Trinity Wall Street, the powerful Episcopal church and real estate giant wracked by internal disagreements over the leadership of Rector James Cooper, is scheduled to hold an election on Tuesday.

The vote is held annually to elect members of the vestry--the Episcopal equivalent of a board of directors for the church. But ever since the last election, when Cooper used the election to purge the vestry of his remaining critics, the election process has been the subject of controversy. Jeremy Bates, a member of the congregation, sued Trinity's leadership in February, alleging that elections are rigged; Cooper's nominating committee only selects as many candidates as there are available positions, and ballots only offer congregants the opportunity to vote "yes."

Bates told the Voice he filed the suit to try to make sure that this year's election wouldn't be another sham, but his suit is concerned with more than just voting protocol -- he also wanted the church to open its books to the public, rather than keeping Trinity's finances secret.

Since Bates filed his suit, two interesting things have happened: First, the church announced that Cooper intends to step down as rector -- in 2015. Then, on Friday, the church published an audited financial report for 2011.

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Reverend James Cooper announced today his intention to retire in early 2015.

A year after vestry members tried unsuccessfully to get Reverend James Cooper to step down as head of Trinity Wall Street, and two days after a congregant sued Cooper and other church leadership over alleged voting improprieties, Cooper announced late today that he will be stepping down.

The announcement, made on the church's website, comes in the form of a letter Cooper wrote to the church's vestry dated February 8.

But Cooper's retirement won't be immediate, he says in the letter.

"In fulfillment of my commitment to serve at least ten years as the 17th Rector of Trinity Wall Street, and in confidence that Trinity is well positioned for the future, I write to request that you accept my intention to retire from Trinity February 28, 2015."

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Trinity Wall Street's leadership is the subject of a lawsuit alleging that it propped itself up with unlawful voting protocols.

Trinity Wall Street, the venerable Episcopal church that has anchored lower Manhattan since 1697, has been roiled by internal turmoil for a while, and the hits just keep coming.

As we wrote in our December cover story, Trinity's congregation has been rocked by tumultuous disagreements over the church's controversial rector, James Cooper. A year and a half ago, some members of Trinity's vestry -- a vestry is something like a board of directors -- sought to persuade Cooper to leave. Instead, Cooper stayed, and managed to force out all the vestry members who didn't support him, using his control over the vestry-selection process. Now that control is the subject of a lawsuit.

The suit, filed Monday by Jeremy Bates, who has attended Trinity since 2004, alleges that the mechanism Cooper used to stack the vestry with his supporters is actually contrary to the church's own charter.

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Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world today when he announced that he will be resigning from his post on February 28th. Speaking in Latin to a group of cardinals, he said, "Before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise." His tenure, while short, marked some of the most tumultuous years in Catholicism's recent history. While his exit could easily be interpreted as yet another crisis for the Church, I believe they should seize this moment as a chance to really shake things up and welcome the 21st century head-on. It is time for a young, in-your-face pope with attitude up the wazoo and at least 3 million Twitter followers.

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Freedom of expression(s)?

It took just over 24 hours for several subway ads featuring an offensive, anti-Islamic message were vandalized, which, somehow, has led to a debate about the First Amendment, as apparent in the comment section of our story abut the vandals posted yesterday.

The entire debate is a bit of an enigma/completely contradictory -- it seems many of the people who detest the ads and want them taken down are the same people advocating for the free speech rights of those vandalizing the ads.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed super-sized soda ban isn't the only controversial topic that is going to be discussed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene this week.

Today, the Department is talking about the metzitzah b'peh -- a circumcision practice during which ritual practitioners "place their mouths directly on the child's circumcision wound to draw blood away from the circumcision cut."

And what exactly are they doing? The 11-member panel is listening to public comments on a "proposal to require parental consent for circumcisions practiced by ultra-Orthodox Jews," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Why? Well, between 2000 and 2011, 11 infants got herpes from this ritual. Ten infants were hospitalized, "at least two developed brain damage, and two babies died," the DOH reports.

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The Virgin Mary might live in a tree in West New York, New Jersey, some now claim.

Today's New York Times has a report that religious pilgrims have been flocking to the site, "making the sign of the cross and weeping at the base of a Ginkgo biloba tree with a strange knot that they believe resembles the Virgin Mary."

Of course, some have already accused said revelers of "witchcraft" and devil-worship. And the city is now paying $1,000 daily to protect the allegedly holy plant from vandals.

The Newark Archdiocese told us that it's officially treating the alleged apparition as a natural occurrence and nothing more. Spokesman Jim Goodness said that it had been examined by priests, who determined that the knot simply has the appearance of the Madonna and is not a Vatican-sanctioned, verified apparition.

With these reports -- as well as past incidences of Virgin Mary "sightings" on everything from commercial buildings to grilled cheese sandwiches -- you might wonder: So how does the Catholic Church determine if a Madonna sighting is a Madonna sighting?

Well, we've got an answer for you!

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Someone call up M. Night Shyamalan. This story is gonna be huge.

What happens when you mix together the crazy plot twists of Dan Brown, the conspicuous nature of Julian Assange and a right-hand serviceman as powerful as Alfred was to Bruce Wayne? More »

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Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Remember the "Ground Zero mosque" that wasn't just a mosque but actually a community center but still had people enraged back in 2010 because they thought it would be a victory monument to terrorism?

We hadn't really thought about it much recently, either -- until today, when we heard that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, one of the original religious leaders behind the project, would be involved in a new local effort: campaign finance reform.

Tomorrow, religion and politics are mixing at an event hosted by a local good government group that is pushing to get campaign finance reform underway this year in the state -- and as part of their efforts, they're bringing together high-profile religious figures to discuss politics.

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This Easter Sunday was not free from politics and controversy for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who in addition to giving a sermon at Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral today, appeared in a segment that aired on CBS' Face The Nation. In the interview Dolan weighed in once again on the nation's contraception debate and the president's coverage mandate. "I don't think religion should be too involved in politics," he said. "But I also don't think the government and politics should be overly involved in the church. And that's our problem here. You've got a dramatic, radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the church. That bothers me."

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