Some interesting law & religion stories from around the web this week:
- President Obama and Pope Francis met for the first time on Thursday at the Vatican and discussed, among other issues, the persecution of Christians around the world
- On Wednesday, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the bishop of Limburg, who had a history of extravagant spending
- The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Crimea has been experiencing what a church official calls “total persecution”
- On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases, challenges to the Obamacare contraception mandate
- More on this story from CLR Forum
- At the end of a two-day summit in Kuwait, the Arab League stated it would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and blamed Israel for the lack of progress in the peace process
- A federal judge in Atlanta ruled that certain non-profit organizations in Georgia affiliated with the Catholic Church must be exempted from the contraception mandate
- The Philippines and its largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, signed a final peace pact ending 45 years of conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people
- World Vision, a prominent evangelical Christian charity, has changed its view about hiring married gays and lesbians at its U.S. branch. It says that its first decision was not consistent with its commitment to the sanctity of marriage
- A federal appeals court continued the stay of a district judge’s ruling that struck down Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban
- Proposed discriminatory laws are the latest escalation in the persecution of Muslims in Burma