RELIGION HEADLINES TUE 5-13-25

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(SRN NEWS  )  The fire that caused significant damage in April to historic buildings in Suriname’s capital city presented a special threat to the iconic Neveh (NEV-ay) Shalom Synagogue. As firefighters battled to save the historic city center of Paramaribo, the synagogue’s volunteers were busy scanning thousands of archival documents in an effort to preserve the history of the thousands of Jews who have called the capital city home since the 1700s.   The operation to digitize the records also shines a light on how Jewish refugees fled the horrors of World War Two to the Caribbean, including to the tiny South American country of Suriname.

(  )  A clinic in Colorado that for more than 50 years performed late term abortions quietly closed last month.  This leaves the U.S. with just a handful of clinics offering abortions right up to the moment of birth.  Pro-life advocates are cheering this latest closure, calling it an important step forward in protecting mothers and unborn children.  Operators of the clinic say financial issues forced it to shut down.  Fewer women are seeking late term abortions and the clinic was charging 10,000 dollars or more for each procedure.  Such abortions are generally not covered by health insurance.

(  )  The new pope, Leo the 14th, has this in common with many of his peers in the Catholic hierarchy:  He’s been in positions of authority when accusations of sexual abuse have arisen against priests under his supervision.  Now some advocates for victims say there needs to be an accounting of how Leo — the name taken by Cardinal Robert Prevost upon his election — handled such cases when he held positions of church authority in Chicago and Peru.  And they hope that as pope, he will crack down on other bishops who they say are mishandling similar cases.

(  )  The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians has said that religious faith should serve as humanity’s safeguard amid rapidly advancing technology and what he described as the “impending robotocracy.”  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew says that Orthodox tradition preserves valuable wisdom essential for navigating a world of accelerating technological change and automation.  His comments during an event at Athens University reflect growing concerns across Christianity about artificial intelligence’s potential impact on human dignity and social structures, as well as the dangers posed by autonomous weapons systems.