The president of Catholic Relief Services is stepping down at the beginning of 2012, the Baltimore-based humanitarian agency announced Wednesday.

Ken Hackett, 63, has headed CRS since 1993, leading the agency through Hurricane Mitch in Central America, multiple famines in Africa, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the Haiti earthquake earlier this year.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, the chairman of the CRS board of directors, said a board committee would conduct a nationwide search for a successor to Hackett with a goal of installing the next president by January 2012.

Hackett has agreed to continue serving as president for six months beyond the expiration of his current five-year term in June 2011, and to continue on as a consultant until July 2012 to assist in the transition.

“Over two years ago, Ken Hackett, our esteemed president, challenged the Board to become robustly intentional in our strategy for future leadership transition, including his own office as CEO,” Dolan wrote in a note to CRS staff.

“Ken’s challenge to the board was characteristic of his nearly four decades of devotion to CRS—he only wants to be a servant to Jesus Christ, His Church, His poor,” Dolan wrote. “We took him seriously. The good news is that we can do this patiently and carefully, because we are able to approach any leadership changes from a position of strength, success and stability.”

Hackett joined CRS in 1972 following Peace Corps service in Ghana, according to the agency. He served CRS in posts throughout Africa and Asia and in a variety of positions at CRS headquarters in Baltimore. During his tenure as president, the agency’s operating budget grew from about $300 million to more than $800 million today.

In a release, CRS credied Hackett with shepherding a major initiative to provide lifesaving medication to people with AIDS in the developing world. Under Hackett, CRS incorporated a justice-centered focus in all its programming, using Catholic social teaching as a guide.

Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Dolan wrote of the bishops’ and the board’s “immense gratitude” to Hackett.

“It is only because of his extraordinary leadership these past 17 years that we are in such a secure position that we can approach this transition calmly and carefully; and only because of his selfless ‘calling the question’ that we are now commencing this realistic planning for the future of this agency we all so love,” Dolan wrote.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

April Castro of the Associated Press reports:

Social conservatives are seeking to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, warning of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.

The State Board of Education plans to vote Friday on a one-page resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.

Critics say it's another example of the ideological board trying to politicize public education in the Lone Star State.

"It's just more of the same Islamaphobic, xenophobic attitude we've been seeing around the country," said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Council of American Islamic Relations of Texas. "It's not like Muslims are not part of the country. This kind of attitude is not healthy, it's not even American."

Future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts would not be bound by the resolution.

The resolution cites world history books no longer used in Texas schools that it says devoted more lines of text to Islamic beliefs and practices than Christian beliefs and practices.

"Diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts," reads a preliminary draft of the resolution.

The resolution also claims "more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the U.S. public school textbook oligopoly, as they are doing now."

The measure was suggested to the board this summer by Odessa businessman Randy Rives, who lost his Republican primary bid for a seat on the panel earlier this year. Members of a social conservative bloc of the board then asked chairwoman Gail Lowe to put the resolution on this week's agenda.

"The board seems to be running with it without taking a critical look at what's in these textbooks to see if there actually is a bias," said Jose Medina, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. "We don't see what the point of this resolution is. There are so many other pressing issues the SBOE could be taking up right now.

"This is not going to have any practical effect."

The resolution concludes by warning publishers the "State Board of Education will look to reject future prejudicial social studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others."

Social conservatives control the 15-member board for now, although the landscape is certain to change after the general election. The board in recent years has become a battleground for social conservatives and liberal watchdogs, each accusing the other of imposing ideological agendas into what about 4.8 million public school students learn in Texas classrooms.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

A Georgia teen who officials said continued to evangelize outside a library after officials warned him to stop has been banned from the Chattahoochee Valley Regional Library System for six months, the Associated Press reports.

Kirsten Edwards, acting manager of the North Columbus Public Library, said in a letter that 16-year-old Caleb Hanson repeatedly asked patrons about their religious faith and offered biblical advice.

The teen said library employees had warned him to stop. "Then they took me into an office and told me not to do it," he said.

He said he then began talking to people outside the library, and patrons continued to complain.

Claudya Muller, director of the library system, said the ban had nothing to do with what the teen was saying. "As people came in, he would approach them. He prevented people from simply using the library."

The letter from Edwards says Caleb's library card has been blocked, and that if he returns before Feb. 28, he will be criminally trespassing.

The teen is home-schooled and attends First Assembly of God in Phenix City, Ala. He said he is not offended by the ban. "We're still praying about what to do," he said.

In addition to the North Columbus branch, the system includes the Columbus, South Columbus, Mildred L. Terry, Cusseta-Chattahoochee, Lumpkin, Marion County and the Parks Memorial Public Library in Richland. The ban was effective Aug. 28.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (118)
        

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's plan to put Virginia's state-run alcohol sales in private hands and triple the number of liquor stores scored a big endorsement from the Christian right, the Associated Press reports.

Jerry Falwell Jr., the chancellor of Liberty University and namesake son of the late minister and political activist, endorsed McDonnell's liquor privatization proposal Tuesday.

Falwell said he felt the founders never intended for government to be in the liquor retailing business.

But McDonnell has encountered resistance to his plan from an interfaith coalition concerned that boosting the number of stores from 332 now to 1,000 will worsen alcoholism, damage families and put more drunks on the highways.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

Roman Catholic leaders in Iowa are urging voters to back a constitutional convention, saying the rare gathering would be the quickest way to overturn the court ruling that legalized gay marriage in the state, the Associated Press reports.

The Iowa Catholic Conference, which represents the state's four Roman Catholic dioceses, issued the statement Monday in favor of a yes vote on a Nov. 2 ballot question that would require a constitutional convention.

Gay marriage has been legal in Iowa since 2009, when the state Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision that found a same-sex marriage ban approved by lawmakers violated the Iowa Constitution. Since then, about 1,800 same-sex weddings have been held in Iowa, most by couples who live in other states.

Tom Chapman, executive director of the Catholic Conference, said the group was part of a larger effort to encourage Iowa's roughly 500,000 Catholics to vote their conscience on a number of issues.

Voters last called for a constitutional convention in 1920, but it wasn't convened, according to Rich Johnson, the legal director for the Legislative Services Agency. He didn't know why. In such a convention, the Legislature would set a process to select delegates and voters would have to approve any changes delegates propose.

Separately, Minnesota's Catholic bishops are launching a new effort against same-sex marriage, with a DVD being mailed to parishioners. Winona Bishop John Quinn said the DVD explains church teaching on marriage and describes what church leaders consider the potential impact of allowing same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

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The prominent pastor of a 25,000-member megachurch near Atlanta denies allegations in a lawsuit that he coerced two young men from the congregation into a sexual relationship, his attorney said.

Lawyers for the men, now 20 and 21, say they filed the lawsuit Tuesday in DeKalb County Court against Bishop Eddie Long. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they were victims of sexual impropriety.

President George W. Bush and three former presidents visited the sprawling New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia for the 2006 funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Long introduced the speakers and the Rev. Bernice King, the Kings' younger daughter, delivered the eulogy. She is also a pastor there.

The men who filed the suit were 17- and 18-year-old members of the church when they say Long abused his spiritual authority to seduce them with cars, money, clothes, jewelry, international trips and access to celebrities.

Craig Gillen, Long's attorney, says the pastor "categorically denies the allegations."

"We find it unfortunate that these two young men would take this course of action," Gillen said late Tuesday after news of the lawsuit broke. He said Long had not yet been served with copies of the lawsuits.

Long has called for a national ban on same-sex marriage and his church counsels gay members to become straight. In 2004, he led a march with Bernice King to her father's Atlanta grave to support a national constitutional amendment to protect marriage "between one man and one woman."

He also has released several gospel albums, authored books on relationships and spirituality, and hosts a weekly television program.

B.J. Bernstein, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said that when the relationships started, the plaintiffs were past the legal age of consent in Georgia, which is 16.

"Defendant Long has utilized his spiritual authority to coerce certain young male members ... into engaging in sexual acts and relationships for his own personal sexual gratification," the lawsuits read.

When asked about a possible motive for the accusations, Gillen referred to a break-in at Long's office in June.

Bernstein said one of the plaintiffs is facing a criminal burglary charge in the incident. She said the break-in was a way of lashing out at Long.

Bernstein said she contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office earlier this month when she became aware of the young men's allegations. She did not know what action, if any, the agency planned to take.

Bernstein told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she has not contacted DeKalb County law enforcement because Long has ties to county officials.

Patrick Crosby, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta, would not comment on whether federal prosecutors are investigating Long.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said his office wasn't investigating. And Orzy Theus of the DeKalb County District Attorney's office said Wednesday that county prosecutors do not plan to be involved.

"That's a civil matter. They were over the age of consent, that's not a criminal matter," said Theus.

Long was appointed pastor of New Birth in 1987. Then, the church had about 150 members. Less than four years later, the church had grown to more than 8,000 members. Athletes and entertainers claim membership at the church.

Long's church was among those named in 2007 in a Senate committee's investigation into a half-dozen Christian ministries over their financing.

Today, New Birth sits on 250 acres and has more than 25,000 members, a $50 million, 10,000-seat cathedral and more than 40 ministries — including the Longfellows Youth Academy, a tuition-based program for young men 13 to 18.

The New Birth campus was quiet Wednesday morning, with no unusual activity. Administrative staff referred media inquiries to Long's spokesman and people at the church declined to comment on the situation.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Moderate Muslims in Macedonia are urging the government and the international community to crack down on radical Wahhabi groups on the rise in the country, the Associated Press reports.

The head of Macedonia's official Islamic Religious Community, Suleyman Rexhepi, says he wants "radical measures" against the Wahhabis by the government, the U.S. and the European Union.

