NEEDHAM, Mass. | Old and new intersect at First Parish Church in Massachusetts, which holds 18th-century timber in its walls and displays proof of its 21st-century energy efficiency with an "Energy Star" plaque by the door.

"Energy Star" status, more commonly associated with dishwashers and refrigerators, is now available to ...

A controversial billboard that a secularist group put up on Billy Graham Parkway in North Carolina was defaced over the weekend by spray painters who inserted the words "under God" on the sign.

The original sign, one of several placed across the state, read "One Nation Indivisible," making the point ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join.

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's ...

VIENNA, Austria | Historically a potent symbol of Catholicism in Europe, Austria has in recent years been known more as the center of a taboo-breaking movement to liberalize the church.

Now, reformers here are ramping up their campaign for change amid worldwide outrage over the priest sex-abuse scandal.

And while ...

The son of one of the founders of Hamas is turning his back not only on the organization that now controls Gaza, but the religion that so animates the followers of the group his father helped create. 

Speaking on Wednesday night to the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a pro-Israel ...

VATICAN CITY | The Vatican pledged Sunday that Naples' cardinal would cooperate with an investigation by Italian prosecutors into a sprawling scandal for alleged corruption while he led the Holy See office bankrolling missionary work abroad.

Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe's real estate transactions and other dealings while he headed the Vatican's ...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- For every hurricane, earthquake or flood, there is help: food, bottled water, crews of volunteers nailing shingles to brand new roofs.

What even grateful recipients of that aid may not realize is that much of it comes from an unlikely hodgepodge of religious groups who put ...

DHARMSALA, India

The question looms over this raggedy hillside town, a place where ancient mysticism constantly brushes against the realities of modern geopolitics. The monks who fled across the Himalayas ask it quietly, as do the exile politicians. Even the angry young activists are careful how they raise the issue.

The people in Muslim countries are losing confidence in President Obama's leadership since he gave a major outreach speech in Cairo last year, according to a worldwide poll released Thursday.

The survey by the Global Attitudes Project, a project of the Pew Research Forum, showed that Mr. Obama's favorability ratings ...

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Tens of thousands of black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews staged mass demonstrations on Thursday to protest an Israeli Supreme Court ruling forcing the integration of a religious girls school.

Protesters snarled traffic in Jerusalem and another large religious enclave, crowded onto balconies in city squares and waved posters decrying ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — John Garvey, the dean of Boston College Law School, was named president of Catholic University of America on Tuesday in a leadership shift from a priest to a lay person.

Mr. Garvey, 61, replaces David M. O'Connell who led ...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI, in a speech that didn't mention the clergy sex abuse scandal, hailed priests on Sunday as gifts to the world for their generous and courageous work.

"Dear friends, the priest is a gift from the heart of Christ, a gift for the church and ...

ROME (AP) -- The clerical sex abuse crisis is energizing Roman Catholic dissidents who want to open up the priesthood to women and ditch celibacy requirements.

They marched on Rome on Tuesday even as Pope Benedict XVI called on priests to converge on the Vatican to cap a yearlong celebration ...

NICOSIA, Cyprus — The Vatican said Sunday that the international community is ignoring the plight of Christians in the Middle East, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and political instability in Lebanon have forced thousands to flee the region.

A working paper released during Pope Benedict ...

It's a rare religious dispute that gets Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Rev. Barry W. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State on the same side. But the case of a 13-year-old boy in New York who was suspended ...

Angry over health care reform and the abortion fight it reinvigorated, worried about the expansion of gay rights and frustrated by President Obama's criticisms of Israel, religious conservatives are eager to play a key role in the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections.

But many are also not sold on ...

A New York boy can wear his rosary beads to school — for now.

A federal judge has granted a request by lawyers for Raymond Hosier for a temporary restraining order that allows the 13-year-old boy to return to school after having been suspended indefinitely last month.

Ed White, a ...

SAN DIEGO | A group of conservative attorneys say they are on a mission from God to unseat four California judges in a rare challenge that is turning a traditionally snooze-button election into what both sides call a battle for the integrity of U.S. courts.

Vowing to be God's ambassadors ...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has ordered an investigation into child abuse in the Irish Catholic Church to begin in the fall and named top prelates to carry it out, the Vatican said Monday.

Benedict pledged the investigation in his March letter to Ireland, which addressed chronic child ...

More than 30 conservative pastors and other religious leaders joined several Republican congressmen Thursday in criticizing the proposed repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

"People in the country are angry," said Pastor Luke Robinson, of Quinn Chapel in Frederick, Md. "They are concerned that ...