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A whistleblower Catholic priest who says his bishop is persecuting him because of his activism against homosexuals in the priesthood appeared yesterday in front of an ecclesiastical court near Catholic University. The Rev. James Haley, 48, a priest in the Diocese of Arlington, appeared before a panel of judges and canon lawyers for a final hearing in a case brought against him by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde. The case has lasted more than three years.

A long-overdue debate has been ignited thanks to a recent article by Washington Times reporter Julia Duin posted on Poynter Online. In it Duin asserted that too many newspapers, TV news stations and networks are failing to cover religion, and those that do have been failing to hire journalists who truly understand religion.

The Episcopal Church has one last chance to back down from its consecration of an openly homosexual bishop, thereby sparing the worldwide Anglican Communion from a potential split, say conservatives at an Episcopal bishops' conclave this week in Salt Lake City.     The meeting today and tomorrow will deal with the "Windsor Report," a lengthy document issued last fall blaming the nation's 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church for potentially splitting the 70-million-member Anglican Communion over the consecration of V. Gene Robinson. Unless the Americans show some willingness to suspend homosexual ordinations and same-sex blessings, conservative bishops say a showdown is expected next...

Seventh-day Adventists are criticizing the Marine Corps for sentencing a Marine to seven months in prison for refusing to bear arms after undergoing a religious conversion. (snip) "In 36 years of dealing with these cases, this is the first one I've seen go so far," said Richard O. Stenbakken, a retired U.S. Army chaplain and Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor. (snip) "There is no reason anyone should get a felony conviction for a religious conversion." When ordered May 12, 2004, to draw a weapon from the unit's armory for a training exercise, the Marine refused. (snip) "There is a certain criteria...

From the Nation/Politics section Moral values topped the list of issues voters were most concerned about when they went to the polls on Election Day, with Catholics, evangelicals, blacks and Hispanics joining an ad hoc coalition that re-elected President Bush by 3.5 million votes.

<p>The national director of the Anti-Defamation League insists Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" fuels violence against Jews, despite recent polls by two Jewish groups suggesting the film is not anti-Semitic.</p> <p>"This movie has not dissuaded anybody" from anti-Semitism, Abraham Foxman said yesterday. "People still have that point of view."</p>

<p>Eighty-one percent of sex crimes committed against children by Roman Catholic priests during the past 52 years were homosexual men preying on boys, according to a comprehensive study released yesterday on the church's sex abuse crisis.</p> <p>The John Jay study was commissioned 20 months ago by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in response to hundreds of sex-abuse accusations that were made in nearly every U.S. Catholic diocese. It covered the years from 1950 to 2002 and found 10,667 cases of abuse.</p>

<p>OXFORD, England &#8212; Conservative Episcopalians say the majority of the world's Anglican archbishops will support their efforts this week to punish the Episcopal Church for elevating a practicing homosexual to the post of bishop.</p> <p>Starting tomorrow, the world's Anglican primates, or leaders of the various national churches, will be at Lambeth Palace in London for a showdown meeting over the Aug. 5 ratification of Canon V. Gene Robinson, a homosexual, as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.</p>

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was handed a "pink slip" -- a frilly piece of lingerie -- yesterday from an enraged group of female war protestors who told her to quit her job because she was not doing enough to oppose military action against Iraq. "Hillary is getting the pink slip," said Medea Benjamin, an organizer from New York, "because she is not representing her constituents. She should get another job." The New York Democrat spoke calmly during a 10-minute repartee she had with about 50 women from Code Pink, a feminist anti-war group planning demonstrations this weekend in Washington. Dressed...

