Bundled in winter coats and holding hands, President Barack Obama and his family left the White House last Sunday and strolled through a park to St. John's Episcopal Church.

The 4th UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum was held in Doha, Qatar, Dec. 11-13 with strong international participation.

A panel at the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Forum in Doha tackled the subject of Muslim-Western relations in the context of the post-9/11 period.

A top European diplomat yesterday called on the West to stop patronising the Arab Spring and respect the results of the democratic elections that are taking place in the post-revolution Arab countries.

The research team, commissioned by The National Catholic Reporter (NCR), which included William D'Antonio of The Catholic University of America (CUA), Mary Gautier of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University and Michele Dillon of the University of New Hampshire, recently completed the fifth survey of U.S. Catholics.

The Hindu American Foundation held a forum Saturday in Farmington Hills, raising $30,000 from local residents to help spread its message of pluralism and peace.

This week the Republican Jewish Coalition held its presidential candidates forum, and the visiting contenders engaged in transparently obsequious rhetoric to demonstrate their love of Israel.

Yesterday, the blogging was a little thin because I attended an all-day conference at the Pew Research Center on media coverage of religion and politics.

Gov. Rick Perry’s new campaign ad, “Strong,” features the line “... there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Though public support for both major political parties is very low, one group of voters is usually exempted from this malaise: evangelicals.

Believe it or not, politicians used to be able to assume that when the U.S. Catholic bishops spoke on an issue, that meant that the nation's Catholics had spoken.

A quarter of Americans in a recent poll said they are less likely to support a Mormon running for president, suggesting Republican Mitt Romney continues to have a "Mormon problem."

Catholics Come Home, a lay organization faithful to church teachings, is launching the church's first nationwide television ad campaign inviting millions of inactive and former Catholics to return to the fold.

Happy Holidays, Merry Xmas, the holiday tree.

President Obama and Republicans have repeatedly clashed over policy toward Israel, incited most recently by comments from the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, who argued that some anti-Semitism was rooted in territorial tensions between Israel and its neighbors.

Saying President Barack Obama is waging war on religion, Texas Gov. Rick Perry adds in a TV ad his presidential campaign is airing in Iowa: "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school."

Religion and politics may not always mix well together, but that’s not the case for Republican candidates.

Police in Afghanistan said bombings on Tuesday hit a Shiite Muslim shrine and a mosque, killing at least 54 people, and wounding more than 100 during one of the most important days in the Shiite calendar, The New York Times reported.

In politics, there is support, and there is intensity of support. And heading into the 2012 election year, Republicans are ahead in the potentially crucial quest for intensity.

A new poll that gauges Americans' views of the Mormon faith served up difficult news for the nation's highest profile member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.