In India, some fear lawmakers are stoking anti-Muslim fervor

A lawmaker from India’s ruling party called the Taj Mahal a blot on Indian culture, saying in October that the famous tourist site had been built by Muslim traitors. In November, another party member offered a bounty for the heads of two people involved in a movie featuring a Muslim sultan. Then, this month, a laborer was hacked to death and set afire while his alleged attacker ranted against Muslims.

The series of incidents this fall has reinforced fears that anti-Muslim sentiment has hardened in India in the three years since a Hindu nationalist party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept to power. Some say it has reached a point where Hindu extremists believe they can get away with murder. Others worry that hard-line Hindu leaders want to rewrite the country’s rich Muslim history.

From India to Malaysia, Rohingya face hardship, uncertainty

Recent violence in Myanmar has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to seek refuge across the border in Bangladesh. But Rohingya have been fleeing persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for decades, and many who have made it to safety in other countries still face a precarious existence.

Some are barred from working or feel unwelcome in unfamiliar lands. Still, many say they are relieved to be safe.

Here are four countries where Rohingya have established settlements in recent years:

Indian journalist’s killing provokes outrage, anguish

The killing of an Indian journalist provoked outrage and anguish across the country on Wednesday, with thousands protesting what they saw as an effort to silence a critic of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party.

Even as police promise to hunt down the assailants who gunned down Gauri Lankesh outside her Bangalore home Tuesday night, many said they feared the perpetrators of the attack - like so many others - would get away with impunity.

Spontaneous rallies erupted in cities and towns across India on Wednesday. Protesters demanded the government do more to protect free speech in the secular, South Asian democracy.

Indian journalist gunned down outside her home

An Indian journalist was fatally shot outside her home the southern city of Bangalore, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting journalists or outspoken critics of religious superstition and extreme Hindu politics.

The assailants fled on a motorcycle after spraying bullets at Gauri Lankesh on Tuesday night as she was leaving her car outside her home in the Karnataka state capital.

Police said they were searching for leads, but that it was too early to say who killed her. Top police officer R.K. Dutta said he had met Lankesh recently, but that she did not mention any threat to her life.

India’s top court: Instant divorce among Muslims unlawful

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the Muslim practice that allows men to instantly divorce their wives as unconstitutional.

The bench, comprising five senior judges of different faiths, deliberated for three months before issuing its order in response to petitions from seven Muslim women who had been divorced through the practice known as triple talaq.

Indian law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on NDTV that since the court deemed the practice unconstitutional there is no need for any further legislative action by the government.

Remembering Partition: 70 years since India-Pakistan divide

It’s been 70 years since India and Pakistan were carved from the former British Empire as independent nations, a process that triggered one of the largest human migrations in history. Overnight, Hindu and Muslim neighbors became fearful of one another. Mob violence broke out, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Some 12 million people fled their homes — including Hindus afraid they would not be welcome in the newly declared Islamic state of Pakistan, and Muslims worried they’d suffer at the hands of India’s Hindu majority.

Here, survivors from both India and Pakistan recall living through that uneasy time, and consider what it meant to the future of the two countries.

How are saints made? A primer on miracles, martyrs, virtues

Lengthy historic investigations. Decrees of “heroic virtues.” Miraculous cures.

The Vatican’s complicated saint-making process has long fascinated Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and will be on display Saturday when Pope Francis canonizes two children whose “visions” of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the sleepy farming town of Fatima into a major Catholic pilgrimage site.

Francis recently reformed the process to address financial abuses that had long tarnished the Vatican’s saint-making machine, but the basic criteria remain.

Cardinal at center of Ireland's clergy abuse scandals dies

Cardinal Desmond Connell, whose tenure as Dublin's Roman Catholic archbishop was dominated by revelations of pedophilia in the priesthood, has died at the age of 90.

The Dublin Archdiocese said Connell died Tuesday in his sleep after a long illness. He oversaw the archdiocese from 1988 to 2004 and was elevated to cardinal in 2001.

Connell, who spent 35 years as a University College Dublin theologian before his appointment, said in 2002 that the child abuse scandals then sweeping through the Catholic Church in Ireland had devastated his time in office.

Le Pen refuses headscarf, nixes talks with Lebanon cleric

France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to don a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim cleric on Tuesday and walked away from the scheduled appointment after a brief squabble at the entrance.

The debacle topped Le Pen's three-day visit to Lebanon, where she held her first campaign meeting with a head of state. It drew the focus to her strong support for secularism and a proposal in her presidential platform that promotes banishing headscarves and other obvious religious symbols in all public spaces.

