As the Senate takes up a heated debate over gun control, RNS shines a light on a little-known group of Roman Catholics that oppose all gun rules despite the bishops’ vehement support for efforts to curb firearm regulations. Reporter Aaron Schrank calls them the NRA Catholics.
Speaking of guns, Rick Warren’s son, Matthew, was “probably not” the owner of the weapon he used to shoot himself, the Los Angeles Times reports.
You might expect Seventh-day Adventists to celebrate their success while marking their church’s 150th anniversary this May. There’s just one problem, reports our own Dan Burke: The church wasn’t supposed to last this long.
A White House advisory council of religious leaders called for a global fund to address human trafficking and urged a new labeling system to help identify consumer goods that were not created with slave labor.
Is Pope Francis the first Protestant pope? Jonathan Merritt wonders.
Read the Religion Roundup in its entirety here.

Tracy Simmons is an award winning journalist specializing in religion reporting, digital entrepreneurship and social journalism. In her 15 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti.
Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas and Connecticut. Currently she serves as the executive director of SpokaneFAVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Wash. She is also a Scholarly Assistant Professor at Washington State University.