The radical brand of Islam embraced by al-Qaida and the Taliban is seen as gaining a foothold in the Balkans, and Rexhepi claimed Monday that the sect wants to "to distort (Macedonia's) image."

Rexhepi's group is engaged in a power struggle with the Wahhabis, who are thought to control five mosques in the capital, Skopje. Most of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority — a quarter of the population of 2.1 million — are Muslims.

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Karen Matthews of the Associated Press reports:

Leaders of prominent U.S. Muslim groups called Monday for a national week of interfaith dialogue to combat religious intolerance and said they support the right to build a controversial Islamic center near ground zero.

"We stand for the constitutional right of Muslims, and Americans of all faiths, to build houses of worship anywhere in our nation as allowed by local laws and regulations," the Muslim leaders said in a statement delivered at the site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque, to be called Park51.

They called for a "week of dialogue" on the weekend of Oct. 22-24, during which Muslims would conduct open houses at their places of worship to help ease tensions.

"We ask Muslims to open mosques nationwide to welcome people, to let them understand the Islamic faith and what American Muslim community is," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. "We also urge Muslims to visit places of worship in other faith communities."

The Muslim leaders spoke after a daylong summit meeting Sunday at a hotel near Kennedy Airport.

The 20 groups participating in the summit included the Council on Islamic-American Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, the two best-known U.S. Muslim groups, as well as the Islamic Circle of North America and the Muslim Alliance in North America.

Neither the developer of the Islamic center nor its imam attended the news conference, though developer Sharif El-Gamal attended the summit. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Rauf welcomed the Muslim leaders' support in a statement.

"I welcome the support of the Islamic Leadership Council for the Cordoba Initiative's plans to proceed with a community center in lower Manhattan, which has attracted such broad national and global attention," Rauf said. "On a day when American Muslim leaders stand strongly in favor of protecting civil rights, and denouncing bigotry in all forms, it is important to remember that world-wide efforts to foster peace must begin in our home communities."

He added, "We must insist on going forward with causes that we know will further peace between all peoples."

The developers said in a separate statement, "The leaders of Park51 are grateful to the over 100 Muslim American leaders and their organizations who announced their support today of the Islamic community center being built in Lower Manhattan. Our community remains committed to building bridges of understanding to our neighborhoods, to our city and to the rest of America."

Summit organizers said Rauf did not attend Sunday because of security concerns.

Park51's proposed location two blocks from the World Trade Center site has upset some relatives of Sept. 11 victims and led to angry demands that it be moved. Critics say the site of mass murder by Islamic extremists is no place for an Islamic institution.

Republicans including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have denounced plans for the mosque, and a Florida pastor threatened to burn copies of the Quran because of it.

The Muslim leaders who spoke Monday did not address proposals to move the mosque to a less sensitive location.

They called on elected officials "to join their colleagues in denouncing and rejecting inflammatory rhetoric that endangers the lives of Muslim Americans."

While the leaders said they supported the mosque, none promised financial backing.

Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, said the organizations' support would facilitate fundraising for the project.

"The summit has underlined the support of the major national Muslim organizations for the Park51 project," Bagby said. "And in doing so they have opened the door for fundraising in the American Muslim community."

Participants at the news conference refused to answer a question about whether they would denounce Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that that United States considers a terrorist organization.

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A report from Jay Reeves of the Associated Press:

Stricken with cancer and fragile from chemotherapy, author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens sits in an armchair before an audience and waits for the only question that can come first at such a time.

"How's your health?" asks Larry Taunton, a friend who heads an Alabama-based group dedicated to defending Christianity.

"Well, I'm dying, since you asked, but so are you. I'm only doing it more rapidly," replies Hitchens, his grin faint and his voice weak and raspy. Only wisps of his dark hair remain; clothes hang on his frame.

The writer best known to believers for his 2007 book "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" has esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father. He is fighting it, but the 62-year-old Hitchens is realistic: At the very best, he says, his life will be shortened.

For some of his critics, it might be satisfying to see a man who has made a career of skewering organized religion switch sides near the end of his life and pray silently for help fighting a ravaging disease.

He has an opportunity: Monday has been informally proclaimed "Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day."

Christopher Hitchens won't be bowing his head, even on a day set aside just for him.

"I shall not be participating," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer in June, forcing him to cancel a tour to promote his new book, "Hitch-22: A Memoir." He took time off from work as chemo treatments began but recently published the first of what is intended to be a series of essays in Vanity Fair magazine about his diagnosis.

On Sept. 7, he visited Birmingham for his first public appearance since the diagnosis, a debate against David Berlinski, author of "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions." They argued over the implications of a purely secular society before a crowd of about 1,200 in an event sponsored by Fixed Point Foundation, the Christian apologetics group headed by Taunton.

Taunton is devoutly Christian yet has developed a fast friendship with Hitchens, who appeared at a similar debate sponsored by the organization last year. Taunton is among those praying for Hitchens, and Hitchens takes no offense.

The way the English-born Hitchens sees it, the people praying for him break down into three basic groups: those who seem genuinely glad he's suffering and dying from cancer; those who want him to become a believer in their religious faith; and those who are asking God to heal him.

Hitchens has no use for that first group. "'To hell with you' is the response to the ones who pray for me to go to hell," Hitchens told AP.

He's ruling out the idea of a deathbed change of heart: "'Thanks but no thanks' is the reply to those who want me to convert and recognize a divinity or deity."

It's that third group — people who are asking God for Hitchens' healing — that causes Hitchens to choose his words even more carefully than normal. Are those prayers OK? Are they helpful?

"I say it's fine by me, I think of it as a nice gesture. And it may well make them feel better, which is a good thing in itself," says Hitchens.

But prayers for his healing don't make him feel better.

"Well, not any more than very large numbers of very kind, thoughtful letters from nonbelievers, some of whom know me, some of whom don't, asking me to know that they are on my side," Hitchens said. "That cheers me up, yes."

Hitchens doesn't know exactly how "Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day" began, other than that it's one of those things that appears on the Internet and goes viral. He declined an invitation to appear at a rabbi's prayer service in Washington that day, and he doesn't see any point in the exercise.

"I'm perfectly sure that there is nothing to be gained from it in point of my health, but perhaps I shouldn't even say that. If it would do something for my morale possibly it would do something for my health. We all know that morale is an element in recovery," he said. "But incantations, I don't think, have any effect on the material world."

The National Cancer Institute says esophageal cancer affects about 16,500 Americans each year, almost 80 percent of them men. Smoking and drinking alcohol regularly increase the risk of the disease; Hitchens does both.

The cancer that began in Hitchens' esophagus already has spread into the lymph nodes in his neck, and he fears it has reached a lung. He's visibly tired after a book signing and luncheon appearance and says he needs to rest, even though resting seems like such a waste of time when so little time may be left.

Already into his fourth round of chemotherapy, which he is receiving every three weeks, Hitchens says it's difficult to gauge his eventual legacy. He hopes to be remembered with affection by some; with passion by others; and hopefully as a good father by his three children.

As for his work, Hitchens says he would be happy to be recalled simply as one of those "who are attempting to uphold reason and science against superstition."

"I'd be proud to have my contribution at that," Hitchens said. "This is a very long, long, long story. It's humanity's oldest argument. If I played a small part in keeping it going that would be enough for me."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Natasha T. Metzler of the Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama and his family attended an hourlong service Sunday morning at a church just across the street from the White House.

Accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, Obama strolled across Lafayette Square to attend St. John's Church. Sasha held her father's hand as they crossed the park.

Obama has attended the pale yellow Episcopal church three times previously, as well as other churches in the nation's capital. The Obama family hasn't settled on a new permanent congregation since coming to Washington.

A pew nine rows back from the altar at St. John's carries a small brass plaque designating it as "The President's Pew." Church history claims that every president since the nation's fourth chief executive, James Madison, has visited.

On Sunday afternoon, Obama played golf at Andrews Air Force Base.

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Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press reports:

The Vatican declared Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to Britain a "great success" Sunday, saying the pontiff was able to reach out to a nation wary of his message and angry at his church's sex abuse scandal.

On his final day, Benedict praised British heroics against the Nazis to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and moved an Englishman a step closer to possible sainthood.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the important thing wasn't so much the turnout — crowds were much smaller than when Pope John Paul II visited in 1982 — but that Benedict's warning about the dangers of an increasingly secularized society had been received "with profound interest" from Britons as a whole.

Indeed, the British media coverage was remarkable in the seriousness with which newspapers and television took Benedict's message, and TV stations ran virtually all of the pope's speeches, Masses and other events live.

"Everyone is agreed about the great success, not so much from the point of view of the numbers, but ... by the fact that the message of the pope was received with respect and joy by the faithful," Lombardi told reporters.

Prime Minister David Cameron, in his farewell speech before Benedict's departure ceremony, said the pope had "challenged the whole country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing."

At the same time, he seemed to take issue with Benedict's contention that secularization was taking hold more and more in Britain.

"Faith is part of the fabric of our country. It always has been and it always will be," Cameron said shortly before the pope left on a flight from Birmingham Airport. Benedict arrived back in Rome late Sunday night.

That was certainly evident on Sunday, as Benedict beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman before tens of thousands of faithful who paid 25 pounds ($39) to attend. This trip marked the first time pilgrims had been asked by their church to pay to see the pope.

Newman, a 19th century Anglican convert to Catholicism, was honored at an open-air Mass in Birmingham, the spiritual highlight of Benedict's trip. The theologian was enormously influential in both churches, and Benedict wants to hold him up as a model for the faithful for having followed his conscience despite great costs.

