religion

Every now and then, bishops write letters for their priests to read to the faithful during Mass.

In 1996, the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services sent a letter to its chaplains instructing them to urge their flocks to back the "Project Life Postcard Campaign" in support of the Partial-Birth-Abortion Ban Act.

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SALT LAKE CITY - My personalized Ramadan experiment ended last week, and people ask if I'm happy it's over. They congratulate me for the ability to forgo eating and drinking during daylight hours for 31 days and ask me if I've lost weight (yes, thank you, about 7 pounds). They either remark on my stamina or joke about my lunacy.

A century ago, the American philosopher-psychologist William James affirmed that "if any medical fact can be considered to stand firm, it is that in certain environments prayer may contribute to recovery and should be encouraged as a therapeutic measure."

The tattoos that emblazon nearly every appendage on Stephen Day's body trace the story of his life since he found Jesus Christ.

A sleeve of angels encircles the Hebrew word for "Mom" on his right arm, a Celtic cross runs from his left knee to ankle, and a massive tree, dedicated to his wife and kids, climbs his right leg.

For more than a decade, Pentecostal Bishop T.D. Jakes has lived in the shadow of a Time magazine cover that asked, "Is this man the next Billy Graham?"

That was a loaded question, because of tensions behind the scenes between the multimedia Dallas superstar and many mainstream Christian leaders.

The roles we play in life, however responsibly, can disguise the persons we are beneath our posturing. Although God formed us in our human nature, he did not create the roles we have come to play in life. Typically, our scripts were thrust upon us by circumstances or by others.

Mitt Romney's tax returns reveal that the Republican presidential candidate does something fewer Americans do these days: He tithes.

Pope Benedict XVI cut to the chase when meeting with the visiting bishops from Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the U.S. armed services.

The pope mentioned "religious freedom" in the third sentence of his Jan. 19 remarks at the Vatican and he never let up -- returning to this hot topic again and again.

Jesus' parables defy traditional categories of storytelling. They are neither tragic, humorous, heroic, sentimental nor even especially uplifting.

Moreover, they are not the sort of stories you or I would be inclined to read to children at bedtime or around a campfire. His tales are too terse to be suspenseful or even very entertaining.

So what makes them so memorable?