ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of religious involvement at the UN. It also describes pointers for research–qualitative as well as quantitative–in this area. Religious aims encompass strong engagement by religious NGOs (RNGO). Although NGOs in general had become a favoured topic of research during the 1990s, Julia Berger was the scholar to point up the presence of specifically religious NGOs at the UN. The distribution of religious affiliations within each field of activity varies widely. There is a clear predominance of Christian NGOs in all fields, with organizations from this tradition representing at least 50 per cent of all RNGO working in the given field. E. Bush cites the case of the RNGO Catholics for Choice, which, despite being accused of disobeying basic magisterial teachings and, as a result, having its Catholic identity denied by the Vatican and by various Catholic civil society actors that disagree with its positions, continues to assert its Catholic status.
