CHICAGO (Reuters) – American Muslims grew in number over the past decade, outnumbering Jews for the first time in most of the Midwest and part of the South, while most mainline churches lost adherents, according to a census of American religions released on Tuesday.

The number of Muslim adherents rose to 2.6 million in 2010 from 1 million in 2000, fueled by immigration and conversions, said Dale Jones, a researcher who worked on the study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – American Muslims grew in number over the past decade, outnumbering Jews for the first time in most of the Midwest and part of the South, while most mainline churches lost adherents, according to a census of American religions released on Tuesday.

The number of Muslim adherents rose to 2.6 million in 2010 from 1 million in 2000, fueled by immigration and conversions, said Dale Jones, a researcher who worked on the study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

By Andrew Stern

(Reuters) – More than a hundred University of Notre Dame professors have demanded that Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky renounce comments he made criticizing President Barack Obama’s stance on religious liberty that compared him to dictators Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

“Jenky’s comments demonstrate ignorance of history, insensitivity to victims of genocide and absence of judgment,” said the letter addressed this week to the leadership of the renowned Catholic university in Indiana and signed by 131 professors from various fields.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Secret Service on Tuesday told Chicago anti-war demonstrators they will have to stay blocks from next month’s NATO summit for security reasons, which protest leaders said violates their right to be within sight and sound of the delegates.

“We’ll be blocks away” said Andy Thayer of the Coalition Against NATO/G-8 War & Poverty Agenda, after meeting with the Secret Service, which is in charge of security for the two-day summit.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Pastor Corey Brooks spent three winter months shivering atop the roof of a dilapidated Chicago motel to draw attention to the deadly toll from gun violence, raising $450,000 in the process to buy and raze the motel.

“It was tough to endure the cold, the nights and the loneliness,” said Brooks, who came down on February 24 after 94 days spent in a tent staked to the roof of the Super Motel.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns’ group said on Thursday it was “stunned” that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been “silent on the right to life” and had failed to make the “Biblical view of family life and human sexuality” a central plank in its agenda.

CHICAGO, April 17 (Reuters) – When the winner of a third of
the record $656 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot steps
before the cameras on Wednesday at a news conference in Red Bud,
Illinois, life will be upended and there is a high risk he or
she will fall prey to the “lottery curse,” experts said.

Illinois requires the winner’s identity to be revealed.
Holders of two other winning tickets in Kansas and Maryland have
chosen to remain anonymous.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The only one of three winners of a record $656 million Mega Millions lottery who is required to go public will be identified in the southern Illinois farming town of Red Bud on Wednesday, lottery officials said.

Winners in two other states, Kansas and Maryland, are not required to come forward publicly and both opted to remain anonymous.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The number of credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors committed by Roman Catholic priests or deacons in the United States rose 15 percent last year, and the church spent $144 million to deal with the ongoing scandal, according to a church-sponsored audit released on Tuesday.

A total of 489 people reported credible allegations of abuse by priests or deacons in 2011, the bulk of them involving adults victimized when they were children decades ago by now-deceased clerics, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a report on its ninth annual audit of the issue.