As darkness fell on a recent night, Duc Le donned a long white tunic and black cap, slipped off his shoes and joined other aging refugees to honor the new moon with the chanted prayers and offerings that mark the Vietnamese religion of Cao Dai.

Surrounded by votive candles and flowers, the couple looked resplendent, both wearing Indian kurtas, holding a bouquet together, positively in love.

China's government-backed Catholic church elected new leaders on Thursday, including a prelate unrecognized by the Vatican to head its bishops' council, in a move likely to worsen often uneasy relations with the Holy See.

China's government-backed "patriotic" Catholic church began a three-day meeting Tuesday to choose new leaders, defying objections from the Vatican that the conclave has no formal standing with the true Catholic Church and further straining the Chinese government's fraught relationship with the Holy See.

Canada should help Muslim youths perform volunteer work in Afghanistan and Iraq as an alternative to joining violent extremist groups, says a government-funded study.

A majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries' political life, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, but have mixed feelings toward militant religious groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is well known that Kurdish tribes took part in the mass slaughter by the Ottomans of around 1m Armenians in 1915.

Human Rights Watch urged Indonesia on Wednesday to overturn Shariah laws in the conservative province of Aceh, saying the application of the legal code of Islam has resulted in widespread rights abuses.

A Syariah High Court judge suggested at a seminar in Kuantan early last month that Malaysia should criminalise black magic and introduce a law to that effect, adding that the practice of black magic was becoming rampant, especially among the Malay community.

A resolution combating the "vilification of religions" was adopted Tuesday (Nov. 23) by a United Nations committee, but religious freedom advocates who oppose the measure say support for it continues to diminish.

A new, 62-foot-tall menorah, possibly the world’s largest, rises from a mountain overlooking this Indonesian city, courtesy of the local government.

The world's cardinals met Friday in a rare Vatican summit to discuss the most pressing issues facing the church, including the sex abuse scandal, religious freedom and the conversion of Anglicans to Catholicism.

At the Sunday market in Kashgar, it isn't a wild stretch to imagine commerce as it might have been in the 13th century when Marco Polo passed through this Silk Road oasis: Smooth-faced boys wrangle with horses, sheep and camels.

The Afghan president on Tuesday urged insurgents to abandon violence and accept offers of reconciliation from the government, using the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to issue a plea for peace.

It took years to make the United Nations' newest agency, UN Women, a reality, and then just one day to effectively kill it.

Pope Benedict XVI replied in diplomatic and general terms to a provocative letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledging to find common efforts for "peace and reconciliation" with the Islamic republic.

In a much-anticipated speech focusing on development, democracy and religion, President Obama sought on Wednesday to strengthen America’s ties with Indonesia, a rising Asian power with the world’s largest Muslim population.

President Obama, renewing his call for better relations between the United States and the Muslim world, used a long-awaited homecoming trip to this island nation to make a symbolic visit on Wednesday morning to the largest mosque in southeast Asia — even as he declared that “much more work needs to be done” to fulfill the promise he made 17 months ago in Cairo of a “new beginning.”

When Michelle Obama, the first lady, introduced her husband to a group of college students here on Sunday, she urged them to ask him “tough questions.”

Yin Xinhui reached the peak of Mount Yi and surveyed the chaos. The 47-year-old Taoist abbess was on a sacred mission: to consecrate a newly rebuilt temple to one of her religion’s most important deities, the Jade Emperor.