Still, Benedict opened his homily by marking a very different but no less poignant commemoration for a German pope on British soil: the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, when Nazi German bombers attacked Britain during World War II.

"For me, as one who lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology," Benedict told the crowd.

Benedict was forced to join the Hitler Youth and then served in the army before deserting near the end of World War II. He has spoken out before about the evil of the Nazi regime, but not even at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland, nor at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, did he refer to his personal experience as a German who lived through it.

The Mass was the last major event of Benedict's trip, which saw him again apologizing for the sex abuse scandal, meeting with abuse victims, and praising British bishops for their response to it.

He also sought to ease tensions with the Anglican Church by making a historic visit to Westminster Abbey, seat of the Church of England. He told bishops they should be "generous" in letting Anglicans convert to Catholicism.

The pope issued an unprecedented invitation to Anglicans to join new "personal ordinariates" last year, in which they can convert but retain some of their Anglican liturgical heritage. The invitation was widely seen as the Vatican poaching for converts even though Rome insisted it was merely a pastoral response to requests that had come from Anglicans seeking to join the Catholic Church.

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Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday he was ashamed of the "unspeakable" sexual abuse of children by priests, telling the British faithful during Mass in Westminster Cathedral that he was deeply sorry and hoped the church's humiliation would help victims heal, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict also said he hoped the church would be able to use its contrition to purify itself of the "sins" of its ministers and renew its commitment to educating the young.

Benedict addressed the abuse scandal head-on during his homily, which was broadcast live on British television, a day after six people were arrested in an alleged terrorist plot against him. They remained in custody Saturday.

The sex abuse scandal has clouded Benedict's four-day state visit to this deeply secular nation with a centuries-old history of anti-Catholic sentiment. Polls have indicated widespread dissatisfaction in Britain with the way Benedict has handled the crisis, with Catholics nearly as critical of him as the rest of the population.

Anger over the abuse scandal runs high in Britain in part because of the enormous scale of the abuse in neighboring Ireland, where government reports have detailed systematic abuse of children at church-run schools and cover-up on the part of church authorities.

The pontiff issued his comments in the seat of English Catholicism amid indications he would meet with British abuse victims, and as abuse survivors and others opposed to his visit prepared a march Saturday afternoon in London's Hyde Park to demand more accountability.

"I express my deep sorrow to the innocent victims of these unspeakable crimes, along with my hope that the power of Christ's grace, his sacrifice of reconciliation, will bring deep healing and peace to their lives," Benedict said.

He acknowledged the shame and humiliation all the faithful had suffered as a result of the scandal and said he hoped "this chastisement will contribute to the healing of the victims, the purification of the church and the renewal of her age-old commitment to the education and care of young people."

He asked the faithful to show concern for victims and solidarity with priests.

Among those in the cathedral were former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a recent convert to Catholicism, and his wife, Cherie.

Martin Brown, 34, who was in the crowd outside the cathedral, termed it "a good apology."

"He seemed to really mean it; he was genuinely sorry," Brown said. "It's good he mentioned it and it's good he didn't dwell on it for too long. He got it just about right."

Chris Daly, a spokesman for Scottish abuse victims, said the pope's words helped but that victims want to see action: an acknowledgment from church authorities of their failures and cover-up, and material support to help victims.

"There has to be an element of accountability here, and truth is a big issue here where the church has been complicit in a cover-up of the abuse," he said. "They haven't been open. They haven't been truthful. It's hardly Christlike to be complicit."

In Scotland, more than 500 people claiming to be victims of abuse were represented in a court case but were blocked by a time limit on bringing an action.

On his way to Britain, Benedict acknowledged to reporters that the church had failed to act quickly or decisively enough to stop the abuse and prevent it from recurring. Victims groups have dismissed such comments as hollow, saying they want the church to turn over information about suspected pedophiles in its ranks and take action, not words, to make children safer.

"We don't need a pope who is sad about crimes. We need a pope who will prevent crimes," Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement after the pontiff's comments Saturday. "And his words prevent nothing."

Benedict went ahead with a busy day Saturday, his third in Britain, as six men arrested in an alleged terror attempt against him remained in police custody. Police staged a pre-dawn raid Friday on a garbage depot and arrested five street cleaners; a sixth person was arrested later in the day.

Police say they were detained under the Terrorism Act "on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."

The Vatican has said the pope was informed of the arrests, was calm, and no changes to his itinerary were planned.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi seemed to downplay the seriousness of the threat, telling reporters Saturday that the pope's entourage was given the impression that the alleged plot was not a "major concern."

Benedict began his day by meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and opposition leader Harriet Harman. The pope offered his condolences to Cameron following the death of his father, Lombardi said. All three gave the pope gifts, including drawings given by Clegg's children.

After Mass, he issued a special greeting to young believers and the Welsh faithful — singled out because he won't be traveling to Wales during this visit, only England and Scotland.

He was scheduled to visit a home for the elderly before celebrating an evening prayer service in Hyde Park in preparation for Sunday's beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a 19th century convert from Anglicanism whom the pope wants to hold up as a model for the faithful.

On Friday, Benedict addressed Britain's political, financial and cultural elite in Westminster Hall, for centuries the seat of British political life. He demanded that religion have a voice in public policy and Christians in public roles be allowed to follow their consciences, lamenting that some even want to discourage Christmas celebrations.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart is hosting a "million moderate march" in Washington — for people who think shouting is annoying — but faux political nemesis Stephen Colbert will be nearby to keep fear alive against those "dark, optimistic forces."

Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," and his arch enemy on the network plan to hold opposing political rallies on the National Mall just before the November elections, the Associated Press reports.

Stewart interrupted his regular fake newscast Thursday night to announce a "Rally to Restore Sanity" on Oct. 30. He said it's for people too busy with their normal lives to go to other political rallies.

"We're looking for people who think shouting is annoying ... who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard," Stewart writes in promotion for his rally. "Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement."

No Adolf Hitler mustaches allowed at the Stewart rally — unless it's drawn on a photo of the German dictator (or Charlie Chaplin).

Nearby, Colbert also announced a "March to Keep Fear Alive" to restore "truthiness" to the nation on his show Thursday night. For those who don't know, truthiness was a 2006 word of the year that means "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

Colbert is encouraging "all freedom-loving patriots" to bring an overnight bag and five extra sets of underwear to challenge Stewart's "dark, optimistic forces." He said the nation can't afford a rally to restore sanity in the middle of a recession.

He wrote the United States is built on three bedrock principles: freedom, liberty and fear.

"They want to replace our fear with reason," he wrote. "But never forget 'reason' is just one letter away from 'treason.'"

The events come a few weeks after Glenn Beck's recent rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington. Stewart's website notes Oct. 30 was chosen as a date "of no significance whatsoever."

The rallies take aim at extremists from the political fringes. Stewart said it will give voice to about 70 to 80 percent of Americans who aren't heard in daily political discourse.

Stewart and Colbert have filed a single application for a permit to host 25,000 people on the Washington Monument grounds, National Park Service spokesman Bill Line said Friday. It hasn't been approved yet.

Stewart said Thursday night that his rally would be a "million moderate march." He suggested a few signs for the rally, including "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."

"You may be asking yourself ... 'but am I the right person to go to this rally?'" Stewart said on his show. "The fact that you would even stop to ask yourself that question as opposed to just jumping up, grabbing the nearest stack of burnable holy books, strapping on a diaper and pointing your car towards D.C. — that means I think you just might be right for it."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

British police arrested five London street cleaners over an alleged threat to Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, the second day of a papal trip to Britain that has brought both a warm welcome from Catholics and renewed anger over the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Associated Press reports.

The Vatican said the pope was calm despite the pre-dawn arrests and planned no changes to his schedule.

Acting on a tip, police detained the men, aged 26 to 50, under the Terrorism Act at a cleaning depot in central London after receiving information about a possible threat. The men are being questioned at a London police station and have not been charged. Police said an initial search of that business and other related properties has not uncovered any hazardous items.

The pope's visit has divided opinion in officially Protestant, highly secular Britain. The trip has been overshadowed by disgust over the Catholic Church's clerical abuse scandal and opposition from secularists and those opposed to the church's stances against homosexuality and using condoms to fight AIDS.

The detained suspects worked for a contractor on behalf of Westminster Council, the authority responsible for much of central London. The pope will still address British politicians, businessmen and cultural leaders in Westminster Hall, part of the Houses of Parliament, later Friday.

The depot were the men were arrested is responsible for cleaning another part of London that the pope is not due to visit, police said.

Police confirmed that some of the men were thought to be from outside Britain but declined to comment on press reports they were of Algerian origin.

Veolia Environmental Services, the cleaners' company, had no immediate comment on the arrests.

There was no indication the arrests involved a threat to national security. Protesters and activists have previously been arrested under the country's terrorism laws during high-profile events such as economic summits and state visits.

The pope's security on this trip has been visibly higher than on previous foreign trips, and Vatican officials have acknowledged that Britain represents a higher security threat than the other European countries Benedict has visited this year, including Portugal, Malta and Cyprus.

News of the arrests came as the pope was meeting representatives of other religions, including Muslims and Jews, and stressing the need for mutual respect, tolerance and freedom.

The Vatican said the pope was informed of the arrests and was pleased he could stick to his schedule.

"We have compete trust in the police," Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters. "The police are taking the necessary measures. The situation is not particularly dangerous.

"The pope is happy about this trip and is calm."

The pontiff will meet Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams later Friday, head of the Anglican Communion, in a display of unity between the divided Christian churches. On Saturday, he is to address thousands of pilgrims at an open-air service in London's Hyde Park.

