First Sikh named attorney general
TRENTON, N.J. -- The New Jersey Senate has confirmed the nation's first Sikh state attorney general.
Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal was confirmed Tuesday. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy says he believes Grewal is the first Sikh to serve in such a position.
Grewal is a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, having served in the criminal division. He also served as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York. The Democrat says he's "honored and humbled" to be attorney general.
Grewal, who wears a turban and full beard, has said he wants to show the country and his three daughters, who attended his confirmation, his commitment to working to end intolerance.
-- The Associated Press
Second basilica to be designated
WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia area is home to the country's largest Catholic church, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Now the Vatican has designated for the region a second basilica, this time a 223-year-old congregation in northern Virginia whose first donor was George Washington.
The Rev. Michael Burbidge, bishop of the Diocese of Arlington, announced the news at the 8:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday at the historic St. Mary Catholic Church.
The parish will now be called The Basilica of Saint Mary, and will likely attract Catholic tourists as a result of its new designation and seal.
St. Mary is now the 84th minor basilica in the United States, structures honored for special attributes that can be architectural, historical or geographical.
"It's a huge honor for Alexandria, which isn't known as a Catholic town. This certainly puts us on the map," said Ken Wolfe, a parishioner at St. Mary.
The Catholic Church's four major basilicas are all in Rome.
"Prior to American independence, Catholics in Alexandria often worshipped in fear, in a hidden way, because the Roman Catholic Church was greatly restricted in Virginia, as it was throughout most of the English colonies," the Rev. Edward Hathaway, St. Mary's pastor, told parishioners Sunday.
"As the nation grew, so did the influence of Saint Mary's Parish, solidly establishing Catholicism throughout this region."
-- The Washington Post
President Carter writing new book
NEW YORK -- Former President Jimmy Carter is working on a book about his religious faith.
Simon & Schuster announced Wednesday that Carter's Faith: A Journey for All will tell of how religion has sustained him and what role it plays in society. Carter, 93, said in a statement that he wanted to explore faith's "far-reaching effect."
Carter has been a prolific author since leaving the presidency in 1981. He has written memoirs, fiction, poetry and policy books. His memoir An Hour Before Daylight was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2002.
Faith is scheduled to come out in March.
-- The Associated Press
Prague museum
retrieves old book
PRAGUE -- A 16th-century book that belonged to Prague's Jewish community before World War II and surfaced at a New York auction last year was brought back to the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
Titled Mikne Avram -- Peculium Abrae, the recovered volume is a grammar book published in Hebrew and Latin in 1523. It was written by Abraham ben Meir de Balmes, an Italian Jew, and published in Italy.
"It's an exceptional moment for us that such a rare book returns to Prague after such a long time," Leo Pavlat, director of the Jewish Museum in Prague, the legal successor to the Czech capital's pre-war Jewish community.
After turning up last year at auction house Kestenbaum & Company, director Daniel Kestenbaum identified the book's most recent owner as a scholar in Jerusalem who had agreed to let the museum have it anonymously.
The previous owner was Ze'ev Ben-Haim, a leading linguist and former president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. It is not clear how and when he acquired the book, but the scholar in Israel acquired it after Ben-Haim's death in 2013.
-- The Associated Press
Religion on 01/20/2018