The US Catholic bishops hold their semi-annual meeting next week in Atlanta amid new tensions between US nuns and the Church, and a swirling scandal at the Vatican over leaked documents. Watch our conversation about what’s at stake for the bishops with Kevin Eckstrom, editor-in-chief at Religion News Service, and Patricia Zapor, staff writer at Catholic News Service.

"There is a whole historical world of women who have risen as leaders in religious communities because they were called to do it, not because someone said they could," according to the first woman president of Union Theological Seminary. Watch additional excerpts of correspondent Kim Lawton’s interview with Serene Jones on women in theology and ministry.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on sentencing juveniles convicted of murder to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Justice Scalia reminded the Court that many states allow it and “the American people…have decided that’s the rule.” But Justice Ginsburg suggested such sentencing makes a juvenile “a throw-away person.”

Catholic groups filed lawsuits in federal courts on May 21 to stop the Obama administration from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives in their health plans.

More and more Christian women are graduating from seminary and pursuing careers in theology and ministry. Kim Lawton visits Union Theological Seminary in NYC and talks with its first female president, Serene Jones, about the opportunities for women in theology, as well as the limitations they still face.

The nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is expected to elect its first African-American president at its annual meeting this June in New Orleans. His name is Fred Luter, and he says the SBC has "a heart for reaching people in difficult times."

Activist groups should bring about a greater awareness of worker rights issues and add a moral voice to global economic matters, says David Schilling of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

World Vision’s Vice President of Advocacy and Government Relations says the leaders attending this weekend’s G8 summit in Washington should invest in agricultural and nutrition programs to lift people out of poverty because “it’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do.” Watch excerpts from our May 16 interview.

The disabled, says religion writer Mark Pinsky, "are not just people who need help, but they are people who can help."

He's a joke-telling, one-man reformer in rural Thailand who is getting results. Mechai Viravaidya preaches family planning, good schools, start-up businesses, and intensive farming -- and his bottom-up reforms are working.

In the wake of White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan's speech this week on drone ethics and targeted killing, we talk to Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter, author of "The Violence of Peace: America's Wars in the Age of Obama."

"The administration says that the drone is the smallest amount of force that we could use. They say it's accurate and therefore it discriminates perfectly. And to the extent that we have really good intelligence and we don't kill civilians, they're probably right," says Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter.

Generations of African slaves found a powerful way of singing through suffering in spirituals that were rooted in biblical stories and images.

In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world's most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.

The Supreme Court is weighing the legal challenge to Arizona's strict immigration law, and religious groups opposed to the law are appealing to language throughout the scriptures "to take care of the stranger," says Catholic News Service staff writer Patricia Zapor.

"The idea of the Talmud is that you are allowed to ask questions about everything," says Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. He calls the Talmud "the central pillar of Jewish culture" and "a vast book encouraging you to ask questions."

"Deeply listening to what it is they're saying." That, says young hospice chaplain Kerry Egan, is the most important gift she offers to the dying patients she ministers to in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Watch excerpts from an April 26, 2012 lecture at Georgetown University by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and an interview with Father Thomas Reese, SJ, senior fellow at Georgetown's Woodstock Theological Center.

"I think you could compare it to a hostile takeover," says reporter, author, and Vatican observer David Gibson. Might the Leadership Conference of Women Religious simply disband and reorganize on its own?

Between 1854 and 1863, Japanese artist Kano Kazunobu (1816-1863) created a series of 100 paintings of the Buddha's 500 disciples. Watch our interview about Buddhism and Kazunobu's paintings with James Ulak, senior curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.