Benedict travels with his own security detail, headed by chief papal bodyguard Domenico Giani. Benedict's white, bulletproof Popemobile is flanked by eight to 10 dark-suited bodyguards who jog alongside, scanning crowds for potential threats as the pope waves to well-wishers from inside.

There have been no major known attempts against Benedict; his predecessor Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in 1981.

Benedict was knocked down at Christmas Eve Mass in 2009 by a mentally unstable woman who jumped the security barricade inside St. Peter's Basilica. In 2007, a man jumped the barricade in St. Peter's Square and grabbed the pope's vehicle before being pushed to the ground by guards.

Benedict was nearly 30 minutes late for his first event Friday morning, with the Vatican attributing the delay at the time to logistical problems.

The pope was then given a boisterous welcome by thousands of cheering Catholic schoolchildren at St. Mary's University College in London, where he urged young people to ignore the shallow temptations of today's "celebrity culture."

Benedict also told their teachers to make sure to provide the children with a trusting, safe environment — the second time in as many days that he has referred to the church sex abuse scandal. On Thursday, the pope acknowledged that the Roman Catholic Church had failed to act quickly or decisively enough to remove pedophile priests from ministry.

"Our responsibility toward those entrusted to us for their Christian formation demands nothing less," Benedict said. "Indeed, the life of faith can only be effectively nurtured when the prevailing atmosphere is one of respectful and affectionate trust."

Polls in Britain indicate widespread dissatisfaction with the way Benedict has handled the sex abuse scandal, with Catholics nearly as critical of him as the rest of the population.

Outside the London university hall, some 4,000 young students, outfitted in prim school uniforms and waving small white-and-yellow Holy See flags, serenaded the pontiff Friday with gospel hymns and songs.

The students, from England, Scotland and Wales, gave Benedict a tie-dyed stole and three books tracing the history of the Catholic Church in Great Britain. They presented the gifts to the pontiff as he sat on an enormous red throne on a stage decorated with children's artwork.

The 83-year-old Benedict appeared relaxed and happy, gently greeting each child and kissing each on the head.

Just before the pope left, a member of the his security team spotted 39-year-old Becky Gorrod, who had been standing outside the gates of St. Mary's holding her 8-month-old daughter Alice. Mother and child were ushered in to meet the pontiff as the crowd cheered.

"My husband's never going to believe me," Gorrod told journalists. "They opened the car door, and the pope got out. Then the (pacifier) fell out of Alice's mouth, and the pope bent down and picked it up! The pope! How mad is that?"

She said the pope then kissed Alice on the forehead.

A few blocks away, about 30 people protested, holding up inflated condoms and posters. "Condoms are not crimes," read one. Another read: "Science flies you to the moon: religion flies you into buildings."

Michael Clark, 60, said he was protesting because he was gay and annoyed that the pope's visit — which is expected to cost British taxpayers 12 million pounds ($18.7 million) for security — was being funded by the state.

"That means it's being supported by taxpayers and people who may not have the same ideas," Clark said. "Sexuality is not evil."

Benedict began his four-day U.K. state visit on Thursday, greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Abuse scandals involving Catholic priests rocked the church in Britain more than a decade ago, sparking a 2001 report advising that all church officials, including volunteers, be subject to police checks and any allegations of abuse investigated swiftly. The Catholic Church in Britain has since prided itself on its response.

More recently, two former monks at Buckfast Abbey School were sentenced in 2007 for sexually abusing boys. And last year a monk at Ealing Abbey in London was sentenced for sexually abusing boys at an affiliated school.

Catholics are a minority in Britain at 10 percent, and up until the early 19th century they endured harsh persecution and discrimination and were even killed for their faith. King Henry VIII broke with Rome in the 16th century after he was denied a marriage annulment.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Pope Benedict XVI began a controversial visit to Britain on Thursday by acknowledging that the Catholic Church had not acted decisively or quickly enough against priests who molested children, the Associated Press reports. He said the church's top priority now was to help abuse victims heal.

The pope's comments to reporters traveling with him from Rome marked his most thorough admission to date of church failures to stop pedophile priests, but they again failed to satisfy victims' groups. The issue has reignited with recent revelations of hundreds of victims in Belgium, including at least 13 of whom committed suicide.

Benedict's four-day state visit has been overshadowed by disgust over the abuse scandal and indifference in highly secular Britain, where Catholics are a minority at 10 percent and endured centuries of bloody persecution until the early 1800s.

The pope's first meeting was with Queen Elizabeth II, both head of state and head of the Church of England, at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Benedict was warmly welcomed by the queen, who wore a blue-gray knee-length coat and matching hat and gloves, as tartan-wearing bagpipers marched and thousands of people watched under blustery, cloud-streaked blue skies. The pontiff himself donned a green tartan scarf as he rode through Edinburgh in the Popemobile.

Later, he enjoyed a very Scottish treat: a lunch of haggis — sheep heart, liver and lungs simmered in sheep stomach — at the home of Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

The queen told Benedict that his visit reminded all Britons of their common Christian heritage and said she hoped relations between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church would be deepened as a result.

She also praised the Catholic Church's "special contribution" to helping the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world.

"We know from experience that through committed dialogue, old suspicions can be transcended and a greater mutual trust encouraged," she said. "We hold that freedom to worship is at the core of our tolerant and democratic society."

The pope, too, recalled the shared Christian heritage of Catholics and Anglicans and said he wanted to extend a "hand of friendship" to the British people during his trip.

He said the queen's forefathers' "respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom."

The German-born Benedict's visit also came as the U.K marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Benedict recalled how Britain fought the "Nazi tyranny" during World War II, "that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live."

The trip is the first state visit by a pope to the U.K., and his meeting with the queen is symbolically significant because of the historic divide between the officially Protestant nation and the Catholic Church.

The queen is head of the Church of England, which split acrimoniously from Rome in the 16th century, a division followed by centuries in which Catholics were fined, discriminated against and killed for their faith in Britain. The visit also coincides with the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland.

The last papal visit to Britain was by John Paul II in 1982. Benedict's trip is a state visit because he was invited by the monarch.

The British media has been particularly hostile to the pope's visit, noting its 12-million-pound ($18.7 million) security cost to British taxpayers at a time of austerity measures and job losses. Protests are planned and "Pope Nope" T-shirts have been spotted around London.

There also remains strong opposition in the U.K. to Benedict's hard line against homosexuality, abortion and using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Yet a crowd of about 125,000 in Edinburgh welcomed him warmly, with the cheers on Princes Street heard from a mile away and well-wishers toting the Holy See's yellow and white flag.

"I've brought my wee girl Laura to see the pope," said James Hegarty, a 42-year-old unemployed Edinburgh resident. "She's only 4, but it's a once in a lifetime chance to see him."

A mile away, about 80 people protested the visit led by a Northern Ireland Protestant leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley. It was held at the Magdalen Chapel where John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Reformation, preached.

"This visit should never had happened. We stand here against these abusers. This is a waste of taxpayers' money," Paisley said.

Benedict acknowledged the opposition in his airborne comments to reporters, saying Britain had a "great history of anti-Catholicism. But it is also a country with a great history of tolerance."

Asked about polls that suggest many Catholics had lost trust in the church as a result of the sex abuse scandals, Benedict said he was shocked and saddened about the scope of the abuse, in part because priests take vows to be Christ's voice upon ordination.

"It's difficult to understand how a man who has said this could then fall into this perversion. It's a great sadness," Benedict said in Italian. "It's also sad that the authority of the church wasn't sufficiently vigilant, and not sufficiently quick or decisive to take necessary measures" to stop it.

He said victims were the church's top priority as it tries to help them heal spiritually and psychologically.

"How can we repair, what can we do to help these people overcome this trauma, find their lives again and find again the trust in the message of Christ?" Benedict said.

He insisted that abusive priests must never again be allowed access to young children, saying they suffer from an illness that "goodwill" cannot cure. In addition, he said, candidates for the priesthood must be better screened.

The Vatican has been reeling for months as thousands of victims around the globe have spoken out about priests who molested children, bishops who covered up for them and Vatican officials who turned a blind eye to the problem for decades.

Previously, Benedict has admitted that the scandal was borne of "sins within the church" but he had never acknowledged in such detail to the church's failures to act. Advocates for victims have long insisted he take more personal responsibility for the scandal, given that he was in charge of the Vatican office that handled sex abuse cases and was archbishop of Munich when a pedophile priest was assigned pastoral work while undergoing therapy for having abused young boys.

Benedict didn't take individual personal responsibility Thursday, saying only that the "authority of the church" had failed.

The main U.S. victim's group dismissed Benedict's comments as disingenuous, noting that the only real action the Vatican has taken has been to tell bishops to report abuse to police if local laws require them to do so.

"Bishops across the world continue to deliberately choose secrecy and deception over safety and honesty in child sex cases," said Joelle Casteix of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Vatican officials haven't confirmed that Benedict will meet with abuse victims while in Britain, but U.K. organizers say arrangements are being made.

Only 65,000 of the faithful are expected to attend an open air Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow later Thursday, compared to the 100,000 previously expected. Susan Boyle, the "Britain's Got Talent" reality show star who shot to global fame last year, will sing at the Mass.

A beatification event will follow on Sunday for Cardinal John Newman in Birmingham, which will see the 19th-century English philosopher take a step on his way to sainthood.

The bookish Benedict lacks the charisma of his predecessor John Paul II, who pulled in a crowd of 250,000 for Mass at the same Glasgow park.

Scotland has about 850,000 Catholics, but 27 percent of Scots — about 1.5 million — did not register a religion or said they were atheists.

The Humanist Society of Scotland placed billboards between Edinburgh and Glasgow that read: "Two million Scots are good without God." It also took exception to the pope's comment Thursday about the Nazis.

