Religions

When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S., he will find a Catholic public that is remarkably accepting of a variety of non-traditional families, according to a new survey on family life, sexuality and Catholic identity.

It’s a fascinating time for conversations about faith in the United States, with Pope Francis set to visit, a presidential election on the horizon and major trends reshaping the country’s religious landscape.

Compared with most other Jewish Americans, Orthodox Jews on average are younger, get married earlier and have bigger families. They also tend to be more religiously observant and more socially and politically conservative.

Seven decades after the end of World War II, most American Jews say remembering the Holocaust is essential to what being Jewish means to them, personally.

The religious face of America is largely a Christian one, with roughly seven-in-ten Americans belonging to that faith. But some of the nation’s biggest metropolitan areas have a very different look.

The nation’s population is growing more racially and ethnically diverse – and so are many of its religious groups, both at the congregational level and among broader Christian traditions.

Only three Roman Catholics have ever run for president on a major party ticket, and all were Democrats. But that may be about to change. So far six Catholics (including some early favorites) are running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

As the Islamic militant group ISIS continues to entrench itself in Syria and Iraq, concerns about Islamic extremism are growing in the West and in countries with significant Muslim populations.

Many large religious groups have taken positions in opposition to the death penalty even though that stance is sometimes at odds with the opinions of their adherents.

This weekend marks 20 years since the Srebrenica massacre – the killing of 7,000-8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in a Bosnian town that had been designated a United Nations safe haven.