Latest Religion News
Macron visits Notre Dame, marking 1-year countdown to reopening after the 2019 fire
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron visited Notre Dame Cathedral on Friday, one year before its scheduled reopening in 2024. After a blaze burned through the roof and spire on April 15, 2019, Macron’s visits have become a tradition, with Friday marking his sixth to...
AP Week in Pictures: Europe and Africa
Dec. 1–7, 2023 A military cadet applies lipstick before a National Day parade in Bucharest, Romania. A ram travels in a rickshaw before a ram fighting competition in Lagos, Nigeria, and rainfall destroys a road in Gamba, Kenya. And Pope Francis is greeted by nuns...
What is Bodhi Day? And when do Buddhists celebrate it?
Buddhists around the world are celebrating Bodhi Day. Also called Buddha’s Enlightenment Day, it commemorates when Siddhartha Gautama attained awakening — or enlightenment — some 2,600 years ago, becoming the Buddha. When is Bodhi Day celebrated? ...
Man fires shotgun outside Jewish temple in upstate New York as Hanukkah begins, no one injured
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A man fired a shotgun twice outside a Jewish temple in upstate New York, hours before the start of Hanukkah on Thursday, then said “Free Palestine” as he was taken into custody, police said. No one was injured. The episode in the state capital of Albany took...
A milestone for Notre Dame: 1 year until cathedral reopens to public after devastating fire
PARIS (AP) — When flames tore into Notre Dame in 2019, people who worked in the cathedral felt orphaned. But as the world-famous Paris landmark's reopening draws closer, they are beginning to picture their return to the place they call home and are impatient to breathe life back into its repaired...
When is St. Nicholas Day? And how did this Christian saint inspire the Santa Claus legend?
NEW YORK (AP) — The white-bearded Christian saint whose acts of generosity inspired America’s secular Santa Claus figure is known worldwide — but Saint Nicholas' origin story is not. The legends surrounding jolly old St. Nicholas — celebrated annually on Dec. 6 — go way...
Germany's chancellor lights first Hanukkah candle on a huge menorah at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate
BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday expressed his unwavering support for the Jewish people as he lit the first candle of Hanukkah on a huge menorah in front of Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate. “I wish that the candle of Hanukkah will shine far beyond this...
Families had long dialogue after Pittsburgh synagogue attack. Now they’ve unveiled a memorial design
PITTSBURGH (AP) — In the years following the deadly 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue attack, relatives of those slain have gone through their own private grief, public memorial services and the trial and death sentence of the perpetrator. They’ve also been deliberating, slowly and methodically, on...
Denmark's parliament adopts a law making it illegal to burn the Quran or other religious texts
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A new law was passed in Denmark's parliament on Thursday that makes it illegal to desecrate any holy text in the country, after a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists sparked angry demonstrations in Muslim countries. ...
Indiana's appeals court hears arguments challenging abortion ban under a state religious freedom law
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's Court of Appeals questioned attorneys this week on exceptions to the state's abortion ban in a case involving residents who are suing on grounds that it violates a state religious freedom law. The class action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil...
