The removal of most of the references to God in the English dialog really does alter the story. Since much of the story revolves around Meimi Haneoka and Seira Mimori's religious beliefs as their motivation for stealing items back to return to the rightful owners, removing references to God and other religious aspects of the story would tend to alter the viewer's perception of the show.

And considering Seira Mimori spends half of the time in a nun's habit, one wonders why they thought they could do Saint Tail without references to God.

According to Kenneth Lee (the new U.S. producer for Saint Tail), this was the decision of the previous producer based on a possible TV broadcast. He's investigating what can be done for future volumes, but it appears that at least volumes 1 and 2 will contain the censored dialog.

Needless to say, I don't find this kind of thing acceptable. Pre-censoring something (the video or the dialog) for a home video release in anticipation of a possible TV broadcast is just insulting to the people paying for the home video release. It makes them seem like second class customers. Better to do what some other companies do and dub alternate dialog when dubbing the shows: one line for the home video release and one for the possible TV broadcast.

Considering that Saint Tail would probably require other changes (like the removal of the scenes with the nun, the romance, and any story involving stealing (i.e. most of them)) to make it on broadcast TV in the U.S., one wonders what they felt they had to make this dialog change that would just be the tip of the iceberg.

On the first volume only:

Overlays were used to alter various on-screen Japanese writing (such as letters from Saint Tail to Asuka Jr.). Ironically, the overlays don't even match the spoken reading of the letters in the English dub.

Reportedly, there will be no overlays from volume 2 onwards.

On the first volume only:

The openings and endings were removed between episodes on the first volume. Eyecatches and a short omake segment between episodes 2 and 3 were left in place.

On the English track, the opening music used was a karaoke version with out the Japanese vocals. The ending on both audio tracks was also a vocal-less karaoke version of the ending theme.

Reportedly, these changes will be fixed starting on volume 2 (except for the ending theme, which the U.S. producer for Saint Tail is still investigating).

Most references to God - like in Meimi's transformation sequence, were removed from the English dubbed dialog.

Reportedly, the references to God will be restored to the English dub beginning on volume 3.