We invited students and tutors from New York Avenue Presbyterian Church’s after-school tutoring program, Community Club to recite the Gettysburg Address in honor of its 150th anniversary.

For American Catholics, "the election of Kennedy was an important moment in history, where they were recognized and accepted by American society as true Americans," says Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J. But anti-Catholicism continued to linger until JFK’s assassination, when the 34th president became an American martyr, and it was no longer acceptable to be anti-Catholic.

At the cemetery of a former Minnesota mental hospital, hundreds of patients were buried in nameless graves marked only with numbers. But disability rights groups and family members are working to identify the graves and give these forgotten dead a respect and dignity they did not receive in life.

At their fall meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops elected a new president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, the former USCCB vice president. Father Thomas Reese, SJ, senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, comments on the new president and the effect of Pope Francis on the bishops.

While the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut horrified the nation last year, every month even more children are killed by guns. Since Newtown, some faith leaders and religious groups have supported new gun restrictions. Others have advocated a need both to use force and to have the guns to do so.

Out of the ashes and rubble of World War II a ministry of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation was born “to heal the wounds of history.”

“You had people watching synagogues burn. You had people looting business that had been plundered. You had people joining in on the violence,” says historian Victoria Barnett.

“One of my goals is to get pastors and congregations to feel emboldened to ask questions about the economy,” says Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Kristallnacht, says this historian who directs the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust, was a pogrom, an escalation of violence against the Jewish population at a time when America was heavily isolationist: “There were a variety of factors that made people turn away from actively helping the Jews just as they really needed the help the most.”

At the US Supreme Court, the town of Greece, New York, is testing the limits of prayer and the First Amendment.

A new book by religion scholar Reza Aslan portrays Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary and just one of many "failed messiahs." "It was a phenomenon that was quite widespread and that led to a number of rebellions and insurgencies throughout the 1st century,” says Aslan, “and the argument of the book is that those zealot ideals and principles are at the heart of Jesus’ teachings and actions," he says.

"On the one hand, knowing what it is to worship Jesus has given me a profound sense of respect for the faith of Christianity…But I also, as a historian and a scholar of religions, have been able to look at Jesus in a sense unburdened by dogma and doctrine." Watch more of our interview with the author of "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth."

Liberal Catholics who were hopeful that Pope Francis's papacy would usher in sweeping reforms are discovering that the Church "is an institution that takes its time with major decisions, and none of this is going to happen soon." 

What are the biological roots of violence and the ethical dilemmas posed by probing the human brain to anticipate violent behavior?

“I have a hard time conceiving of a God completely removed from suffering,” says Christian Wiman, a lecturer in religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. “Once I understand the notion of Christ participating in suffering, then it makes more sense to me.”

We visited a Hindu religious coming-of-age ceremony for Rushil Ramakrishnan at the Hindu Temple in Adelphi, Maryland. Also known as the "sacred thread" ceremony, it is typically performed for boys between the ages of 8 and 16 and traditionally marks the start of their formal education. Dr. Siva Subramanian, a founder of Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, explains the meaning and significance of its rituals.

"This is a university that’s founded on biblical truth, on scripture, and on the sacramental richness of the Catholic Church," says Ave Maria University president Jim Towey. But according to Rev. Kevin O’Brien, vice president for ministry and mission at Georgetown University, "What we did 50 years ago to promote our identity does not suffice today."

"Poetry had always been the place where I'd experienced God and it's still the place where I feel lifted out of myself and given something I could not understand in any other way." Watch more of our interview with poet Christian Wiman.

Bruce Lasky, founder of Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, is setting up legal clinics and instilling in Asian law students the moral obligation to help the poor.

Watch more of our interviews with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Solomon Northrup.