Religion

Yahoo News reports: A New Hampshire man who police said was working as a pastor at a Georgetown church owned by his wife has been charged with failure to register as a sex offender in Massachusetts. Steven Newman, 56, was arraigned July 13 in Haverhill District Court on the charge. Police said Newman is registered in New Hampshire as a …

Madison’s CBS News affiliate reports: A man who worked as a youth pastor at a church in Madison was found guilty Thursday night of five felony counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child. A jury reached its verdict in the case against Glen Uselmann, 63, just before 8 p.m. Thursday after just over four hours of deliberations, online court …

The Toronto Star reports: A former pastor and his wife were arrested on Tuesday after two women say they were sexually assaulted as minors, said York Regional Police. The couple from Grimsby, Ont., 64-year-old Raymond Swash and 61-year-old Sandra Swash, face several historical sexual assault charges involving minors as young as 13 years old when they were members of the …

The BBC reports: The father of a choirboy who prosecutors alleged was sexually abused by Cardinal George Pell has launched a lawsuit against the cleric and the Catholic Church. The man is seeking damages for mental injury that he suffered after learning of the allegations, his lawyers said. In 2018 Cardinal Pell was convicted of abusing two choirboys in the …

Corpus Christi’s NBC affiliate reports: William C. Robinson, a pastor working for Chi Alpha Campus Ministries in Corpus Christi, was booked in the Nueces County Jail early Monday morning. Robinson is charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. The arrest affidavit states that allegations were made against Robinson during a forensic interview. Sexual contact with the …

Charleston’s ABC affiliate reports: On Monday night, Huntington City Council voted to ban conversion therapy in city limits for children under 18. Huntington joins Charleston, Morgantown and Wheeling as the other cities in West Virginia to outlaw the practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender. These are practices that have been considered abusive by medical and mental …

The Christian Post reports: Megachurch Pastor John Gray has been hospitalized with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism he called an “illegal transaction from Hell” as his wife, Aventer, is urging his followers to bombard Heaven with prayers so her husband can receive a “miracle” from God. Gray, 49, who leads Relentless Church, which has campuses in Greenville, South Carolina, and Powder …

Reuters reports: The mother of the man arrested for the killing of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is a member of the Unification Church, the head of its Japanese arm said on Monday. Tetsuya Yamagami, an unemployed 41-year-old, has been identified by police as the suspect who approached Abe and opened fire during a campaign speech on Friday. Yamagami …

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis has dismissed rumors he plans to resign anytime soon and that he hopes to visit Moscow and Kyiv after traveling to Canada later this month. Francis also told Reuters in an interview published Monday that the idea “never entered my mind” to announce a planned retirement at the end of the summer, though he …

The Associated Press reports: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose $44 billion bid to buy Twitter remains in limbo, used the social media platform to announce he had met with Pope Francis. “Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday,” Musk tweeted of the Friday afternoon audience, alongside a photo showing Musk, Francis and four of Musk’s teenage children. Francis frequently meets with high-profile …

The Associated Press reports: The first lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland since Maine took away a limitation on claims of child sexual abuse were filed on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last year that allowed victims to bring civil lawsuits about older abuse cases. Abuse survivors previously could not bring lawsuits if they experienced …

Gallup reports: The vast majority of U.S. adults believe in God, but the 81% who do so is down six percentage points from 2017 and is the lowest in Gallup’s trend. Between 1944 and 2011, more than 90% of Americans believed in God. Gallup’s May 2-22 Values and Beliefs poll finds 17% of Americans saying they do not believe in …

The CBC reports: A retired priest has been charged with indecent assault in connection with a decade-long RCMP investigation into a Manitoba residential school. Retired Father Arthur Masse, 92, was charged in connection with the sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl, who was a student at the Fort Alexander residential school, northeast of Winnipeg. The alleged assault occurred between 1968 …

Greensboro’s Fox affiliate reports: A former assistant principal at Union Grove Christian School and pastor has been sentenced to five consecutive 10-12 month sentences in relation to multiple felony counts of sexual activity with a student. On July 11, 2019, Jason Keller was arrested for a series of sex crimes that he committed nearly a decade earlier from 2008 to …

The Christian Post reports: Southern Baptists adopted a resolution Tuesday rejecting the prosperity gospel, calling it false teaching and distortion of Scripture, particularly regarding Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the cross. Assembled in Anaheim, California, this week for the denomination’s annual meeting, messengers passed Resolution 2, which defines the prosperity gospel as the belief that “Jesus’ sacrificial and atoning death …

The Christian Post reports: The Southern Baptist Convention has delayed a decision on whether to remove Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church from the denomination in light of the California megachurch’s ordination of three female pastors last year. Saddleback Church’s ordination of the three pastors last May in what the church called a “historic night” drew the ire of many in the …

Agence France-Presse reports: Saudi officials are seizing rainbow-colored toys and articles of clothing from shops in the capital as part of a crackdown on homosexuality, state media reported. Targeted items include rainbow-colored bows, skirts, hats and pencil cases, most of them apparently manufactured for young children, according to a report broadcast Tuesday evening by the state-run Al-Ekhbariya news channel. “We …

Reuters reports: Florida’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy violates the religious freedom of Jews because Jewish law requires the procedure in some cases, a Boynton Beach synagogue said in a lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in state court on Friday by Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, also says that the abortion ban violates the right to privacy guaranteed by the …

ABC News reports: The United Arab Emirates has banned the upcoming Pixar animated film Lightyear from showing in cinemas amid reports that the film includes a kiss between two female characters. The Emirates, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, announced through its Media Regulatory Office of the country’s Ministry of Youth and Culture that the film would not be opening …

The Toronto Star reports: A pastor at one of Canada’s largest megachurches has been arrested and charged with sexual assault by Hamilton police after an external investigation concluded he allegedly abused his power and sexually harassed a parishioner. Bruxy Cavey, a teaching pastor at The Meeting House in Oakville, confirmed his resignation in a blog post acknowledging the investigation, saying: …