Moishe Rosen, 78, a Jewish-born Baptist minister who founded the controversial evangelistic group Jews for Jesus, died May 19 in San Francisco. He had prostate cancer.

Jews for Jesus, founded in 1973, is the largest and most visible part of the Messianic Jewish or Hebrew Christian movement, which holds that Jews can recognize Jesus as the messiah and still retain a Jewish identity. The group has offices in 11 countries, including Israel, and employs more than 100 missionaries worldwide.

Pope Benedict said on Tuesday that the greatest threat to Catholicism came from "sin within the Church," one of his most forthright comments so far on a sexual abuse scandal that has created turmoil in the church. The Church has "a very deep need" to recognize that it must do penitence for its sins and "accept purification," he said.

"Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies but is born of sin within the Church," Benedict told reporters on the plane to Portugal, replying to a question about the scandal.

Evangelical Christians gathered in legislative halls in the nation's capital and at state capitals across the country Thursday to observe a National Day of Prayer. Their leaders vowed to fight to preserve the annual tradition despite a recent court ruling saying that it violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state in America.

The Supreme Court gave its approval Wednesday to displaying a cross on public land to honor fallen soldiers, saying the Constitution "does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm."

Speaking for a divided court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 1st Amendment called for a middle-ground "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land, not a strict separation of church and state.

From the Chicago Tribune :

Many in the congregation knew that Jim Deichman struggled with mental illness. But they had welcomed him anyway, reaching out to the man who, they believed, needed little more than acceptance and support.

And Deichman — a square-jawed, white-haired 62-year-old who came to church every Sunday in a rumpled dark suit — did his best to reach back. He volunteered to work as an usher, helped with the rummage sale and read Scripture during services.

But on Jan. 31, a firefighter found Deichman standing in an alcove, as smoke filled the sanctuary. His hair and clothing were disheveled; his face was contorted in fury. Suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and raging against enemies that only he could see, he had allegedly set a blaze that would leave the church in ruins.