Catholic groups, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan's archdiocese of New York, filed lawsuits in federal courts on May 21 to stop the Obama administration from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives in their health plans.

"To have a situation in which we recognize the full equality of women changes everything,” says Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones.

“There is a whole historical world of women who have risen as leaders in religious communities because they were called to do it, not because someone said they could,” according to the first woman president of Union Theological Seminary.

The nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is expected to elect its first African-American president this June in New Orleans. His name is Fred Luter, and he says the SBC has "a heart for reaching people in difficult times."

World Vision’s vice president for advocacy and government relations says the leaders attending this weekend’s G8 summit in Washington should invest in agricultural and nutrition programs to lift people out of poverty because “it’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do.”

The disabled, says religion writer Mark Pinsky, “are not just people who need help, but they are people who can help."

Generations of African slaves found a powerful way of singing through suffering in spirituals that were rooted in biblical stories and images.

The Supreme Court is weighing the legal challenge to Arizona's strict immigration law, and religious groups opposed to the law are appealing to language throughout the scriptures "to take care of the stranger," says Catholic News Service staff writer Patricia Zapor.

“Deeply listening to what it is they’re saying." That, says young hospice chaplain Kerry Egan, is the most important gift she offers to the dying patients she ministers to in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Two United Church of Christ pastors have written a book about their experiences in the ministry and their work as pastoral leaders.