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A group photo of the Santa Clara adjunct and lecturer faculty union in front of the Mission church on Santa Clara University’s campus on May 1, 2022. Courtesy Maggie Levantovskaya.
Santa Clara University, a Catholic Jesuit university in California’s Bay Area, is among other Jesuit universities celebrating recent union wins, including dining workers at Loyola University Chicago and graduate students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Megan Rohrer during their installation ceremony as the fifth bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sept. 11, 2021. Rohrer resigned as bishop less than a year later. Photo courtesy Sierra Pacific Synod, ELCA. Photo credit to Gareth Gooch and Bill Wilson.
Rohrer’s resignation as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Sierra Pacific Synod, followed months of conflicts that destroyed reputations and livelihoods, permanently severed relationships, and left a church worshipping in a rainy parking lot. Sources within the ELCA told Sojourners that Rohrer’s resignation prompted sadness and denial, anger and celebration.
Pope Francis speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters, at the Vatican, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Francis said he wants to give women more top-level positions in the Holy See and disclosed that for the first time he would name women to a previously all-male Vatican committee that helps him select the world’s bishops.
Modern downtown cityscape with church in front, Los Angeles. Via Alamy.
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)’s bill would classify affordable housing built on religious or private college land as “use by right,” a term for developments that are exempt from local zoning requirements. The bill would make it simpler for religious institutions and private universities to build affordable housing on their property.
Pope Francis speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters, at the Vatican, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Francis said that while the Vatican’s secret and contested agreement with China on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops is not ideal, he hopes it can be renewed in October because the church takes the long view.
Abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion demonstrators protest outside the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., June 21, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The Supreme Court overturned 49 years of federal abortion rights on Friday, in its decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Faith leaders and advocates told Sojourners they were not surprised by the court’s decision, which was nearly identical to the draft leaked in May. However, many leaders echoed Rev. Katey Zeh, CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, who told Sojourners that “the emotional impact of a moment like this can’t be underestimated.”
Anti-abortion demonstrators celebrate outside the United States Supreme Court as the court rules in the Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization abortion case, overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C. on June 24, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday took the dramatic step of overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a woman's constitutional right to an abortion and legalized it nationwide, handing a momentous victory to Republicans and religious conservatives who want to limit or ban the procedure.
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed more public funding of religious entities in an important ruling in favor of two Christian families who challenged a Maine tuition assistance program that excluded private schools that promote religion.
Members and allies of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Committee celebrate on the front steps of Rochester City Hall with the Haudenosaunee Hiawatha Belt flag after the Rochester City Council unanimously passed a resolution to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day on June 14, 2022. Courtesy/Indigenous Peoples’ Day Committee
Those inside Rochester, N.Y.’s city hall let out a roaring round of applause after nine council members unanimously approved a resolution to end its celebration of Columbus Day and replace it with a commemoration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day each October.
Parish priest Andriy Klyushev poses for a photo, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Saint Nicholas church, Irpin, Kyiv region, Ukraine June 4, 2022. REUTERS/Edgar Su
For years a vocal minority at Saint Nicholas’ parish in the middle-class Kyiv commuter town of Irpin resisted calls to split from their spiritual fathers in Moscow.
Courtesy Joy Oladokun.
“I don’t think we talk enough about the delight in sexuality, especially spiritually,” Oladokun told Sojourners. They also take inspiration from the spirit of the Last Supper, comparing queer love to communion and noting “there’s something kind of romantic about Jesus at a candle-lit dinner with a bunch of his bros being like, ‘I am this bread. I am this wine. I am what you can feed off of in this moment.’”
A sign hangs on a fence in front of the Supreme Court reading: “Safe And Legal.” Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto, via Reuters.
As the country awaits the Supreme Court decision on federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson — which many expect will overturn Roe v. Wade — politicians, activists, pollsters, and news outlets are highlighting polling on abortion.
Via Alamy.
Over 65 percent of Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, white Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and white evangelical protestants say their friendship networks are exclusively heterosexual. Eighty percent of white evangelicals said they did not have any LGBTQ people in their friendship network, while 56 percent of religiously unaffiliated people said the same.
Rev. Teresa Kim Pecinovsky, holding the megaphone, gives instructions to the interfaith protest outside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on May 27, 2022. Ruth Nasrullah/Sojourners
The protesters gathered to raise their voices for gun control and lament gun violence three days after a gunmen killed 21 people in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Asylum-seeking migrants are detained by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after crossing the Rio Bravo river to turn themselves in to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on March 30, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
The Biden administration is fighting a legal battle to end the use of Title 42, a policy that has effectively closed the U.S. Southern Border to asylum-seekers for more than two years. Numerous faith-based organizations that work with immigrants have called on the administration to return to pre-pandemic asylum processing.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James listens to man who became emotional during a prayer vigil across the street from the TOPS supermarket a day after a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, May 15, 2022. Seth Harrison/USA Today Network via Reuters
“That was an evil, racist, white supremacist,” Reverend Darius Pridgen said from the pulpit at True Bethel Baptist Church on Sunday. “He literally looked for a zip code that had the highest concentration of African Americans.”
Retired bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun arrives the Court of Final Appeal to support media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily during a hearing an appeal by the Department of Justice against the bail decision of Lai, in Hong Kong, China December 31, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Zen, a 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong, was questioned for several hours on Wednesday at the Chai Wan Police Station close to his church residence, before being released on police bail.
Men walk through an almost dry river bed of Yamuna after searching for recyclable material on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, April 30, 2022. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders joined United Nations officials on Monday in urging financial institutions to stop bankrolling activities that are driving climate change, including ending support for new fossil fuel projects.
Duane Shank (right) 18 yrs. old, of Lancaster, Pa. is first Mennonite during Vietnam War to be prosecuted for nonregistration for the US draft. Here Shank talks with John A. Lapp, MCC Peace Section, about his options in 1970. Courtesy of Mennonite Archival Information Database.
Duane Shank, a Mennonite peace activist, community organizer, and author, died on April 20 in Goshen, Ind., after two years in hospice. He was 70. The cause was complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to his family.
Kaamilya Finley of Rikers Debate Project speaks at Regis High School in New York City, on May 2, 2022. Renée Darline Roden/Sojourners
In New York City’s Upper East Side, just down the road from the Met Gala’s red-carpet celebrities and flashbulbs, around 400 high school students, teachers, alumni, parents, and formerly incarcerated people came to Regis High School’s auditorium on Monday night to listen to two high school debate students compete against two alumni of the Rikers Debate Project.