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Tuesday’s religion news round-up

The U.S. Catholic Bishops will consider adopting a statement next month that says same-sex marriage harms people’s dignity and society’s common good. A poker-playing Catholic priest has won $100,000 and will have a chance to win $1 million more in December. Gov. Schwarzengger vetoed a bill to educate law enforcement officers about the religious significant of Hindu kirpans, and the former manager of a Kosher slaughterhouse is set to go on trial in South Dakota.

Christians are flocking to Calvary — in Washington, D.C., and the Kentucky pastor who hosted a God-and-guns service in July chose his Glock over his flock.

The Vatican appointed two Americans — including Francis Collins, the recently named head of the NIH — to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pope Benedict XVI will make his first visit to Rome’s synagogue in January. Benedict elevated a 19th-century priest who worked with lepers in Hawaii to sainthood, but one woman says Mormons had already baptized the priest and “sealed” him for eternity to his supposed wife.


The Rev. Sun Myung Moon is handing over control of his Unification Church to his sons. The Taliban are in stronger financial shape than al-Qaida, according to the Treasury Department, and the Church of England may restrict the powers of female bishops before they even get around to consecrating them.

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