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The Inland Northwest Human Trafficking Task Force and Lutheran Community Services (LCS) invites the community to participate in their first Human Trafficking Awareness Month Training and Reception gathering since COVID-19 on Jan. 11. Aside from the Human Trafficking training session, the program will take place in nxʷyxʷyetkʷ Hall on the third floor of the Central Library.

As NFL players prepare to take the field for the last Sunday of the regular season, the Rev. William Barber II, prominent pastor and activist, offered a prayer for NFL players and Damar Hamlin, the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety who went into cardiac arrest after making a tackle in Cincinnati Monday night (Jan. 2).

Long before Northern Europeans established the Clausian gift-giving tradition, early Christians in the Mediterranean region celebrated the Epiphany by exchanging gifts in the tradition of the three kings mentioned in the bible. Though they are not mentioned by name in Scripture, the three kings Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar are essential to Three Kings Day. The colonization of the Americas brought the tradition from Spain to the Americas. Now it is also celebrated in Spokane.

The Catalyst Project is Spokane’s newest emergency housing program with the number of occupants rising. The Catalyst opened its doors on Dec. 8 and is run by Catholic Charities, a non-profit organization, said Dawn Kinder, chief stabilization officer of the Catalyst Project. The building is located in the downtown area of Spokane.

As RNS reporters look ahead to 2023, they expect, on the whole, to cover the fallout of these shifts, including the continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising influence of Christian nationalism. They also predict the emergence of new and experimental forms of spirituality — hello, psychedelics — as the religious landscape in America continues to shift toward disaffiliation and religious pluralism.

Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in 600 years, paved the way into the new millennium, but struggled to reconcile his traditional Catholic views with a world that he considered to be ‘under the dictatorship of relativism.’