"We know their names and we remember them," said Sister Lucey, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, who joined other Christian groups, along with Jewish and Muslim religious leaders and members of their faith communities at a chapel in the United Methodist Building in Washington.

"We express our strongest condemnation at this disquieting wave of violence and assure our bruised brethren of solidarity, prayerful communion and compassion."

The ongoing political crisis is the persistent failure of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood to settle the abortion question and the failure of the Supreme Court to offer any sign that these cases ever will.

While Mr. Tennes’s attorneys argued that their client was being targeted because of his religious beliefs, Mr. Bogren said that discrimination against same-sex couples is not protected by religious liberty statutes. He compared discrimination against gay people to prejudice against racial minorities.

The presence of militant Islamist groups in the Congo such as ISIS is complicating the work of medical personnel in combating the Ebola virus epidemic, which has been rampant for the last 40 months.