"The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God," the group said.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, responded that Benedict — who was forced to serve as a Nazi Youth — choses his words wisely. "You can agree or not, but I think the pope knows very well what the Nazi ideology was," Lombardi said.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Britain's advertising watchdog has banned an Italian ice cream ad featuring a pregnant nun, saying it causes offense to Catholics, the Associated Press reports.

The magazine ad for ice cream maker Antonio Federici showed the nun eating a tub of ice cream, with text that read: "Immaculately conceived ... Ice cream is our religion."

The Advertising Standards Authority said Wednesday it has received 10 complaints from magazine readers who said the ad was offensive to Christians. The agency said imagery used to illustrate immaculate conception was likely to be seen as mocking the beliefs of Roman Catholics.

The Italian company said the idea of conception represented the development of their ice cream and the ad aimed to gently satirize religion.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Apparently it isn't only Muslims that are having difficulty getting houses of worship built.

The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Justice Department has filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the city of Walnut, Calif., claiming it unfairly denied a permit to a group seeking to build and run a Buddhist center.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles seeks a court order saying the Southern California city violated federal law and an injunction to prohibit Walnut officials from discriminating against the Chung Tai Zen Center and other religious organizations.

Federal officials say Walnut denied the center's application in January 2008, something it had not done that to any other religious group that sought a conditional use permit since at least 1980.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The French Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil in public, but the leaders of both parliamentary houses said they had asked a special council to first ensure the measure passes constitutional muster amid concerns its tramples on religious freedoms, the Associated Press reports.

The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill, which has already passed in the lower chamber, the National Assembly. It will need President Nicolas Sarkozy's signature.

Legislative leaders said they wanted the Constitutional Council to examine it.

"This law was the object of long and complex debates," the Senate president, Gerard Larcher, and National Assembly head Bernard Accoyer said in a joint statement explaining their move. They said in a joint statement that they want to be certain there is "no uncertainty" about it conforming to the constitution.

The measure effects less than 2,000 women.

Many Muslims believe the legislation is one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. However, the vast majority behind the measure say it will preserve the nation's singular values, including its secular foundation and a notion of fraternity that is contrary to those who hide their faces.

France would be the first European country to pass such a law though others, notably neighboring Belgium, are considering laws against face-covering veils, seen as anathema to the local culture.

"Our duty concerning such fundamental principles of our society is to speak with one voice," said Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, opening a less than 5-hour-long debate ahead of the vote.

The measure, carried by Sarkozy's conservative party, was passed overwhelmingly by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on July 13.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Pope Benedict XVI will break his own rule this weekend when he beatifies Cardinal John Henry Newman, the renowned 19th Century Anglican convert who greatly influenced the Roman Catholic Church, the Associated Press reports.

Newman remains a complicated figure within the Anglican church he abandoned, and the pope's glorification of him during a state visit to Britain could unleash new tensions between churches already divided over issues like the ordination of women and gay bishops, AP correspondent Nicole Winfield writes.

Benedict will move Newman a step closer to possible sainthood when he presides over his beatification on Sunday, the main reason for his four-day trip. It's the first time Benedict will celebrate a beatification; under his own rules popes don't beatify, only canonize.

For the German-born, by-the-book professor, such an exception to his own rule is significant. It's a calculated gesture that underscores Benedict's view that Newman is a crucial model for all Christians at a time when Christianity is on the wane in an increasingly secularized Europe.

"His personality and teachings could be a source of inspiration for ecumenism in our times from which all of us can draw," Benedict said on the eve of his trip. "It is my hope and prayer that more and more people will benefit from his gentle wisdom and be inspired by his example of integrity and holiness of life."

For many Anglicans, the sight of the pope traveling to Britain with the express aim of beatifying a figure who turned his back on their church will be a bitter one.

And Benedict has a history of causing offense while on foreign trips — notably outraging Muslims in a speech in Germany by appearing to suggest the prophet Muhammad spread a message of violence, or suggesting while traveling to Africa that condoms hindered the fight against AIDS.

Newman was one of the founders of the so-called Oxford Movement of the 1830s, which sought to revive certain Roman Catholic doctrines in the Church of England by looking back to the traditions of the earliest Christian church.

Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. In the centuries that followed, Catholics were fined, discriminated against and killed for their faith.

Newman gave up a brilliant academic career at Oxford University and the pulpit of the university church to convert to Catholicism in 1845, convinced that the truth that he had been searching for could no longer be found in the Church of England. The decision caused pain at a personal and institutional level.

"For him, becoming a Catholic was to become a pariah, to give up all his friends, all his jobs, possessions, and do something that was really difficult," said Jack Valero, the spokesman for Newman's beatification cause. "But he did that because he wanted to follow the truth."

For Benedict, Newman represents a model in that he fought against the same moral relativism — the idea that all religions are the same and that there's no objective truth — that Benedict has denounced during his papacy.

"Perhaps Benedict is thinking that Newman is the vehicle that he can use to push the evangelization of the old Europe," said Valero.

But the beatification is controversial, not least because Newman's defection still rankles in the Church of England, a betrayal that represents current and centuries-old fears about Rome.

The beatification comes at a difficult time for the Anglican Communion as a whole, torn over the ordination of women and openly gay men as bishops that have threatened to tear the 80 million strong communion apart.

Relations between the Anglican and Catholic churches that were already tense over these issues were further strained last year when Benedict unexpectedly issued an invitation to those opposed to the liberalizing bent of the Anglican church to convert.

Vatican officials insist the pope's beatification of Newman isn't another slap in the face to a church already hobbled by internal divisions, noting that the process began in 1958. They call Newman a bridge figure who foreshadowed the Second Vatican Council and could help heal the wounds of division.

Few Anglicans have come out to openly contest the beatification, but few are lining up to hail it either — an indication of the almost bittersweet sentiment Anglicans feel about him if they know about him at all.

"He seems to symbolize the view that the ecumenical journey leads Anglicans ultimately back to the Roman Catholic Church," said the Rev. William Franklin, an Anglican Newman scholar who has taught Newman at Rome's Pontifical Angelicum University.

While the Vatican hopes to hold Newman up as a bridge figure, his own experience with conversion suggests otherwise, said the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College, an Anglican theological school at the University of Toronto.

"There are very sad things about what happened, that he himself and others acknowledge: the great parting of friends — it's something that's true today" when Roman Catholics or Anglicans switch sides, Radner said.

"He stands as a sign of what's broken of a bridge, it seems to me."

Newman's legacy is also complex for Anglicans and Catholics alike: Liberals like his emphasis on conscience, conservatives admire his submission to authority and his devotion to celibacy. Some gay activists have claimed him as one of their own, as Newman was buried in the same grave with the Rev. Ambrose St. John, his companion of more than 30 years.

Valero and others insist there is nothing in the record that shows Newman was gay, noting that double graves were common at the time and that Newman had many intense friendships with men and women yet remained chaste.

Canon David Richardson, the Archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Holy See, acknowledged that Newman's beatification could be perceived by some as a triumphalist, "we won" provocation on the part of the Vatican. But he said he didn't think it would be seen as such, noting that few rank-and-file Anglicans even know very much about him.

"Christianity, because it's a historic religion, does rely a lot on memory, but its not at its best about picking over the scabs of the past," he said. "It's actually about bringing our past into our present and letting it shape our future. And Newman's contribution is a very positive contribution, even if at the time it was hurtful."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

The French Senate debates Tuesday whether to ban the burqa-style veil, a move that affects only a tiny minority of the country's Muslim women but has significant symbolic repercussions, the Associated Press reports.

Muslims believe the latest legislation is one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. Some women have vowed to wear a full-face veil despite the law.

The proposed law was passed overwhelmingly by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on July 13. The expected green light from the Senate would make it definitive once the president signs off on it — barring amendments and an eventual legal challenge.

The measure would outlaw face-covering veils in streets, including those worn by tourists from the Middle East and elsewhere. It is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values — and its way of life.

Kenza Drider, however, says she'll flirt with arrest to wear her veil as she pleases.

"It is a law that is unlawful," said Drider, a mother of four from Avignon, in southern France. "It is ... against individual liberty, freedom of religion, liberty of conscience, she said.

"I will continue to live my life as I always have with my full veil," she told Associated Press Television News.

Drider was the only woman who wears a full-faced veil to be interviewed by a parliamentary panel that spent six months deciding whether to move ahead with legislation.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatize the French Muslim population, which at an estimated 5 million is the largest in western Europe. Numerous Muslim women who wear the face-covering veil have said they are now being harassed in the streets.

Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who heads the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, says that Muslims in France are already targeted by hate-mongers and the ban on face-covering veils "will officialize Islamophobia."

"With the identity crisis that France has today, the scapegoat is the Muslim," he told The Associated Press.

Ironically, instead of helping some women integrate, the measure may keep them cloistered in their homes to avoid exposing their faces in public.

"I won't go out. I'll send people to shop for me. I'll stay home, very simply," said Oum Al Khyr, who wears a "niqab" that hides all but the eyes.

"I'll spend my time praying," said the single woman "over 45" who lives in Montreuil on Paris' eastern edge. "I'll exclude myself from society when I wanted to live in it."

The law banning the veil would take effect only after a six-month period.

The Interior Ministry estimates the number of women who fully cover themselves at some 1,900, with a quarter of them converts to Islam and two-thirds with French nationality.

The French parliament wasted no time in working to get a ban in place, opening an inquiry shortly after Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy said in June 2009 that full veils that hide the face are "not welcome" in France.

