20+ hour, 58+ min ago (117+ words) Pope Leo XIV started the second day of his trip to Turkey with a visit to Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Saturday. Leo was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the mosque in a gesture of respect to Turkey's Muslim majority. Pope Leo XIV started the second day of his trip to Turkey with a visit to Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Saturday. Leo was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the mosque in a gesture of respect to Turkey's Muslim majority. Behind the scenes as AP covers Pope Leo's visit to Istanbul's Blue Mosque...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (485+ words) Bishop Steve Wood of St. Andrew's Church thanks health care workers at East Cooper Medical Center, where he was a patient fighting COVID-19 easier in the year, during an evening event to honor health care workers at East Cooper Medical Center Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. (Grace Beahm Alford/The Post And Courier via AP) The top leader of the Anglican Church in North America " a conservative denomination that broke away from the more liberal Episcopal Church about 15 years ago " has taken a leave of absence after facing allegations of sexual and other misconduct, which he denies. Archbishop Stephen Wood announced the leave Monday while he awaits the outcome of a church disciplinary process triggered by a formal complaint, called a presentment, of alleged misconduct against him. Wood, 62, a married father of four, has denied the allegations. "I believe the charges against me…...

1+ day, 19+ min ago (398+ words) Pope Leo XIV joined the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I by a lake an few hours from Istanbul on Friday afternoon in a ceremony to mark the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea. Pope Leo XIV visited Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Saturday at the start of an intense day of meetings and liturgies with Turkey's religious leaders. Leo joined Eastern and Western patriarchs and priests Friday in commemorating an important anniversary in Christian history, gathering at the site in Turkey of an unprecedented A.D. 325 meeting of bishops to pray that Christians might once again be united. Leo, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and other Christian leaders met on the shores of Lake Iznik, the site of the Council of Nicaea that produced a creed, or statement of faith, that is still recited by millions of Christians today. Standing over the ruins of the…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago (782+ words) U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care. From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation's thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers. More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities. Most Catholic health care institutions have taken a conservative approach and not offered gender-affirming care, which may involve hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments. The new directives will formalize that mandate. Bishops will have autonomy in making the directives into law for their dioceses. "With regard to the gender ideology,…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (477+ words) Bishop Steve Wood of St. Andrew's Church thanks health care workers at East Cooper Medical Center, where he was a patient fighting COVID-19 easier in the year, during an evening event to honor health care workers at East Cooper Medical Center Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. (Grace Beahm Alford/The Post And Courier via AP) The top leader of the Anglican Church in North America has been suspended from ministry after facing allegations of sexual and other misconduct. Wood's suspension, approved by other senior bishops, doesn't imply guilt or innocence of any charges against Wood, said Bishop Julian Dobbs, the ACNA's new dean. A minister can be suspended when "it is determined to be in the best interests of the Church," Dobbs said in a statement. Wood was accused last month in a presentment, or a list of charges compiled by church members....

2+ week, 1+ day ago (36+ words) NEW YORK (AP) " Hasidic rabbis attended the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries and gathered in prayer Friday in the Queens borough of New York City at the resting place of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson....

3+ hour, 4+ min ago (942+ words) Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I sign a joint declaration at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, during Pope's first apostolic journey, in Istanbul, Turkey, November 29, 2025. (Dilara Senkaya/Pool Via AP) Leo had two key appointments in Istanbul before flying to Beirut: a prayer at the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and a divine liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, whose invitation to commemorate an important Christian anniversary was the impetus for Leo's visit. On the second leg of his maiden papal trip, Leo was visiting Lebanon at a precarious moment for the small Mediterranean country after years of successive crises. He is fulfilling a promise of Pope Francis, who had wanted to visit for years but was unable to as his health worsened. Francis often quoted St. John Paul II, who in 1989 said Lebanon was more…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago (548+ words) When former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's funeral is held at the Washington National Cathedral in the nation's capital, he will join a bipartisan but exclusive list of figures memorialized there. The church's history and tradition, said Washington National Cathedral Provost Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope, put it "at the intersection of the civic and the sacred." The funerals held there shed light both on the deceased and their place in the country's history. Titans of American history keep watch over the cathedral, as statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stand in two separate bays near the entrance of the nave. The cathedral has five chapels on the main level and four chapels and burial vaults on the lower level, or the crypt. French-born architect Pierre L'Enfant's original design for Washington included a church "for national purposes." In 1893, a congressional…...

6+ day, 1+ hour ago (767+ words) The Halki Theological School has become a symbol of Orthodox heritage and a focal point in the push for religious freedoms in Turkey. Located on Heybeliada Island, off the coast of Istanbul, the seminary once trained generations of Greek Orthodox patriarchs and clergy. They include Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. Turkey closed the school under laws restricting private higher education, and despite repeated appeals from international religious leaders and human rights advocates " as well as subsequent legal changes that allowed private universities to flourish " it has remained shut ever since. Momentum for reopening it appeared to grow after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in September. Erdogan said Turkey would "do our part" regarding its reopening. Erdogan had previously linked the move…...

3+ day, 2+ hour ago (909+ words) Pope Leo XIV's first foreign trip, to Turkey and Lebanon, will be packed with opportunities to advance relations with two of the Catholic Church's top priorities: Orthodox Christians and Muslims. It will also give history's first American pope the spotlight to speak in broader terms about peace in the Middle East in languages much of the world can understand: He'll speak exclusively in English while in Turkey, and a combination of English and French in Lebanon, in a departure from the Vatican's traditional lingua franca of Italian. Security will be tight, especially after Israel fired a strike in Beirut to target Hezbollah, just days before Leo arrives. Here's a look at some of the expected highlights of the Nov. 27-Dec. 2 visit to two countries that the late Pope Francis had intended to visit but couldn't as his health deteriorated. Both…...