PARIS (RNS) — A leading French commentator sees a ‘neo-Protestant’ challenge to France’s traditional ‘Catholic/secular’ political culture, transforming politics from behind-the-scenes battling among elites to more open and transparent governance.

OXFORD, England (RNS) — Exciting progress in biology in recent decades may be building up a third new phase in the scientific explanation of life, according to thinkers gathered at a University of Oxford conference last week.

PARIS (RNS) Five hundred years after the Reformation, one of Protestantism’s leading branches has officially said it now agrees with the Vatican on the main issue at the root of its split from the Roman Catholic Church.

(RNS) The reconstruction of the City Palace (Stadtschloss), the central Berlin winter residence of kings and kaisers, is raising all kinds of questions about Berlin’s relationship to its past.

(RNS) ‘Kein Ablass für Abgas!’ (No indulgences for exhaust fumes), a pastor wrote about the German carmaker providing the official vehicle fleet for a biannual church assembly.

PARIS (RNS) Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders — representing religious minorities in France — have come out against anti-immigrant candidate Marine Le Pen. The Roman Catholic Church remains officially neutral.

PARIS (RNS) European lawmakers are calling for tighter restrictions on the mosques, which critics say keep diaspora Turks from fully integrating.

PARIS (RNS) It looked as if the two-day meeting in Paris could be the place where the next steps in the campaign against the pope were being worked out. It turned out to be nothing of the sort.

PARIS (RNS) Playing the religion card openly is rare in France, where secularism is normally taken so seriously that politicians rarely if ever mention their faith in public. But this election is not taking place in normal times.

PARIS (RNS) With his anti-Muslim rhetoric and planned travel bans, you’d think President Trump would be a favorite target for Islamic State’s propaganda. Well, think again.

PARIS (RNS) Majorities across Europe are deeply concerned about Muslim immigration and support an immediate end to it, even as voters think the Muslim populations in their countries are much higher than they really are.

(RNS) This was not at all supposed to be what the cute little figure was about.

PARIS (RNS) Almost anywhere else in France, a theologian could not have even been hired as a lecturer, much less rise to become a university president.

PARIS (RNS) The bill would allow abortion rights activists to sue websites that promote alternatives to ending a pregnancy or discuss abortion’s possible psychological effects.

(RNS) Abandoning the ‘Judenmission,’ which effectively ended in the decades after the Holocaust, should have been a formality.