Knights of Malta: Pope writes to stress order's sovereignty

Pope Francis has reassured the Knights of Malta, an ancient Catholic lay order, about its sovereignty, even as a special papal delegate will work to ensure the "spiritual renewal" of its members, after revelations its charity component had distributed condoms.

The order's Sovereign Council in Rome on Saturday accepted the resignation of Grand Master Fra' Matthew Festing, who had sacked the order's foreign minister, Albrecht von Boeselager. The minister was removed as grand chancellor following revelations that condoms were distributed in Myanmar under his watch.

Knights of Malta insist on sovereignty amid papal takeover

The Knights of Malta is still insisting on its sovereignty in its showdown with the Vatican, even after Pope Francis effectively took control of the ancient religious order and announced a papal delegate would govern it through a "process of renewal."

The Knights' current grand master, Fra' Matthew Festing, was at work Friday at the order's swanky Rome palazzo near the Spanish Steps, pending a meeting of his governing council to either accept or reject his resignation.

Pope takes over Knights of Malta after condom dispute

Pope Francis on Wednesday seized control of the Knights of Malta, and action that amounts to one sovereign country annexing another, if on a very small scale.

Here's what led to the takeover and what it means for the Knights, the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

WHO ARE THEY?

The Knights of Malta is an ancient lay Catholic religious order that runs hospitals and clinics around the world. It counts 3,500 members and 100,000 staff and volunteers who lend first aid in war zones, natural disasters and conflict areas; members also make regular pilgrimages bringing the sick to Catholic shrines.

Pope declares Mother Teresa a saint and model of mercy

Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint on Sunday, praising the tiny nun for having taken in society's most unwanted and for having shamed world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created."

Francis held up Mother Teresa as the model for a Catholic Church that goes to the peripheries to find poor, wounded souls during a canonization Mass that drew an estimated 120,000 people — rich and poor, powerful and homeless — to a sun-filled St. Peter's Square.

"Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer," Francis said in his homily.

Pope says Mother Teresa to be made a saint on Sept. 4

Mother Teresa will be made a saint on Sept. 4.

Pope Francis set the canonization date Tuesday, paving the way for the nun who cared for the poorest of the poor to become the centerpiece of his yearlong focus on the Catholic Church's merciful side.

The announcement was expected after Francis in December approved a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession — the final hurdle to make her a saint. The actual date falls on the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death.

Pope says Mother Teresa to be made a saint on Sept. 4

Mother Teresa will be made a saint on Sept. 4.

Pope Francis set the canonization date Tuesday, paving the way for the nun who cared for the poorest of the poor to become the centerpiece of his yearlong focus on the Catholic Church's merciful side.

The announcement was expected after Francis in December approved a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession — the final hurdle to make her a saint. The actual date falls on the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death.

Mother Teresa to be made a saint after pope OKs miracle

Mother Teresa, the tiny, stooped nun who cared for the poorest of the poor in the slums of India and beyond, will be declared a saint next year after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to her intercession.

The Vatican on Friday set no date for the canonization, but it is widely believed that it will take place in the first week of September to coincide with the 19th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death and during Francis' Holy Year of Mercy.

Questions and answers about Mother Teresa and making saints

The Catholic Church makes saints to provide role models for the faithful, and Pope Francis has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in churning them out at a rapid clip. The process is cloaked in secrecy and open to criticism, given that it deals with science-defying miracles, politicized choices and significant sums of money, as was recently revealed in some blockbuster books on Vatican finance.

But saints aren't going away anytime soon, and Francis has actually made the process easier in some ways by doing away with the miracle requirement for several high-profile saints.

Mother Teresa and sainthood: Here are the 5 steps to getting there

On Thursday, Pope Francis approved a decree from the Congregation of Causes of Saints that attributed a miracle to Mother Teresa, the woman who spent her life ministering to the poor in India. With that approval, Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, will be declared a saint. 

According to The Associated Press, no date has been set for the canonization, but Italian media have speculated that the ceremony may take place in the first week of September. Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997.   

A British medical artist and crime solving science bring you the unexpected face of Jesus

The face of arguably the most famous person in history was a mystery until forensic anthropology put together Jesus’ probable face.

Without a physical description in the Bible or any other known writings, remains from which to find DNA, the presence of a skeleton or skull, or original drawings, the image of Jesus through history was left to the artist’s imagination. As a general rule their imagination did not stray too far, typically depicting Jesus with features reflecting their own cultural standard for a good looking man.

Religion in India bubbles over into politics

In small-town northern India, Muslims are offered food and money to convert to Hinduism. If that doesn't suffice, they say they're threatened. Across the country, the Christmas holiday is canceled for hundreds of government servants who spend the day publicly extolling the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Powerful Hindu nationalist leaders — some with close ties to Modi's government — say they intend to ensure India becomes a completely Hindu nation.