Catholic bishops issue voter guide
BALTIMORE -- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is issuing an election-year guide stressing a moral imperative to evaluate candidates according to their positions on marriage and abortion.
The bishops overwhelmingly voted for the guide, called "Faithful Citizenship," at their national assembly Tuesday in Baltimore.
The guide addresses a broad range of issues, including protecting immigrants and the environment, fighting racism and poverty, and opposing the death penalty. However, the bishops said they consider opposition to gay marriage and abortion paramount in this presidential election season and beyond.
They said voting for a candidate specifically because the politician favors a "grave evil" such as abortion rights amounts to "formal cooperation" with that evil by the voter.
-- The Associated Press
Mother Teresa still in sainthood limbo
VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican official says it's too soon to say if Mother Teresa will be made a saint during the 2016 Holy Year of Mercy.
There's been speculation the nun, who worked with the destitute and dying in India, would be made a saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony during the Holy Year, which runs from Dec. 8 until Nov. 20, 2016. The Italian bishops conference daily Avvenire on Wednesday, citing Italian news agency AGI, called Sept. 4 a "probable" date.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi stressed that Francis still needs to approve a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession before she can become a saint. Lombardi said canonization "would be lovely" and called the possibility she would be made a saint next year a "reasonable hypothesis, desire" by admirers.
-- The Associated Press
Man sentenced in extortion case
TRENTON, N.J. -- A New York man who used threats of violence to coerce a Jewish man to give his wife a religious divorce has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Moshe Goldstein, 32, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty last year to crossing state lines to commit extortion. He also admitted that he restrained, assaulted and injured a man in Brooklyn in an attempt to extort a divorce in 2011.
Goldstein was arrested with his brother, his father and six other men in October 2013 in an undercover sting in which an FBI agent contacted two Orthodox rabbis seeking a divorce, known as a "get." Jewish law mandates that the get be presented by a husband to a wife to make a divorce official.
Rabbi Mendel Epstein was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and acquitted of attempted kidnapping, and Rabbi Martin Wolmark pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion. Both will be sentenced next month. Five other men who pleaded guilty will be sentenced soon.
-- The Associated Press
Kasich foresees 'values' agency
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate John Kasich says he'd set up an agency with a "mandate" to promote what he calls "Judeo-Christian values" overseas to counter Islamist propaganda.
The Ohio governor says he would create the new agency to promote the values of human rights, democracy and the freedoms of speech, religion and association. Kasich says the information would be distributed in the Middle East, China, Iran and Russia, to compete with the propaganda and misinformation purveyed by Islamic militants.
He made the comments Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, as part of a speech on national security. Kasich says the United States is "failing to advance our values in the battle of ideas" in the face of advances by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
-- The Associated Press
Religion on 11/21/2015