<p>A council of war for conservative Episcopalians gets under way today, when 2,200 of them meet in Dallas to consider ways to protest the recent confirmation of a practicing homosexual priest as the new bishop of New Hampshire.</p> <p>Episcopalians from all 50 states will meet until Thursday afternoon at the Wyndham Antole Hotel in Dallas to listen to speakers, pray and network together during a gathering labeled "A Place to Stand." Conferees include 40 bishops, 729 priests, 43 deacons, 91 seminarians and 1,219 laity.</p>

<p>An overflow crowd of Episcopalians gathered at Virginia Theological Seminary last night and clashed with bishops and lay leaders of the Diocese of Virginia over the recent election of an openly homosexual bishop.</p> <p>Hundreds of parishioners from around Northern Virginia, the most conservative part of the 86,527-member diocese, crammed into an auditorium at the Alexandria seminary.</p>

The new face of Roman Catholic higher education looks like Sean McNally, who is majoring in European history and literature at tiny Ave Maria College here.Mr. McNally, 19, lives in Gabriel Hall, a residence for young men considering the priesthood. He regards himself as far more conservative than most of his elders. "I went to a Catholic high school where I had to defend my faith to my professors," he says. "My principal was a lesbian living with her partner, and the priest [at the school] was a lunatic." And that new face of Catholic colleges also looks like Arwen...

<p>Evangelical Christians are divided over whether Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's 5,280-pound granite monument bearing a replica of the Ten Commandments should remain in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.</p> <p>Those questioning the monument include televangelist Pat Robertson; Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice; and Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.</p>

<p>CATONSVILLE, Md. — When the Rev. Steven R. Randall learned that his denomination had consented to the first openly homosexual bishop in mainline Protestantism, he decided he could no longer trust the Episcopal Church and its leaders.</p> <p>Mr. Randall, 52, received a standing ovation yesterday after telling his 200-member congregation at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church here that he would no longer obey his bishop nor would his congregation send its monthly $5,000 pledge to the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.</p>

<p>Episcopalians seemed set to reject a formal church "marriage" rite for homosexuals yesterday, settling for a compromise resolution that recognizes but does not authorize church ceremonies for same-sex unions.</p> <p>The resolution, approved in a voice vote by Episcopal bishops on Wednesday, was being deliberated yesterday evening by deputies at the Episcopal General Convention in Minneapolis. The substitute resolution would allow Episcopalians to "explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions."</p>

<p>Conservative Episcopalians are threatening to withhold millions of dollars in parish donations and form a separate U.S. church over the confirmation of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as the world's first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop.</p> <p>The Episcopal Church's action Tuesday "shattered the Anglican family" and "departed from the historic Christian faith," said a statement from the American Anglican Council, the lead conservative organization opposing Mr. Robinson's elevation to bishop of New Hampshire.</p>

<p>The Episcopal House of Bishops last night elected the denomination's first declared homosexual bishop, one day after his candidacy was threatened by accusations that he fondled a male parishioner and condoned pornography.</p> <p>By a 62-45 vote at the denomination's session in Minneapolis, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, 56, was elected bishop of New Hampshire, provoking talk of an Episcopal schism.</p>

<p>A homosexual clergyman's election as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire was delayed yesterday as church officials investigated his links to a homosexual youth group and charges that he sexually harassed another man.</p> <p>Episcopal leaders meeting in Minneapolis had been scheduled to vote to approve Canon V. Gene Robinson as the church's first openly homosexual bishop until the 11th-hour accusation by a Vermont man, who said Mr. Robinson's advances toward him at a church convention showed an "alarming weakness of character."</p>

<p>The Vatican came out swinging against homosexual "marriage" yesterday, calling it "a legalization of evil" and saying Catholic politicians have a "moral duty" to oppose it.</p> <p>The six-page document, "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons" was written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which clarifies church doctrine.</p>

Saudis Lead in Religious PersecutionBy Julia DuinWashington Times | May 15, 2003 Saudi Arabia was cited as the top violator yesterday in an annual report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom on the status of religious liberties worldwide."These are not idiosyncratic American perceptions of religious freedom," committee Vice Chairman Michael Young said. The report was issued as Saudi Arabia was reeling over at least 20 deaths caused by suicide bombings in an exclusive Riyadh suburb inhabited by foreigners.The commission was formed by Congress in 1998 and remains the world's only government-sanctioned entity to investigate and report religious-freedom violations....