The walls surrounding Ghana’s national cathedral are aging plywood. Its spires are yellow construction cranes, which have not moved in years. It frequently reverberates with singing — the singing of a choir of frogs that moves in whenever the cathedral’s half-finished foundations fill with rainwater. Ghana’s former president, Nana Akufo-Addo, spent around $58 million of…
In a solemn and majestic funeral on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Roman Catholic Church on Saturday laid to rest Pope Francis, the first South American pope, whose simple style, pastoral vision and outsize footprint on the world stage both reinvigorated and divided the institution that he led for a dozen years. Heads…
As the world Pope Francis consistently called for — one that cared for migrants, safeguarded the health of the planet and protected human rights — collapsed around him in recent years, Francis would react to the newest setback by going quiet. When Francis was “disappointed by certain political choices that governments are making,” Archbishop Paul…
Evangelical Christian leaders who delivered votes to President Trump are now pressing him to declare that Israel can claim ownership of the West Bank, based on a promise God made to the Jews in the Bible. They are seeking a way to pave a path toward annexation of territory that is widely viewed internationally as…
She first entered a church on a visit to Turkey. She remembers feeling a sense of calm so overpowering that she purchased a small Bible. She wrapped it in her clothes and smuggled it back to her hometown, Isfahan, in central Iran. Artemis Ghasemzadeh’s conversion from Islam to Christianity evolved over a few years starting…
Roman Catholics worldwide prayed for Pope Francis, who is hospitalized in critical condition, at Mass on Sunday after the Vatican announced that he was “not out of danger.” The 88-year-old pontiff went into the hospital on Feb. 14 with an infection that developed into pneumonia in both lungs. He had a long “asthmatic respiratory crisis”…
They arrived at the United States border from around the world, hoping to seek asylum. Instead, they were detained, shackled and flown by the U.S. military to a faraway country, Panama. They were stripped of their passports and most of their cellphones, they said, and then locked in a hotel, barred from seeing lawyers and…
Everything clicked when Peter Thiel gave the speech about God. The occasion was a 40th birthday party for Trae Stephens, who is Mr. Thiel’s venture capital partner as well as one of the founders of Anduril Industries, a maker of high-tech defense systems and weaponry. It was a multiday affair, held in 2023 at Mr….
Ukraine is sending its largest-ever delegation to a gathering of politically influential Christian leaders in Washington this week, seeking to lay out an argument that protecting religious freedom is a strong reason for continuing U.S. aid to resist Russian aggression. The Ukrainian pastors, members of Parliament and military chaplains who will be attending the National…
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider a high-profile case that could open the door to allowing public dollars to directly fund religious schools. The widely watched case out of Oklahoma could transform the line between church and state in education, and it will come before a court whose conservative majority has broadly embraced…