Religious Officials

A clergyman is scheduled for arraignment today on charges of having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl who was a member of his congregation. Ronald Hernandez Rovar, 56, pastor of the Shadow of the Almighty church, will face up to five years in prison if convicted of engaging in sex with the girl on multiple occasions in 2006 at several locations, including his church office. Rovar will be arraigned at North Justice Center in Fullerton.

Top Anglicans at a crucial meeting in Tanzania this week sternly rebuked their communion's American branch on issues involving sexuality and biblical interpretation. The decisions now facing the U.S. Episcopal Church and the global Anglican Communion may push them further down the road toward schism. Who attended the Dar es Salaam gathering, and what happened? About three dozen of the worldwide Anglican Communion's top bishops, or primates, participated in the Feb.

WHEN Chuck Smith, founder of the worldwide Calvary Chapel movement, decided to invest big in radio, the Orange County evangelist joined forces with a pastor he trusted. Mike Kestler was one of his proteges, a folksy preacher with a ponytail who had ridden the Calvary phenomenon to a pulpit in Twin Falls, Idaho. Smith had presided at Kestler's wedding. He'd helped Kestler keep his job after a churchgoer complained that Kestler had begged her to run away with him.

Asian American churches are going through a "crisis of leadership" because seminaries are not preparing a new generation of pastors to work in multi-generational and multicultural settings, Asian American Christian leaders say. The problem, the leaders say, affects churches throughout the country but is particularly pronounced in California.

Bishops of the Episcopal Church on Tuesday requested an urgent meeting with the spiritual head of their denomination, the worldwide Anglican Communion, and appeared to take the first steps toward rejecting several demands made of the American church at a recent gathering of the communion's leadership in Tanzania. In February, Anglican leaders gave the U.S. branch of the communion until Sept.

The U.S. military Wednesday released a senior member of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. The decision, officials said, was made with the hope of easing tensions between Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Sheik Ahmed Shibani, who had been in prison for 2 1/2 years, was handed over to the office of the Shiite prime minister.

The Episcopal Church moved closer Wednesday to a showdown with the worldwide Anglican Communion, even as the church's bishops emphasized their desire to remain within that body. The bishops ended a crucial meeting near Houston with a news conference and a letter in which they rejected a call from Anglican leaders to allow dissident conservative congregations in the United States to be overseen by a separate body that could include leaders from outside the country. The U.S.

Arguing that Illinois lawmakers have a moral duty to legalize medical use of marijuana, dozens of pastors and church leaders are urging them to allow doctors to recommend the drug for seriously ill patients. The religious leaders say they feel compelled to support doctors who want to use whatever tools necessary to ease the pain of the extremely sick. A petition was e-mailed to state senators last month. The bill, SB 650, is expected to come to a vote Thursday, said Sen. John J.

A preacher's wife accused of murdering her husband told a psychologist that he often threatened her with a shotgun and forced her to have sex, the therapist testified Tuesday. Dr. Lynne Zager said Mary Winkler also told her that on the day of the fatal shooting, her husband tried to stop their 1-year-old daughter from crying by placing his hands over the baby's nose and mouth.

The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs, Colo., to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker. Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals last year after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine.