The beleaguered ecumenical organization announced it will hold preliminary talks with Roman Catholic, evangelical and Pentecostal leaders in hopes of creating an organization representing all major branches of Christianity. "If successful," notes the Associated Press, "the new ecumenical body could spell an end to the council, which is made up of mainline Protestant, black Protestant and Orthodox denominations."

The personal care giant recently dropped its sponsorship of conservative radio host Laura Schlessinger, and Christian talking heads Jerry Falwell and Don Wildmon are furious, "I feel a sense of betrayal that P&G—a company that once desperately appealed to conservative ministries for help—has so quickly turned its corporate back on a woman who has upheld the moral principles on which this nation was founded," says Falwell. Falwell and Wildmon say they defended Procter & Gamble against rumors that its logo was a satanist symbol.

"It's somehow a mistake to associate a long Christian tradition to convert Jews and other persecutions with what we call the Holocaust, which was conceived and carried out by people who certainly were not Christians and were hostile to every Christian value and were abhorrent to churches and to many devout Christians," says Martin Gilbert, author of the forthcoming Never Again: A History of the Holocaust. The Catholic Church, he says, should be commended for hiding Jews.

"Although I didn't make it to ...