Father Joseph Fessio

"Who am I to judge?" With those five words, Pope Francis "stepped away from the disapproving tone, the explicit moralizing typical of poes and bishops," writes James Carroll.

The first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church will start work with the Center for American Progress, focusing on issues of faith and gay rights. "Gay is not something we do," he says. "It's something we are." His book God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage was published in September.

Sylvia Thomson-Smith is a chief author and the editor of a report on sexuality recently presented to the national convention of the Presbyterian Church. That report urged the Church to relax its strictures against homosexuality and premarital sex. The Presbyterian Church overwhelmingly rejected the report.