Yahoo! News: Religion News

Petition urges White House to classify Westboro church as hate group
Vatican paper lauds Italy PM Monti's election bid
Should President Obama label the Westboro Baptist Church a hate group?

Petition urges White House to classify Westboro church as hate group

Posted: 27 Dec 2012 11:29 AM PST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 475,000 people have signed petitions asking the White House to crack down on Westboro Baptist Church after the group, known for holding anti-gay demonstrations at funerals, threatened to picket in Newtown, Connecticut. Newtown was the site of a school massacre on December 14 in which 20 young children and six adults were killed. Five petitions posted on the White House website since the shootings have asked the government to name the church, based in Topeka, Kansas, as a hate group or end its tax-exempt status. ...

Vatican paper lauds Italy PM Monti's election bid

Posted: 27 Dec 2012 09:17 AM PST

ROME (Reuters) - The Vatican newspaper on Thursday praised Mario Monti's announcement that he may run in February's general election, signaling that Italy's technocrat prime minister had replaced Silvio Berlusconi as the Church's preferred politician. Monti said on Sunday that he was willing to seek a second term if a credible, reform-minded political force backed his agenda ahead of the February 24-25 parliamentary election. ...