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WASHINGTON – Rick Santorum disregarded Mitt Romney's money-flush campaign in his CPAC 2012 address saying that the presidential race is not about who has the most cash, but about stopping Barack Obama and his growing grip on American freedoms.

Santorum told the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) audience on Friday that he is not concerned about how his campaign's finances measure up to Romney's.

"We're not going to win with money," he said. "We're going to win with contracts, we're going to win with ideas, we're going to win by making Barack Obama and his failed policies the issue in this race." more >>

In stark contrast to most mainstream Christian leaders, especially those of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S., a coalition of 22 Christian, Jewish and Muslim institutions has emerged expressing support for President Barack Obama's controversial contraception mandate that affects many faith-based institutions.

Catholics for Choice, Episcopal Divinity School, Jewish Women International, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Muslims for Progressive Values, the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advisory Board, and several others said in a Wednesday statement that the Obama administration was correct in requiring institutions that do not have purely sectarian goals to offer comprehensive preventive health care.

National leaders have the responsibility to "help improve the health of women, their children, and families," the groups wrote in the joint statement. "Hospitals and universities across the religious spectrum have an obligation to assure that individuals' conscience and decisions are respected and that their students and employees have access to this basic health care service. more >>

WASHINGTON – New York Times bestselling author and humor writer Eric Metaxas may fool you at first with his non-stop wisecracks (including how he wished the head table at the National Prayer Breakfast was filled with celebrities rather than politicians), but once he gets talking about his Christian faith, he gets pretty serious, pretty fast.

Metaxas, author of books such as Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, was the keynote speaker at the 60th National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. After an entertaining introduction – where everything from the Occupy movement to the hefty prayer breakfast fee ended up as materials for jokes – the born-again Christian author got down to business and focused on contrasting phony religiosity and real faith.

"The lives of both of these men (Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer) illustrate between phony religiosity and really believing in God in a way that it changes your life – it must change your life and the lives of others," said Metaxas. more >>

WASHINGTON – President Obama took a markedly more political tone in his address at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning than he did at the same event last year.

The president talked about his public policy stances, including barring health insurance companies from rejecting people with pre-existing conditions and reducing tax breaks for the wealthy, hand-in-hand with his faith, often citing snippets of popular Bible verses.

"[S]o when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street…or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren't taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy strong for everybody," Obama said. more >>

President Barack Obama will sit down with religious and public figures for the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning amid concerns from both religious and secular groups that the event should be amended.

The Fellowship Foundation held the inaugural National Prayer Breakfast in 1953. It has become precedence for the U.S. President to attend the event – usually held in a Washington D.C. area banquet hall – and public figures like Bono and Mother Theresa have previously attended the breakfast.

But while the gathering's intention is to call attention to the power of prayer, secular groups say the event comes dangerously close to blending church and state affairs while some religious figures think the event has become a token, meaningless gesture. more >>

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., resigned from Congress Wednesday morning in an emotional address to the House of Representatives, assuring she will serve Arizona again.

Giffords, who survived a gunshot to the head at close range over a year ago, said that if she cannot return to Congress, her district deserves to elect a U.S. Representative who can give 100 percent to the job. She indicated in her speech that she is working to return to Congress one day and serve Arizona.

"Every day, I am working hard," Giffords wrote. "I will recover and will return, and we will work together again, for Arizona and for all Americans." more >>