St. Isidore would be free for students in kindergarten-12th grade and funded like any other public charter school in Oklahoma. It aims to open for the 2024-2025 school year and serve around 400-500 students. Proponents say it would give rural Catholic families who live far from brick-and-mortar schools the ability to access Catholic education. (Wallis, KGOU)
Read MoreDays before the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, former megachurch pastor Rick Warren has appealed to his fellow Southern Baptists to overturn a denominational decision to oust his Saddleback Church because it permits women to serve with the title pastor. (Banks, Religion News Service)
Read MoreOpenjourney already appears to have been used by paedophiles to create illegal child abuse images, according to Henk Van Ess, a Dutch investigator and researcher. Van Ess says that while researching AI software he stumbled across the illegal material on an online forum that included a rolling feed of images created by the software. (Titcomb, The Telegraph)
Read MoreFrustrated with book challenges and bans in their school district, a parent in Utah decided to submit a complaint of their own — about the Bible. The Davis School District took the parent's objection seriously, placing the Bible under review. This week, the district officially decided to remove the religious text from elementary and middle school libraries for containing "vulgarity or violence." (Wilson, NPR)
Read MoreHalf of those who are regular online watchers of religious services usually do so alone. More than half (61%) of those who virtually attend do not participate in worship activities as they did in person, such as singing, kneeling or praying out loud. But Black (49%) and Hispanic (47%) online worshippers are more likely to continue these practices virtually. (Banks, Religion News Serrvice)
Read MoreMartissant, a neighborhood on the southwestern edge of Port-au-Prince, has for years been a notorious battleground for warring armed groups. In 2021, gang members invaded the temple, pillaged its artifacts and burned it to the ground. Merancourt & Coletta, The Washington Post)
Read More