Yet one religious leader whose politics are fairly well-known -- and not always embraced by the American public -- received a 21-gun salute (literally) when he arrived at the White House in April for a six-day U.S. tour. When Pope Benedict XVI arrived for his first U.S. visit, many Catholics still clung to fond memories of his predecessor. But by the time he wrapped up his whirlwind spin around New York and Washington, Benedict left with higher approval ratings than when he arrived. “What I saw in the faces of the people who waited to greet him, who had a chance to hear his message, was more than just happiness. It was a sense of profound joy,” said the Very Rev. David O’Connell, who hosted the pope as president of Catholic University in Washington.

The pope surprised his U.S. flock with an unexpected attention on the clergy sex abuse crisis. He told American bishops that the scandal had “sometimes been badly handled” and said they had a divine mandate to “bind up the wounds ... with loving concern to those so seriously wronged.” He met privately with a small group of abuse victims and told a stadium Mass of 46,000 that “no words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse.”

“There was an expectation and a hope that the pope would say something comforting and consoling to a wounded church,” O’Connell said, “and I think he accomplished that.”

Despite their loss at the polls, conservatives continued their winning streak on the volatile question of gay marriage in California (where the state Supreme Court voted to allow same-sex marriages in May), Arizona and Florida. The high-stakes and expensive California fight, which is still being battled in the courts, reflects conservatives’ ability to rally the troops at the ballot box in opposition to gay marriage.

A related fight over homosexuality continued to roil the Episcopal Church, which saw dioceses in Fort Worth, Texas, Quincy, Ill., and Pittsburgh secede to realign with a more conservative Anglican province in Argentina. Related big-ticket legal fights resulted in a $2.5 million deficit for the national church. In August, Episcopalians emerged from a once-a-decade summit of Anglican bishops in England relatively intact despite calls for discipline from conservative Anglican bishops, most of whom boycotted the three-week Lambeth Conference. That fragile unity will be tested in 2009, however, as conservatives move to establish a separate-but-equal province on U.S. soil.

The United Methodist Church voted to keep its traditional stance on homosexuality, maintaining rules that call homosexual activity “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The Presbyterian Church (USA), meanwhile, voted to remove a constitutional rule that requires clergy to maintain “fidelity in marriage ... or chastity in singleness.” However, a majority of local Presbyteries must approve the amendment, which may prove too high a hurdle.

Religion and secular law collided at a fundamentalist polygamist compound in Texas, and controversial sect leader Tony Alamo’s compound in Arkansas, over charges of sexual abuse of minors. In Oregon and Wisconsin, three sets of parents were charged in the faith-healing deaths of children who were denied routine medical treatment.

In November, the small, Utah-based Summum sect asked the U.S. Supreme Court for the right to erect monuments to its “Seven Aphorisms” alongside existing Ten Commandments markers in a case that could decide how much government can -- or should -- memorialize religious tenets.

Interfaith relations continued their difficult dance in 2008 as several high-level attempts at dialogue -- by the United Nations, Saudi King Abdullah, the Vatican and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- sought tentative common ground between the Muslim world and the largely Christian West.

At the same time, relations between the Vatican and Jewish groups remained tense after Benedict revised (but still allowed) a Good Friday prayer that God would “enlighten (Jews’) hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.” On Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Benedict marked the 50th anniversary of the death of wartime pontiff Pope Pius XII, who some Jewish groups say didn’t do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The world lost some leading religious lights in 2008, including Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Gordon Hinckley and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, both 95; Lutheran theologian Krister Stendahl at age 86; Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, thought to be 91; and W. Deen Mohammed, who broke with the racially tinged teachings of the Nation of Islam founded by his father, at age 74.