Religion News

VENICE, Italy (AP) — A pair of nude feet — dirty, wounded and vulnerable — are painted on the façade of the Venice women’s prison chapel.

World leaders called on Iran and Israel to try to avoid escalating tensions following the apparent Israeli airstrike on Friday near an Iranian air base and nuclear facility.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Mandisa, a contemporary Christian singer who appeared on “American Idol” and won a Grammy for her 2013 album ‘Overcomer’, has died. She was 47.

NEW YORK (AP) — The children crumple and fall to the stage, victims of King Herod’s assassins. Then the Virgin Mary, in a voice brimming with anguish and outrage, memorializes the student protesters who were massacred by Mexican armed forces in 1968.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly two years after the knife attack that nearly killed him, Salman Rushdie appears both changed and very much the same.

BEAL CITY, Mich. (AP) — A Catholic priest has resigned as pastor of a church in a small central Michigan community, the result of weeks of controversy following his publicly expressed regret that a gay author had read a book to preschool children.

Iran fired air defense batteries Friday reports of explosions near a major air base at the city of Isfahan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

SYDNEY (AP) — A 16-year-old boy accused of stabbing two Christian clerics during a Sydney church service has been charged by police with terrorism offenses.

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — Hindu nationalism , once a fringe ideology in India , is now mainstream. Nobody has done more to advance this cause than Prime Minister Narendra Modi , one of India’s most beloved and polarizing political leaders.

BANGKOK (AP) — A prominent Christian church leader and human rights advocate from Myanmar’s Kachin ethnic minority was detained by the authorities just hours after he was released from prison under an amnesty by the military government, a relative, a