"We are really excited that we are getting to somewhat of a little bit of normalcy this year," said Reading Mayor Eddie Morán. "We are inviting the community to come out and celebrate with us in a dual celebration."

As Hanukkah comes to a close in a few days, the Jewish Federation of Reading lit the latest candle on the...

Two influential U.S. Roman Catholic Church bishops are encouraging their peers to cooperate with a federal investigation into abuses committed within the former Native American boarding school system.

In a letter sent to all U.S. bishops in November, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, who heads a church committee on domestic justice, and Bishop James Wall of Gallup, New Mexico, who leads a church committee on Native American affairs, asked fellow bishops to hand over records investigators may seek and allow access to...

There are three flagpoles in front of Boston’s City Hall. One flies the American flag, and the second that of Massachusetts. What appears on the third is at issue in a case the Supreme Court will hear in January.

That flagpole, which ordinarily flies the flag of Boston, is occasionally made available to groups seeking to celebrate their backgrounds or to promote causes like gay pride. In a 12-year period, the city approved 284 requests for the third flag.

It rejected only one, from ...

About 50 parishioners protested outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Paul on Sunday over what they say is the eradication of culture and tradition from Minnesota’s first Hispanic parish.

Many of the demonstrators were third-generation members of the Catholic church, which has a 90-year history in St. Paul. Among specific complaints, they say Aztec dancers are no longer allowed inside the church, there is no Sunday school or choir, masses previously led in Spanish are now in Latin and women are not allowed on the altar.

One of the protesters, Vincent Mendez,...

A hundred or so masked parishioners in the pews of the United Parish in Brookline joined together at a recent service and sang "Lord, I Want To Be A Christian In My Heart.”

This song, like many that churches sing all over the country, comes from a musical tradition of spirituals originally composed by African people enslaved in America. As a national reckoning with racism has grown over the last year or so, members of the United Parish began asking whether it was appropriate for the predominantly white church to...

 Byron Wratee recalls the silence among white Catholic priests after the killing of Trayvon Martin. Since then, he said, he’s made a conscious decision to attend only Catholic parishes that are majority Black.

He’s remained critical of the church’s response to racism and racial justice in the aftermath of numerous police killings of Black men, but for Wratee, who grew up largely Pentecostal and converted to Catholicism 20 years ago, leaving the church is not an option.

“I have a right to be in this church,” he said.

Source:...

Standing in the parking lot of her church on a summer morning, Modestine Davis explained why she was drawn to the predominantly Black congregation in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

“First Baptist Church of Highland Park just meets all of our spiritual needs and wraparound service needs in terms [of] family, children’s church, ministries that are strong,” she said. And those ministries include social justice and job-hunting for its African American members.

The holistic approach of the congregation in Prince George’s County includes community distribution...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday it has reached a settlement with the Michigan Department of Corrections to change the state's policy limiting worship and religious activities for prisoners, as well as the kosher diet fed to Jewish inmates.

Under the agreement, Michigan corrections officials agreed to eliminate its policy that required a minimum of five people for religious services or activities. It will also remove a prohibition on group religious practices for Hindus, Yorubas, Hebrew Israelites and Thelema practitioners, unless there's...

This is a tale of two pastors and two mass shootings.

On a balmy June evening in 2015, a young man with a blunt bowl haircut walked into the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to join a Wednesday night Bible study. As the worshipers closed their eyes in prayer, the man fired at least 70 shots, killing nine people. Among the dead were Ethel Lee Lance, the mother of...

 Back in February, when the Rev. Nicole Lambelet invited nearby faith leaders to participate in a virtual tour of Decatur, Georgia, through the lens of displaced Black and Jewish communities, she didn’t expect her Episcopal church to form a new relationship with Decatur’s Ismaili Muslim community.

“Probably five faith leaders responded to the mass email I sent, and 150 people came to our event, but Behnoosh Momin’s response was different,” said Lambelet, associate rector for family ministry and outreach at the ...

When Hope Fried received the text from the primary pediatric staff chaplain at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City last spring, she burst into tears. She was on call, working the overnight shift during the residency year of her training as a chaplain. Pacing her Manhattan apartment, her mind was racing.

The message came in at around nine in the evening explaining that a Catholic, Spanish-speaking mother in the labor and delivery unit was preparing to give birth to a baby who would either be stillborn or expected to die soon after birth. She was asking for her child to be...