Clergy

Three siblings who say they were molested as children by the same Los Angeles priest filed new allegations of abuse this week against a worldwide religious order, which is the only Roman Catholic organization involved in the 6-year-old clergy scandal that has yet to settle any civil claims. The three allege the Salesian Society, with 16,000 priests, ignored clear signs that Father Titian Miani was a dangerous pedophile.

For the second time in six months, Buena Park pastor Wiley S. Drake has called on his followers to pray for the demise of leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Last week, Drake learned that the IRS had launched an investigation into his endorsement of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's presidential bid, an inquiry that Americans United had urged. The endorsement was written on church letterhead and announced during a church-affiliated Internet radio show.

The Rev. Naim Ateek is a white-haired, American-trained Anglican priest who supports nonviolent solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and often speaks of his dream of a world in which Israeli and Palestinian states exist peacefully, side by side. Ateek is also the founder of Sabeel, a Palestinian liberation theology movement based in Jerusalem, and a man whose U.S. appearances in recent years have sparked controversy among some Jewish groups.

. -- Standing in a pulpit that inspired him in his youth, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. reminded a Baptist congregation that trouble is unavoidable but does not last forever and is not suffered alone. "I don't care what the prosperity preachers say . . . there is no such thing as a trouble-free life," Wright said in a sermon at Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church in Norfolk. Cautioning those in the audience who might repeat his words later, he added: "Don't quote Jeremiah Wright, quote Jesus."

At a moment when Barack Obama is struggling to win over white voters worried about the economy, a series of public appearances by his former pastor is threatening to revive a tempest over race, patriotism and religion that the Democratic presidential front-runner hoped he had quashed. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appeared at the National Press Club on Monday, delivering a defiant address in which he defended and amplified some politically and racially charged remarks from past sermons.

African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church. In a series of nationally televised appearances over the last few days, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has defended his controversial remarks as "prophetic theology," and said criticism of him amounted to an attack on the black church.

Barack Obama and friends would like to believe that a little steam is beginning to come out of the furor surrounding the explosive views of the candidate's onetime pastor and spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Appearing on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Obama defended his handling of the controversy over Wright -- who had suggested the U.S. government could have brought on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and planted the AIDS virus among African Americans.

Pakistan's government has agreed to let judges consider advice from Islamic scholars in parts of the volatile northwestern tribal regions, officials said. The decision marked a concession in peace talks aimed at ending conflict with Islamic militants along the frontier with Afghanistan. Provincial officials negotiated with representatives of militant leader Maulana Qazi Faz- lullah. The two groups agreed to regulations allowing Islamic law to play a role in the Malakand and Swat areas.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign on Thursday disavowed the remarks of another Chicago pastor, who mocked Hillary Rodham Clinton and her pre-New Hampshire primary tears. In an Internet video recorded Sunday, Father Michael Pfleger, an activist Catholic priest and pastor visiting Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Obama is a member, says: "When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on.

Father Michael Pfleger's face is well known in these parts, one of the many iconoclastic characters who inhabit a city with a long history of racial division and political activism. Pfleger, a white priest who has had numerous run-ins with Chicago's Catholic archdiocese involving his political activism, mocked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ last weekend. As a guest speaker at Sen.