Wiccans welcome

Washington, D.C.

The Department of Veterans Affairs this week agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to the list of religious symbols it will inscribe on veterans’ headstones. The agreement ends a lawsuit brought by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy group, on behalf of the families of several Wiccan worshippers. Wicca is a faith originating in pre-Christian Europe that reveres nature and its cycles. About 1,800 Wicca worshippers serve in the military, the Pentagon says. A total of 38 religious symbols are now approved for use on headstones in military cemeteries.