1+ week, 4+ day ago (145+ words) A food pantry at a Greenville County, South Carolina, church was damaged by a fire Monday night. Beth Costlow is the co-pastor of Lutheran Church of Our Savior on Wade Hampton Boulevard. She said she got a call about 10 p.m. that the food pantry was on fire. When Costlow arrived about 30 minutes later, she said the fire was out but the food pantry was damaged and none of the food was salvageable. "It breaks my heart to know that we're gonna have to slow that down for a while, especially during the holidays," Costlow said. Costlow estimates the damage is about $50,000. She said some food deliveries are arriving as soon as Tuesday and a plan is in place to continue to serve families. Costlow said last month the food pantry served more than 1,100 families in the area....

3+ week, 2+ day ago (207+ words) A western NC nonprofit is on the ground in Jamaica, providing critical assistance following the devastation left behind by Hurricane Melissa. Former U.S. Army Green Beret Adam Smith started "Savage Freedoms Relief Operations" as a result of Hurricane Helene, when his family was cut off from access to the outside world in Black Mountain, which resulted in his daughter and daughter's mother having to be airlifted out. Smith said veterans in general have special skillsets based around helping with disaster relief and people who have been through critical life-altering situations. Despite the tragedy in Jamaica, Smith said everyone there has been nothing but gracious and grateful. "Their spirits are so high," Smith said. "It's amazing to have a conversation with someone who just lost everything, whose home has been destroyed, and the first thing they say is I'm grateful to God…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago (346+ words) The Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Asheville is undergoing an $8 million restoration to repair its iconic dome, which has been cracking due to water damage, relying on donations and grants for funding. At 116 years old, The Basilica of Saint Lawrence is a source of peace, of hope for its congregants. But it's also a source of history for Asheville and all of Western North Carolina. Historic architect Rafael Guastavino devoted his final years to building a basilica that would be heaven on earth. He's best known for his work at the Biltmore and Grand Central Station. "His works are everywhere," Jeremy Falls, project architect said. Mary Everist, President of the Board of Directors of the Basilica Preservation Fund, emphasized the church's importance. "It is the seat of Catholicism in western North Carolina," she said. "But it's also a huge tourist…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago (566+ words) Community and religious leaders in a Pennsylvania town are responding after a replica of the Auschwitz concentration camp gate appeared on a Catholic school's Halloween parade float. Hanover is in a rural area in York County, Pennsylvania, which is about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore. Police said the incident prompted a threatening and obscene voicemail to be left early Saturday for the Saint Joseph principal, claiming the school's children were in danger, according to the AP. The parish canceled youth events over the weekend as a result and a suburban Philadelphia man was charged with making terroristic threats and other criminal counts. The Most Reverend Timothy C. Senior, Bishop of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, issued the following statement: "I was shocked and appalled to learn that the Halloween parade float from Saint Joseph Catholic school in Hanover included a replica of the Auschwitz Concentration…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago (569+ words) A Christian missionary father and his daughter were killed when a small plane bound for a hurricane relief mission in Jamaica crashed in a South Florida neighborhood. Christian ministry organization Ignite the Fire identified the two victims of the Monday morning crash as the group's founder, Alexander Wurm, 53, and his daughter Serena Wurm, 22. The pair were bringing humanitarian aid to Jamaica, according to the organization, when the Beechcraft King Air plane they were flying in crashed into a pond in a residential area of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, narrowly missing homes. As of Tuesday morning, investigators had not reported any other victims. Ignite the Fire is "dedicated to empowering youth through missions and evangelism across the Caribbean," according to the organization's website. A statement on the group's social media described the Wurm family as passionate about humanitarian…...

1+ day, 12+ hour ago (283+ words) For 40 years, Mark Loren has owned his Fort Myers jewelry shop. "We work on a lot of engagement rings, redesigning a lot of pieces for clients who are coming in, necklaces, pendants," Loren said. Of all the jewelry he's worked on in his four decades, this October, he took on one project that was unlike any other. "It was the first time I've ever worked on reliquaries like that before," Loren said. "They were a mess; they really looked like garbage," Sister Mary said. Sister Mary lived at Church of the Ascension on Fort Myers Beach with a group of cloistered nuns. That is, until Hurricane Ian destroyed the church and their belongings. "We saw the water rise until it was over the wall, over our enclosure wall, which is 8 feet high," Sister Mary said. "All of the relics that…...

6+ day, 8+ hour ago (366+ words) Williams Memorial C.M.E. Church in High Point, North Carolina, distributed Thanksgiving meal kits to 10,000 people Saturday, an effort that has grown increasingly important due to current economic challenges. "It takes faith for us to believe that we can feed 10,000. We had to put it to work," said Pastor Robert Williams. Volunteers at the church loaded boxes containing everything needed for a Thanksgiving meal into cars, easing the financial burden the traditional meal can pose for families. "There may not be funds for food because you got to make sure you got rent, you got to make sure you got lights and water and car payments, because you got to be able to get to work to make the money," church member Cheryl Yarrington said. "So sometimes food becomes the bottom of the totem pole of things that need to be done....

2+ week, 5+ day ago (322+ words) The Vatican said Monday it was investigating a possible antisemitic incident, in which a Swiss Guard allegedly made a spitting gesture toward two Jewish women. The alleged incident occurred during a papal audience Oct. 29, at the entrance to St. Peter's Square. The audience that day was dedicated to marking the anniversary of a 1965 declaration on the church's relations with Jews and other non-Christians. The alleged victims were part of an international Jewish delegation attending the papal audience, during which Pope Leo XIV reaffirmed Catholic-Jewish relations and vowed to fight antisemitism. One of the Swiss Guards hissed the phrase "Les Juifs," or "the Jews" in French, as they passed, Govrin said in a written statement. "We were totally shocked," she added. "Such an incident of Jewish hatred inside the Vatican?! In contrast to the Pope's important words strongly condemning anti-Semitism and…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago (403+ words) Pope Leo XIV called for "deep reflection" in the United States about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that "many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now." Related video above: Pope intervenes in US abortion debate by raising what it really means to be 'pro-life' The Chicago-born pope was responding Tuesday to a range of geopolitical questions from reporters outside the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, including what kind of spiritual rights migrants in U.S. custody should have, U.S. military attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East. Leo underlined that scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world: "How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and…...

1+ week, 13+ hour ago (415+ words) Pope Leo XIV on Saturday accepted the resignation of an ailing Spanish bishop who is under church investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a young seminarian in the 1990s, the first known time the new pontiff removed a bishop accused of abuse. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Leo had accepted the resignation of C'diz Bishop Rafael Zornoza, 76. It didn't say why, but Zornoza submitted his resignation to the pope last year when he turned 75, the normal retirement age for bishops. The report, quoting a letter the former seminarian wrote the Vatican over the summer, said Zornoza fondled him and regularly slept with him from when he was 14-21 years old. The former seminarian's letter said Zornoza heard his confession and persuaded him to see a psychiatrist to "cure" his homosexuality. The diocese of C'diz denied the accusations against Zornoza but confirmed…...