In a country where the expectation to marry is high, is a shortage of females fueling the trafficking of young women to fill the need for brides? More →

August 16, 2013

“The public and political impact of lived religion across the planet is huge,” says Shaun Casey, head of the new State Department Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives. More →

August 9, 2013

“I’d like people to know that there are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to, trying to live together,” says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem. More →

August 2, 2013

In the wake of terrorist bombings by British-born Muslims in 2005, the British government set up an initiative called Prevent to engage with the Islamic community and to intervene before a person became radicalized. But many British Muslims feel that the policy amounts to religious profiling, and others have criticized Prevent for being misguided and ineffective. More →

July 19, 2013

“I think Egyptians just rose up and said we don’t like the direction Egypt is going in. It’s not because we don’t love Muslims – most of us are Muslims – but we don’t like the idea of an Islamist Egypt,” says Kate Seelye, senior vice president of the non-partisan Middle East Institute. More →

July 12, 2013

“Only a couple of months ago, if you asked a garment industry owner what do you think of a union, they will say no, no unions,” says Fazle Abed of the Bangladesh Rural Affairs Committee. “But now many of them are saying yes, maybe the union is something we have to accept.” More →

July 3, 2013

Economic prosperity and modernity are beginning to have an impact on religious life in Thailand, a country that is 95 percent Buddhist but that in the last 30 years has seen the number of Buddhist monks decrease by about half. More →

May 24, 2013

“If he stresses the social justice teachings of the church, the very counter-cultural message of simplicity and poverty, that could really change things without technically changing any teachings,” says David Gibson, national reporter for Religion News Service. More →

March 15, 2013

“He may be the very guy to come in and reform a lot of the problems that are going on in the Vatican curia right now. And that may be one thing that the cardinals saw that led to his election.” More →

March 15, 2013

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archdiocese of Washington, celebrated Mass on Sunday, March 10, at his historic titular church in Rome, San Pietro in Vincoli or St. Peter in Chains. Before the Mass, he asked US Catholics to pray for the cardinals … More →

March 11, 2013