From the BBC:

Well-behaved prisoners in [the country of] Georgia are being offered the chance to spend time in a monastery to serve out their sentences, as part of a plan to reduce prison overcrowding.

From The Telegraph:

Chris Grayling, the shadow Home secretary, was under fire at the weekend after it emerged that he had said bed and breakfasts run by Christians should be allowed to turn away gay couples because of their sexuality. 

From The Times:

When a famous tantric guru boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. “Go on then — kill me,” he said.

Mr Edamaruku had been invited to the same talk show as head of the Indian Rationalists’ Association — the country’s self-appointed sceptic-in-chief. At first the holy man, Pandit Surender Sharma, was reluctant, but eventually he agreed to perform a series of rituals designed to kill Mr Edamaruku live on television.

When the Archdiocese of Munich admitted last Friday (March 12) to “serious errors” in the case of a priest suspected of molesting a child, it flatly exonerated the man who had served as archbishop at the time, Joseph Ratzinger.

Ratzinger, of course, is now Pope Benedict XVI, and the scores of molestation cases erupting across Europe are prompting questions about Ratzinger’s response to the problem, both before and after he was elected pope.

As American society becomes more religiously diverse, the nation’s population has had to grapple with how to define its holidays and celebrations. A recent study by the Barna Group explored Americans’ definition of the Easter holiday, asking a nationwide, representative sample of American adults how they would describe what Easter means to them, personally.

The results indicated that most Americans consider Easter to be a religious holiday, but fewer identify the resurrection of Jesus as the underlying meaning. The study also explored the degree to which Americans are likely to invite an unchurched friend or family member to attend worship service on Easter weekend.