Church

Often considered the most popular entertainer of the 20th century--his extravagant performances set still-unchallenged attendance records--Liberace (dubbed "Mr. Showman" in tribute to his flashy theatricality) sued a London columnist in 1956 for implying he was gay. He won.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has agreed to revisit the issue of church-state separation and decide whether a town council can begin most of its monthly meetings with a prayer from a Christian pastor. Thirty years ago, the court upheld a state legislature's practice of beginning its session with a nondenominational prayer. The justices said that "to invoke divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making laws" did not violate the 1st Amendment's prohibition on an "establishment of religion.

Merry Clayton's spine-chilling vocal on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" is one of the most famed in '60s rock. But the 1969 classic brings painful memories to Clayton: The physical strain of the intense duet with Mick Jagger resulted in a miscarriage after the session. So audiences' frequent requests for "Gimme Shelter" might sting like salt in an old wound. Clayton, who performs at the Gardenia Room on Friday, says she was buoyed by her religious upbringing in combating the loss.

Re "A posthumous fall from grace," May 12 On the one hand, men like Cardinal Roger Mahony and the late Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes, who was accused posthumously of sex abuse, seemed to be just the men to act in the best interests of the Los Angeles archdiocese at a time of a rapid expansion of the Catholic population. On the other, they were unable to resist profound moral pitfalls while working to meet those needs. Mahony is trying to reinstate himself as a moral leader after having been exposed as a protector of sexual predators.

Re "A posthumous fall from grace," May 12 On the one hand, men like Cardinal Roger Mahony and the late Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes, who was accused posthumously of sex abuse, seemed to be just the men to act in the best interests of the Los Angeles archdiocese at a time of a rapid expansion of the Catholic population. On the other, they were unable to resist profound moral pitfalls while working to meet those needs. Mahony is trying to reinstate himself as a moral leader after having been exposed as a protector of sexual predators.

Religious conservatives in the United States  have been complaining that developments in the political arena - the Obamcare contraceptive mandate, the progress of same-sex civil marriage - threaten religious freedom. They're crying wolf, but similar alarums in the Mother Country make a bit more sense.  Because England has an established church, some of whose bishops sit in Parliament, the political question of same-sex marriage has religious reverberations that  don't sound here.

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Re "Church used funds meant for the dead," Feb. 10 Several years ago I visited the small Roman Catholic church in Loreto, Mexico. There, I saw an older, probably poor woman with a small boy dropping a few coins into the collection box. A few years later, fortune brought me to the Vatican. It was beautiful and the works of art were stunning, but I couldn't stop thinking about that poor woman and child in Loreto giving what little they had to such a wealthy organization. As we stood in St. Peter's Square, the pope's private white helicopter flew overhead; our guide said, "There goes his holiness to his summer retreat.

"To live is to change," wrote the 19th century English Cardinal John Henry Newman, "and to be perfect is to have changed often." Pope Benedict XVI will preside over Newman's beatification — sainthood's honorific antechamber — when he visits Britain in September, but between now and then he's likely to hear growing demands for change in the governance of an ancient but scandal-ravaged institution In a stunningly blunt editorial, for...

Several readers who disagreed with The Times' Monday editorial , which expressed concern over priests who made political statements from the pulpit before Tuesday's vote, noted that the same day's paper published a photo of Gov. Jerry Brown in the pews of a South L.A. church campaigning for Proposition 30. In a letter Tuesday, Robert S. Rodgers of Culver City asked: "Do the editors approve of Democrats going to churches to push for their causes...

WASHINGTON - Can a public high school hold its graduation ceremony in a local church? The Supreme Court has been pondering that question in its private conference for six weeks, discussing whether to take up a Wisconsin case that could reset the line separating church and state. Last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, violated the 1st Amendment and its ban on "an establishment of religion" by holding a high school graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of an evangelical Christian church.

On occasion, my wife and I have taken out-of-town visitors on Sunday outings to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles to expose the uninitiated to the joy of a live gospel choir. I sometimes wonder how I stand with that power greater than myself while intruding on a house of worship solely to observe a spectacle. But we're always received so warmly that I quickly lose myself in the music and forget where I am. In that state, I've paid little notice to hats and shoes and dresses.

KAMPALA, Uganda - He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel music star known to many as the "Dancing Priest. " But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets - his own and many others'. In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn't exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa's most Catholic of countries. The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem in Africa as well as in Western Europe and North America.

A special task force of fire, police and federal agencies is investigating a church fire that erupted early Friday at a Leimert Park church. The fire was reported before 2 a.m. at Bethesda Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith on Crenshaw Boulevard. Flames tore through the church windows, and plumes of black smoke climbed into the night sky. Witnesses said they could see the flames up to three miles away. Firefighters were on the scene within four minutes of the first call, said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a message for the Boy Scouts of America's plan to allow gay Scouts: We're fine with it. The Mormon Church, which has historically opposed same-sex marriage, said Thursday that it supported the Scouts' recently proposed rules change that "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," as the proposal puts it. ...

WASHINGTON -- On this year's 50th anniversary of a deadly church bombing that helped spur passage of landmark civil rights legislation, the House voted Wednesday to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to four black girls killed in the explosion at a Birmingham, Ala., church. Once the Senate and President Obama give their expected approval, the nation's highest civilian honor would be awarded to Denise McNair, 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Robertson, all 14.  They were killed by Ku Klux Klan members who set off dynamite in the Sept.

In response to "Preacher Scott Rents Theater in L.A. for Church," Part I, May 10: Bruce Corwin (president of Metropolitan Theaters and president of Miracle on Broadway) is quoted as saying, "A church is a splendid use for the theater." Friends, church is theater and I hope to live to see the day that it is taxed accordingly. MARY CARR MELKONIAN Woodland Hills

"Home Run" is the heartfelt and deeply religious story of a baseball star's struggle with alcoholism and the Christian faith-based recovery group that gets him through. The first moments seem promising as images of a peaceful stretch of farm country fill up the screen. A weathered red barn sits in the distance next to a sprawling white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. But as the camera goes in close, something is wrong - the red is too red, the worn spots too worn. The metaphor is seriously overplayed and we are only in the first inning.

When in pain, pray. When you worry, worship. When in grief, share it in your small group. The Facebook post, sent in the early morning hours Friday by famed pastor Rick Warren, was short on words but deep in meaning. Since the suicide death of his son a week earlier, the pastor of Orange County's sprawling Saddleback Church has indeed been sharing his grief. But his "small group" includes not only his parishioners, but nearly a million Twitter followers as well as those who read his Facebook page.