The bill calls for euro150 ($185) fines or citizenship classes for any woman caught covering her face, or both. It also carries stiff penalties for anyone such as husbands or brothers convicted of forcing the veil on a woman. The euro30,000 ($38,400) fine and year in prison are doubled if the victim is a minor.

It was unclear, however, how authorities planned to enforce such a law.

"I will accept the fine with great pleasure," said Drider, vowing to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if she gets caught.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Hartford City Council's decision to replace a scheduled Islamic prayer with an interfaith moment of silence before its meeting sends the wrong message to Connecticut's Islamic community, Muslim leaders told the Associated Press.

Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the canceling of Monday's Muslim prayer just days after the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks unfairly singles out state residents who practice Islam. Dhaouadi, along with about 50 other Muslim leaders and supporters, held an Islamic prayer session outside of City Hall on Monday in protest of the council's decision.

"We are not asking for special treatment," he said. "We are just asking for equal treatment, just like everyone else."

City Council president rJo Winch said she decided to cancel the scheduled prayer in favor of a moment of silence before the council's meetings this month after receiving negative e-mails and phone calls.

Winch and fellow council member Luis Cotto denounced the negative comments, which they said were filled with harsh and sometimes bigoted language, during a news conference last week.

Dhaouadi said he believes the majority of the outcry came from misinformed people who believed the council had never held prayers before its meetings and that only Muslim prayers were going to be allowed.

But both Winch and Dhaouadi said past council meetings have begun with prayers led by a rotation of religious leaders, including Muslims.

Dhaouadi said earlier Monday that he was disappointed when Winch informed him of the prayer cancellation on Friday, which was the end of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

"Why reward ignorance?" he said. "We understand, of course, that politicians are always going to try and seek the middle ground, but in this incident, we think this is a case of caving in to bigots and an immoral position."

Winch, a Democrat, said the backlash made her rethink the council's approach.

"We represent everyone in the city of Hartford," she said earlier Monday. "So in an effort to not isolate or mistreat anyone, my decision was made to hold a moment of silence because that way everyone can participate and nobody is infringed upon."

She said the plan is to return to the prayer rotation in October and reschedule the Muslim prayer. Discussions may be held on whether the moment of silence should be kept permanently, she said.

Cotto, of the Working Families Party, said not everyone on the council agrees with the decision. He said he originally proposed that a Muslim religious leader deliver the two prayer sessions in September as a sign of solidarity between the city of Hartford and its Muslim community.

"I respectfully disagree with my council president and I think this is all unfortunate," he said before Monday's prayer session. "This has never been about inclusivity because we've never excluded anyone but I think we should have taken the opportunity to make a statement against this anti-Muslim sentiment that has been growing."

Dhaouadi said he hopes the council reschedules the prayer.

"We just want to send a message that, like everyone else, Muslims in America were affected by 9/11," he said. "We reject the notion that we should be penalized for that."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A federal judge said she will issue an order to halt the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, after she declared the ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled Thursday that the prohibition on openly gay military service members was unconstitutional because it violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights of gays and lesbians.

The policy doesn't help military readiness and instead has a "direct and deleterious effect" on the armed services by hurting recruitment efforts during wartime and requiring the discharge of service members who have critical skills and training, she said.

The Log Cabin Republicans sued the federal government in 2004 to stop the policy. Phillips will draft the injunction with input from the group within a week, and the federal government will have a week to respond.

Government lawyers said the judge lacked the authority to issue a nationwide injunction.

The U.S. Department of Justice can appeal the ruling but the government has not announced what it intends to do. After-hours e-mails and calls requesting comment from government attorney Paul G. Freeborne and from the Pentagon were not immediately returned Thursday evening.

The case was the biggest legal test of the law in recent years and came amid promises by President Barack Obama that he will work to repeal the policy.

"This decision will change the lives of many individuals who only wanted to serve their country bravely," said the group's attorney, Dan Woods.

The Log Cabin Republicans said more than 13,500 service members have been fired since 1994.

Woods had argued during the nonjury trial that the policy violates gay military members' rights to free speech, open association and right to due process as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

He said the ban damages the military by forcing it to reject talented people as the country struggles to find recruits in the midst of a war. He also used Obama's remarks and those of top military commanders as evidence that the policy should be overturned.

The case is unique because it wasn't based on one individual's complaint about a discharge. Instead it made a broad, sweeping attack on the policy.

Government attorneys presented only the policy's legislative history in their defense and no witnesses or other evidence.

Freeborne had argued the policy debate was political and that the issue should be decided by Congress rather than in court.

In his closing arguments he said the plaintiffs were trying to force a federal court to overstep its bounds and halt the policy as it is being debated by federal lawmakers.

The U.S. House voted in May to repeal the policy, and the Senate is expected to address the issue this year.

The case moved forward slowly at first because it was assigned to a judge who had health problems and later retired, Woods said. In late 2008, it was reassigned to Phillips and went to trial in July.

The ruling is the second major court ruling this summer in which a California judge handed a major victory to gay rights advocates.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8, the ballot proposition that banned gay marriage in California. His ruling is on hold pending appeal.

Six military officers who were discharged under the policy testified during the trial. A decorated Air Force officer testified that he was let go after his peers snooped through his personal e-mail in Iraq.

The officers who participated in the trial were "reacting emotionally because they're so proud that they were able to play a part in making this happen," Woods said after the ruling.

"It'll be an interesting decision for our president to decide whether to appeal this case. He's said that 'don't ask, don't tell' weakens national security, and now it's been declared unconstitutional," he said. "If he does appeal, we're going to fight like heck."

The "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members. Under the 1993 policy, service men and women who acknowledge being gay or are discovered engaging in homosexual activity, even in the privacy of their own homes off base, are subject to discharge.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

It’s been a tough year to be an evangelical pastor with a small congregation. The two best-known examples are Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. The former is best known for protesting military funerals and running www.godhatesfags.com. The latter is known for a plan to burn copies of the Qur’an on Saturday to commemorate the 9/11 attacks.

Well down the list would be me. Like Westboro and Dove, New Hope is small and independent of a denomination. One difference would be that the only thing we burn is cigars when our guys get together to play poker.

There are plenty of other differences as well. But every time I turn on the news and hear about a small evangelical church that’s planning to burn copies of the Qur’an I realize that there just isn’t room for the reporters to describe it as “fringe,” or “cult-like” (see their “Discipleship Manual” at The Smoking Gun), or “nutty.” No, they have to call them something, so “small evangelical church” it is.

I’m getting a taste of what it’s like for many of my Muslim colleagues.

A couple of years back I asked a local Imam what he thought about the blasphemy laws in many majority-Muslim countries that prescribe the death penalty for those converting from Islam to another religion. He told me he thought it was outrageous. I referenced the passages in the Qur’an used to justify the practice, and asked why other imams would endorse it on that basis. “Because they’re idiots,” he said.

As I write this I see that Terry Jones has decided not to burn Qur’ans on Saturday. (If nothing else demonstrates the power of prayer …) I’m grateful that he has been persuaded to change course, even if that persuasion involved some deception. But I’m still horrified that he was planning to pull such an uncivilized and offensive stunt.

My Muslim colleagues get to explain the uncivilized and offensive responses to this foolishness that we've seen around the world this week. I get to explain that one of the downsides of Protestantism is that we don't have a Pope who can step in and make sure some rogue pastor doesn't do something really stupid. One of the downsides to American Protestantism is that in many cases the law can't step in either. This is one of those cases.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic center and mosque away from New York's ground zero, the Associated Press reports. The imam planning the center denied there was ever such a deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones generated an international firestorm with his plan to burn the Quran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he has been under intense pressure to give it up. President Barack Obama urged him to listen to "those better angels" and give up his "stunt," saying it would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool. Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the extraordinary step of calling Jones personally.

Standing outside his 50-member Pentecostal church, the Dove Outreach Center, alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, Jones said he relented when Musri assured him that the New York mosque will be moved.

Musri, however, said after the news conference that the agreement was only for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

Hours later, Jones said Musri "clearly, clearly lied to us."

"Given what we are now hearing, we are forced to rethink our decision," Jones said. "So as of right now, we are not canceling the event, but we are suspending it."

Jones did not say whether the Quran burning could still be held Saturday, but he said he expected Musri to keep his word and expected "the imam in New York to back up one of his own men."

Jones had never invoked the mosque controversy as a reason for his planned protest. He cited his belief that the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

But he said Thursday afternoon that he prayed about the decision and concluded that if the mosque was moved, it would be a sign from God to call off the Quran burning.

"We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans," Jones said. "We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it."

Musri thanked Jones and his church members "for making the decision today to defuse the situation and bring to a positive end what has become the world over a spectacle that no one would benefit from except extremists and terrorists" who would use it to recruit future radicals.

After Jones accused him of lying, Musri said the pastor "stretched my words" at the press conference.

"I think there was no confusion to begin with. When we stepped out of the church, we had an agreement to meet in New York," Musri said. He added that Jones "said his main reason for stopping the event was that it would endanger the troops overseas, Americans traveling abroad and others around the world."

Musri said he told the pastor "that I personally believe the mosque should not be there, and I will do everything in my power to make sure it is moved," Musri said. "But there is not any offer from there (New York) that it will be moved. All we have agreed to is a meeting, and I think we would all like to see a peaceful resolution."

Musri said Thursday night that he still plans to go ahead with the meeting Saturday.

In New York, the leader of the Islamic center project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, issued a statement saying he was glad Jones had decided not to burn the Quran but that he had spoken to neither the pastor nor Musri.

"We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter," Rauf said. "We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

Jones' decision to call off the Quran burning was made after a firestorm of criticism from leaders around the world. The pope and several other Christian leaders were among those urging him to reconsider his plans, which generated a wave of anger among Muslims. In Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans burned an American flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" to protest the planned Quran burning.

Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview aired Thursday that Jones' plan "is completely contrary to our values as Americans."

"And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform," Obama said.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed that Gates called Jones about 4 p.m. EST Thursday — shortly before the pastor's announcement. During the "very brief" call, Gates expressed "his grave concern that going forward with this Quran burning would put the lives of our forces at risk, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan," Morrell said.

Morrell said earlier that the decision to issue a personal appeal was not easy because it could provoke other extremists "who, all they want, is a call from so-and-so." After Gates' call to Jones, Morrell said the secretary's "fundamental baseline attitude about this is that if that phone call could save the life of one man or woman in uniform it was a call worth placing."

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., thanked Obama, Gates and other administration officials for their efforts. "This is definitely a positive moment in showing America's tolerance and pluralism and should not go unappreciated in the Muslim world," Haqqani said.

The cancellation also was welcomed by Jones' neighbors in Gainesville, a city of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus. At least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in the city had mobilized to plan inclusive events, including Quran readings at services, as a counterpoint to Jones' protest.

Jones' Dove Outreach Center is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.

The pastor was not the only person to inject confusion into the debate over the New York mosque, which is planned to go up two blocks north of the trade center site. Donald Trump, who made a fortune in real estate, offered Thursday to buy out a major investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site where the 13-story Islamic center would be built.

Opponents argue it is insensitive to families and memories of Sept. 11 victims to build a mosque so close to where Islamic extremists flew planes into the World Trade Center and killed nearly 2,800 people. Proponents support the project as a reflection of religious freedom and diversity and say hatred of Muslims is fueling the opposition.

In a letter released Thursday by Trump's publicist, Trump told Hisham Elzanaty that he would buy his stake in one of the two lower Manhattan buildings involved in the project for 25 percent more than whatever he paid — if the mosque is moved at least five blocks farther away from the trade center site.

"I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse," the letter said.

Elzanaty's response: No sale.

"This is just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight," said his lawyer, Wolodymyr Starosolsky.

He added that the offer's lack of seriousness is evident in the price.

The group collectively paid $4.8 million for the building Trump offered to buy. The other is being leased.

Starosolsky said the real estate partnership had already received two offers in the ballpark of $20 million.

"He knows what the value of the building is. If he were really interested in buying the building, he would have come forward with at least $20 million," Starosolsky said.

Starosolsky added that Elzanaty remains committed to the idea of having a mosque built on at least part of the property.

It's unclear how much control Elzanaty has over the property, which is owned by an eight-member investment group led by El-Gamal's real estate company, Soho Properties.

El-Gamal said Soho Properties controls the site, but didn't elaborate. His spokesman said he couldn't answer questions about the investment team or ownership issues.

In a pair of interviews with the AP this week, Elzanaty said he had invested in the site with an intention of making a profit and was willing to half the land for private development, and maybe all of it if a Muslim group doesn't come forward with enough money to build the mosque.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

On Rosh Hashanah, Baltimore County Police Chief James W. Johnson has sent the local Jewish community a message of peace – and thanks.

In the video message, Johnson credits groups such as Shomrim, a citizens patrol organization formed five years ago by area Orthodox Jews, with contributing to a decline in crime.

“In the Pikesville precinct alone, for example, we have seen decreases in burglaries, robberies and auto thefts throughout this year compared to previous years,” Johnson says in the message, which appears on the website www.theyeshivaworld.com. “Participation in groups like Shomrim greatly contributes to the potential suppression of crime, making our streets safer.”

Rosh Hashanah began at sundown on Wednesday and continues through sundown Friday. The first of the High Holidays, it marks the start of the year in the Hebrew calendar.

City police have announced increased surveillance and patrols in the Jewish neighborhoods of Northwest Baltimore during the holiday after swastikas and other messages were spray-painted last month onto cars on Strathmore Avenue, Clarinth Road and Labyrinth Road.

At a community meeting following the incidents, Maj. Sabrina Tapp-Harper of the Northwestern District said police consider the vandalism "a very serious matter" and that a new patrol van would survey the targeted neighborhoods to "apprehend the individuals that may have committed these acts."

In Baltimore County. Johnson tells the community, “I want you to feel at ease in your time of observance. There are no credible threats to your community, and you should be assured that the men and women of our department are committed to keeping you and your families safe.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Hundreds of angry Afghans burned a U.S. flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" on Thursday to protest plans by a small American church to torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Associated Press reports.

Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world, as well as several U.S. officials, have asked the church to call off the plan, warning it would lead to violence against Americans. Iraq, worried that it will unleash a backlash against all Christians, has beefed up security near churches.

The Rev. Terry Jones, of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has vowed to go ahead with the bonfire on Saturday, even though he has been denied the required permit.

Local officials in Mahmud Raqi, the capital of Afghanistan's Kapisa province, estimated that up to 4,000 people took part in Thursday's demonstration. But NATO spokesman James Judge said the protesters numbered between 500 to 700.

"The Afghan national police prevented the protest from overwhelming an Afghan military outpost," and dispersed the demonstration, he told The Associated Press.

A cleric in Afghanistan's largely peaceful Balkh province also warned Thursday that, if the burning goes ahead, a protest will be held in the provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif next Monday. Protesters could hurl stones at NATO-led troops stationed in the city — one of the country's main centers of the Islamic teaching.

In the central Pakistani city of Multan, about 200 people marched and burned a U.S. flag.

"If Quran is burned it would be beginning of destruction of America," read one English-language banner held up by the protesters, who chanted "Down with America!"

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has denounced the planned burning and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has said it could lead to attacks on international troops.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also warned of repercussions, saying the burning would "face reactions by the world's Muslims as well as followers of other religions," according to the official IRNA news agency.

In central Baghdad, security was increased around the Church of the Virgin Mary, with military vehicles blocking the entrance to the church and Iraqi soldiers standing guard. At two other churches in the capital, police cars were parked outside and armed officers were deployed.

Canon Andrew White, the chaplain of an Anglican church in Baghdad, said the Iraqi military had warned him that his church had been threatened.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend, the Associated Press reports.

Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview aired Thursday that he hopes the Rev. Terry Jones of Florida listens to the pleas of people who have asked him to call off the plan. The president called it a "stunt."

"If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," Obama said. "That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance."

"And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform," the president added.

Said Obama: "Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaida. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan." The president also said Jones' plan, if carried out, could serve as an incentive for terrorist-minded individuals "to blow themselves up" to kill others.

"I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he's engaging in," the president said of Jones.

Obama has gotten caught up in the burgeoning controversy surrounding the practice of Islam in America, saying at one point that he believed that Muslims had a right to build a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York City.

Earlier, several members of his adminstration, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, had denounced the Quran-burning plan.

Also, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the ground commander in Afghanistan, has said the act of burning the Quran could endanger troops fighting there.

On Wedneday, the State Department has ordered U.S. embassies around the world to assess their security ahead of the planned weekend demonstration in Florida.

Officials said U.S. diplomatic posts have been instructed to convene "emergency action committees" to determine the potential for protests over the congregation's plans to burn the Quran to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The posts are to warn American citizens in countries where protests may occur.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is calling plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Muslim holy book on Saturday "disgraceful and un-American."

“The anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11 should not be marked with an act of hatred," the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. "Book burning is the action of fanatics and fascists. The Quran should be treated with the same respect given to the Bible and the Torah."

Terry Jones, pastor of the nondenominational Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., says the church will proceed with "International Burn-a-Quran Day" despite condemnations by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House.

Gen. David Petraeus warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

Petraeus spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the matter Wednesday, the AP reports.

"They both agreed that burning of a Quran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians," spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus said, and would "create problems for our Afghan partners ... as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Jones to cancel the event, the AP reports.

"It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world's attention, but that's the world we live in right now," Clinton said in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mikulski's comments followed a statement Tuesday by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, and Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, the chairman and co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission, condemning anti-Muslim rhetoric from opponents of the Park51 Islamic center proposed for Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero.

"In a country founded on the principles of religious freedom we should not be in the business of picking and choosing when to apply those principles," they said. "It is unfortunate that so many national leaders have said they would deny Muslims or persons of any faith the right to build a place of worship."

Mikulski called on religious, political and community leaders to denounce the "hateful" Quran burning.

“It could incite hate crimes like the burning of mosques and churches and the defacement of synagogues," she said. "These are hate crimes that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The actions of Pastor Terry Jones and his church are dangerous and despicable. They are an insult to America and all that we value.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore a Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — with the inscription "God is great" written in French and Arabic.

It was conceived as a symbol of inter-religious friendship that reflects the city of Lyon's links to its large Muslim population, the Associated Press reports. But a widely publicized outcry from a small extreme-right group has forced the Archdiocese of Lyon into damage control.

"This has nothing to do with religion. It's a sculptor who wants to pay homage to a construction site chief," said the Rev. Michel Cacaud, rector of the cathedral. "That's all."

In France, where Islam is the country's second religion, the government has worked to integrate Muslims into French culture, while at the same time confronting cases of Islamophobia, from the desecration of Muslim graves to attacks on mosques.

Ahmed Benzizine, who was born in Algeria, a former French colony, sees the gargoyle in his image as "a message of peace and tolerance."

"When I started to work in churches ... exactly 37 years ago, it was considered a sin that a Muslim enter a place of worship other than a mosque," he said.

He has worked off and on since 1973 at St. Jean Cathedral, which dominates the old city of Lyon and has been honored as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Benzizine is tickled to see his likeness on the facade of the cathedral, which dates to the 12th to 14th centuries and combines both Gothic and Roman architecture.

