Anna Wade often sits in a church pew on Sunday and “kind of spaces out a little bit” until it’s time for communion, and then, she said, “that’s it.”

Wade’s lack of attention, though, has nothing to do with the Mass itself. It’s because she’s deaf, and the church she attends doesn’t have an American Sign Language interpreter – a problem she said exists throughout the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, where she lives, and a problem that others say exists in dioceses and churches across the country.

“I feel frustrated because I need spiritual support, but it’s not there,”...

As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not only offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals.

On Ivy League campuses, large public institutions and faith-based colleges, chaplains and psychologists are teaming up, informed by abundant research showing religion and spirituality can ease mental distress by providing group support and boosting personal resilience.

“We’re good partners, and routinely refer back and forth,” said Calvin Chin, Princeton University’s director...

About two years ago, when coronavirus cases began to peak in her impoverished San Antonio neighborhood, the Rev. Norma Fuentes-Quintero found herself taking on an additional duty – helping congregants deal with anxiety.

The pastor, who leads El Templo Cristiano Assembly of God, which is largely Latino, has spent hours with one congregant in particular -- a woman with seven children — who was consumed by the fear that the virus would kill her and leave her children motherless.

“Each phone call with her would last 30 minutes to an hour,” Fuentes-Quintero said. “Some...

The governing body of the largest Mennonite denomination in the United States passed a resolution on Sunday (May 29) confessing to “committing violence against LGBTQ people” and committing to LGBTQ inclusion.

In a separate vote, Mennonite Church USA also repealed instructions to pastors not to officiate at marriages between people of the same sex. The denomination’s official confession,...

When the Rev. Deanna Hollas heard about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, she was shocked, but she wasn’t surprised.

Three years into her role as the first ordained minister of gun violence prevention in the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States — likely in any denomination — Hollas is never surprised by gun violence.

That’s what happens in a world where there are more guns than there are people, she said.

Source:...

When Sarah Riccardi-Swartz moved from New York City to a small Appalachian town in West Virginia in the fall of 2017, she was searching for an answer to a puzzling question. Why had a group of conservative American Christians converted to Russian Orthodoxy?

"It's typically an immigrant faith, so I was really interested in that experience and why it spoke to converts," said Riccardi-Swartz, a postdoctoral fellow in the Recovering Truth project at Arizona State University.

Riccardi-Swartz's study focused on a community of mostly former evangelical Christians and...

For tens of thousands of vulnerable children whose lives and families were already unstable before COVID-19 hit, the pandemic brought further disruption, unpredictability, and loss.

Prior to 2020, the child welfare system in America had begun to adjust its approach. The focus among Christian ministries, advocates, and government programs had increasingly turned to prevention and early intervention for at-risk families to get the support they need.

There’s been a “huge shift” recently, according to Cheri Williams, senior vice president of domestic programs at Bethany...

It was a “very special Sunday,” the Rev. JJ Mannschreck explained to his congregation during the traditional service streamed online from Flushing United Methodist Church in Flushing, Michigan.

The congregation shared prayer requests and celebrated what the pastor called “God’s victories” — namely the church’s community garden, which its youth were planning to ready for spring later that day...

A prominent Boston Hispanic Pentecostal pastor, known for his church’s social programs and conservative teaching, has died, according to his church.

Pastor Roberto Miranda’s death was announced Sunday (May 22) during services at Congregation Lion of Judah in Boston, which was streamed ...

A Connecticut man has been charged with a hate crime after telling police he set a vehicle on fire because he didn’t like the owner’s Mormon faith.

The fire, which destroyed a 2022 Chevy Equinox, started just before 4 a.m. Monday outside a multifamily home in Torrington, police said.

Witnesses said they saw a man start the fire near the SUV’s gas tank and pointed authorities to the 22-year-old suspect, who lived nearby.

Source:...

In the Rev. Cedric Harmon’s religious tradition, the prayers offered at church almost always start the same way. Worshippers acknowledge God and then give thanks for life, health, strength and safety, four blessings that every human needs.

“We thank God for those blessings and recognize how core they are,” he said.

The Rev. Harmon reminds people of those prayers when they question why the Black church should fight for LGBTQ civil rights protections. He tells them to stop feeling like gay and transgender Americans are seeking special treatment. What they want, he...

Wedged into a recliner in the corner of her assisted living apartment in Portland, Skylar Freimann, who has a terminal heart condition and pulmonary illness, anxiously eyed her newly arrived hospital bed on a recent day and worried over how she would maintain independence as she further loses mobility.

There to guide her along the journey was the Rev. Jo Laurence, a hospice and palliative care chaplain. But rather than invoking God or a Christian prayer, she talked of meditation, chanting and other Eastern spiritual traditions: “The body can weigh us down sometimes,” she...

Hundreds of people brought their pain to the altar Sunday in remembrance of the 10 lives lost and three injured in a mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday.

Macedonia Baptist Church, just minutes away from the Tops Supermarket where the tragedy took place, held an interfaith service that called for healing and action. Senior Pastor Julian Cook said planning a service that would bring people from all walks of life together was necessary, as the hate crime that took place affects everyone.

“Part of the lie of racism is that it only impacts minorities, right? Part of the...

In the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country as refugees. Hundreds of those refugees have now arrived at the southern border of the United States seeking asylum, after flying to Mexico on tourist visas.

At the border, Ukrainians, alongside thousands of other asylum seekers, must navigate two policies meant to keep...

A conservative Catholic activist is calling for Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to be sanctioned by House leadership over a recent interview in which she referred to bishops lending aid to immigrants as an example of “Satan controlling the church.”

Greene, who has garnered widespread criticism for giving voice to conspiracy theories, made the ...