Protests continue in Egypt, as a coalition that includes the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood is demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.

The Brotherhood, which wants to form an Islamist state in the Arab world’s largest nation, has subordinated it religious aims, and said it would not take a leadership role in the opposition coalition, according to reports. For decades, the U.S. has assumed that secular Arab governments are preferable to religious ones.

Meanwhile, Copts in Maryland, and Egyptians elsewhere in the U.S., are nervously keeping tabs on the violence in their homeland.

Counter-terrorism officials from more than 30 countries are launching a counter-attack on the InterWebs against Islamists, according to the NYT, working “to undermine the appeal of terrorists, expose their lack of legitimacy, and attack the credibility of their ideology and online messengers.” Better late than never.

The Vatican wants to repair relations with Al-Azhar University, after the flaghip Muslim school severed ties to protest papal criticism of the insufficient protection of Egypt’s Christian minority. Pope Benedict XVI released doves from his window, only to have them fly right back inside. Vatican City had the highest per capita crime rate in the world last year.

Anglican archbishops wrapped up their annual meeting in Ireland. Much time was spent trying to ascertain the meeting’s purpose. They also condemned the murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda.

A Southern California man caught with explosives in his vehicle outside a large suburban Detroit mosque where mourners had gathered for a funeral was planning to blow it up, according to reports.

An outdoor funeral pyre in Colorado uniquely draws the dead (their friends and relatives, really) from various faiths. NPR looks at the increase in church foreclosures.

A Kentucky appeals court held that a marriage solemnized religiously without a civil marriage license is not legally valid. A Pennsylvania Chic-fil-A outlet’s sponsorship of a marriage seminar by an anti-gay group has ruffled a few feathers.

The exorcism “The Rite” topped the weekend’s box office, raking in about $15 million. Catholic nuns in the Philippines danced to Eraserhead hits to recruit new members.

“Esoterics” are flocking to a tiny village in France, where they believe the world will end on 12/21/2012. “We are 200 locals,” the town’s mayor told NYT. “We don’t want 2,000 to 3,000 utopians showing up in Bugarach.”