Dozens of religious and secular aid groups are mobilizing to send relief to the 3 million Haitians believed to be in immediate need after an earthquake devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation. At least two Americans, staffers at the Diocese of Norwich’s (Conn.) Haitian Ministries, are trapped in their mission house. There are conflicting reports that the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince is among the thousands who have died in the quake.

Baha’is in Washington gathered to pray for the seven Baha’is on trial for espionage in Iran. The U.S. has strongly condemned the trial.

Parents, teachers, and activists are squaring off in Texas about how to teach history, with some seeking to promote and highlight Christianity. Why should you care? The standards will be used to develop textbooks for the nation at large, the AP says.

Religious leaders are talking to bankers about modifying mortgages for people in the red. Nevada’s Supreme Court is about to consider the extent to which a religious group can be held liable for misconduct by its clergy, and the new Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee is begging Wisconsin legislators not to lift the statute of limitations on lawsuits against child sex abusers, saying it could bankrupt the church.

National Catholic Reporter says the second phase of the Vatican’s investigation of American women religious, the visitation of certain communities, will commence in April. An ultra-Orthodox rabbi wants the Army to wave its no-beard policy so he can become a chaplain. Kosher food has become really popular among health-conscious non-Jews. “I consider this trend an unusual grace of God,” said Yaakov Yitzchak Horowitz, rabbi and director of kosher development for a Manischewitz company.

Former Soviet prisoners of war were used as guards in the German concentration camps where millions of Jews were killed, a historian testified in the trial of an Ohio auto-worker accused of serving in the SS.

Pope Benedict XVI forgave the woman who tackled him at Christmas Eve Mass. The Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II is due to be released from prison next week. He says the world needs a “new American empire.” Coming right up.

A Dutch lawmaker wants judges to drop/reduce charges of criminal incitement against him for saying mean things about Islam. Fiji won’t let the country’s Methodist Church, which counts one in four Fijians(?) as members, hold annual conferences until 2014.

The UN blamed the increase in Afghan civilian deaths on the Taliban. The ELCA says Middle Eastern churches, including Lutherans, Anglicans and Reformed Christians, may soon begin ordaining women as pastors.

The AFP/Getty image is of Haitians dealing with the earthquake’s aftermath.