"It looks like me except for the ears," the 59-year-old told The Associated Press. "They're pointed like the devil. But the sculptor told me that angels have pointed ears, too."

He likes the idea that he'll still be around in stone when his friends are long gone.

"I tell my buddies ... I'm present in this stone so I can tell them if the neighborhood has changed," he said, laughing.

For Emmanuel Fourchet, the sculptor who immortalized Benzizine, "it was an occasion to pay tribute."

"I've known him for more than 20 years. He was already working in churches when I wasn't even a stonemason apprentice. This is an acknowledgment," he said.

Gargoyles, usually grotesque creatures with open mouths originally used as water spouts, dot the facades of cathedrals in France and elsewhere. The sculptures, often part animal, were popular in Medieval times and may also have been used to scare off evil, experts say.

Benzizine is not the first artisan to find his likeness on a cathedral, in his case with wings and clawed feet.

"It's a long tradition, to represent the artisans who worked on a site ... either for humor, derision or to pay them homage," Cacaud said.

The Benzizine gargoyle had been in place for about six months without drawing much notice until the extreme-right Identity Youth of Lyon began a campaign denouncing the likeness of a Muslim on a Catholic institution, and the inscription "God is great" in French and Arabic — "Dieu est grand, Allahu akbar."

"Just the fact that it's written in Arabic, it shocked a minority" because it evokes Islam, Benzizine said.

But, he added: "God is great. It's not talking about Muhammed," the Muslim prophet and founder of the Islamic faith. He noted that he works on all historic monuments, whether they are cathedrals, mosques or synagogues.

Identity Youth of Lyon said on its website that the "clearly symbolic" inscription is "the manifestation of a conquering Islam."

"How many 'Ave Marias' are inscribed on how many mosques?" it asked.

The Archdiocese of Lyon has been quick to point out that the extremist group is alone in criticizing the gargoyle. No parishioners have complained, said Cacaud.

For the archdiocese, the gargoyle symbolizes two traditions: honoring artisans in a cathedral's stone work and embodying the Christian-Islamic dialogue that is part of Lyon's recent religious history.

In France's third-largest city, an archdiocese official is devoted to relations with Islam. In 2007, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, and a local Muslim leader, Azzedine Gaci, led a pilgrimage to Tibhirine, an Algerian village where seven Trappist monks were executed in 1996 by radical Islamic insurgents.

"There is no religion that doesn't say 'God is great,' (be it) Christian, Jewish, Muslim," said Cacaud.

The gargoyle, he said, was merely a way to honor a faithful worker and "to say simply and solely 'thank you.'"

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off, the Associated Press reports.

"We are still determined to do it, yes," the Rev. Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.

Jones says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran Day."

Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Kabul, took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

Petraeus spoke Wednesday with Afghan President Karzai about the matter, according to a military spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus. "They both agreed that burning of a Quran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians," Gunhus said, and would "create problems for our Afghan partners ... as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations."

Jones responded that he is also concerned but is "wondering, 'When do we stop?'" He refused to cancel the protest at his Dove World Outreach Center but said he was still praying about it.

"How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?" Jones asked the AP. "Instead of us backing down, maybe it's time to stand up. Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior."

Jones gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his church declaring "Islam is of the Devil." But his Quran-burning idea attracted wider attention. It drew rebukes from Muslim nations and at home as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic center near the ground zero site of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.

His actions likely would be protected by the First Amendment's right to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that speech deemed offensive to many people, even the majority of people, cannot be suppressed by the government unless it is clearly directed to intimidate someone or amounts to an incitement to violence, legal experts said.

The Vatican on Wednesday denounced the planned Quran burning as "outrageous and grave."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during a meeting Tuesday with religious leaders to discuss recent attacks on Muslims and mosques around the U.S. called the planned burning idiotic and dangerous, according to a Justice Department official. The official requested anonymity because the meeting was private.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added her disapproval at a dinner in observance of Iftar, the breaking of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"I am heartened by the clear, unequivocal condemnation of this disrespectful, disgraceful act that has come from American religious leaders of all faiths," Clinton said.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama told CNN Wednesday morning: "The reverend may have the right to do what he's doing but it's not right. It's not consistent with our values ... I hope that his conscience and his good sense will take hold."

Staffan de Mistura, head of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, expressed concern and outrage "in the strongest possible terms," and added, "If such an abhorrent act were to be implemented, it would only contribute to fueling the arguments of those who are indeed against peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan."

Local religious leaders in this progressive Florida city of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus also criticized the lanky preacher with the bushy white mustache. At least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in the city have mobilized to plan inclusive events — some will read from the Quran at their own weekend services. A student group is organizing a protest across the street from the church on Saturday.

Gainesville's new mayor, Craig Lowe, who during his campaign became the target of a Jones-led protest because he is openly gay, has declared Sept. 11 Interfaith Solidarity Day in the city.

The fire department has denied Jones a required burn permit, but he said lawyers have told him he has the right to burn the Qurans, with or without the city's permission.

In Afghanistan, Jones' planned burning continued to provoke outrage.

"It is the duty of Muslims to react," said Mohammad Mukhtar, a cleric and candidate for the Afghan parliament in the Sept. 18 election. "When their holy book Quran gets burned in public, then there is nothing left. If this happens, I think the first and most important reaction will be that wherever Americans are seen, they will be killed. No matter where they will be in the world they will be killed."

Kabul resident, Rajab Ali said, "If this (burning of the Quran) happens there will be chaos in Afghanistan and being a Muslim, if we don't defend the Quran then what else we can do?"

The Quran, according to Jones, is "evil" because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

Muslims consider the Quran along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad to be sacred. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect Quran is deeply offensive.

Jones' Dove Outreach Center is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo might seem like an unlikely person to be pushing a bill to cut federal taxes on small beer-makers: A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he abstains from alcohol.

But Crapo's effort, with senators from Oregon, Massachusetts and Maine, illustrates the deep bond between Idaho Mormons and the beer industry, the Associated Press reports.

Mormon farmers raise barley for Budweiser and Negra Modelo beers, and last year, Mormons in the Idaho Legislature helped kill a plan to raise beer and wine taxes to fund drug treatment, fearing it could hurt farmers.

Crapo touted the tax cut for brewers during a recent appearance at the Portneuf Valley Brewing Co. in Pocatello and said his position is simple: He won't impose his own religious beliefs on others, especially when it could affect a growing industry.

"The (Idaho) wine industry is growing, too," he told the AP. "I'll probably get asked to help the wine growers out. And I probably will."

Most Idaho barley is grown in the southeastern part of the state, where more than 70 percent of the population belongs to the Mormon, or LDS, church.

Church founder Joseph Smith offered this revelation in 1833, "Strong spirits are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies," and members have practiced abstinence since.

But the church, which declined to comment for this story, doesn't demand everybody quit drinking.

While teaching members to avoid alcohol, it urges public policies that establish "reasonable regulations to limit overconsumption, reduce impaired driving and work to eliminate underage drinking."

In Utah, the Mormon heartland to Idaho's south, policymakers also appear to be softening. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Mormon, and the Legislature normalized liquor laws last year, breaking up a 40-year-old system in which private clubs were one of the few places patrons could buy hard liquor.

Even so, Idaho's Mormon barley farmers acknowledge an ambiguity in what they grow.

"I've often wondered about the correctness of doing it," said Scott Brown, president of the Idaho Grain Producers Association and a Mormon who grows barley on 5,000 acres near Soda Springs. "But somebody is going to grow it, whether members of the LDS church do."

Idaho is the No. 2 barley growing state behind North Dakota, and three-fourths of the nearly 50 million bushels produced by its farmers last year went to malters — and beer.

Crapo's bill would cut the federal excise tax on brewers' first 60,000 barrels of beer in half to $3.50, saving brewers up to $210,000 a year. While Idaho has just 17 craft breweries, signs of its beer industry are impossible to overlook.

Anheuser-Busch's barley malting plant outside Idaho Falls juts into the sky, and Grupo Modelo, Mexico's largest brewer, completed an $84 million malting facility in Idaho Falls in 2005. Great Western Malting Co. has operations in Pocatello that supply brewers and distillers worldwide.

Coors has bought barley from Idaho's Mormon growers for going on four decades.

Many are descended from Mormon pioneers who pushed north from Utah after the 1850s and put down roots near the upper Snake River, in the western shadows of the Grand Teton mountain range. With cool nights and a short growing season on land a mile above sea level, the area is suited for fast-growing, hardy barley.

Idaho farmers also use ample irrigation, which makes their crop more predictable for brewers than barley from Montana or North Dakota, where many farmers don't irrigate.

With the brewers offering good prices, the crop just makes sense, said Kelly Olson, Idaho Barley Commission administrator.

"I know of some LDS growers who won't raise malt barley, because they know it's ultimately destined for malt brewers," she said. "But by and large, most farmers make planting decisions based on economics."

Still, Mormon scholars said there's a tension for those aiming to balance LDS principles and economic pragmatism.

The ethical question, said Armand Mauss, a professor emeritus in sociology and religious studies at Washington State University, is this: "As long as the personal behavior and beliefs of the church member are in accordance with the teachings of the church, is he free as a church member to engage in commerce which is legal but which has the effect of promoting behavior that the church disapproves of?"

Clark Hamilton, a Mormon farmer originally from Utah, was harvesting 3,000 acres of barley near Ririe last week. The golden, rice-sized cereal grain was destined for companies that make Natural Light and Corona beers. He's heard the question before.

"People will look at me and say, 'You're a Mormon, why do you grow barley?' " he said. "I just don't have a problem with it. I don't think people who drink beer are bad."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A Christian minister said Tuesday that he will go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the top U.S. general in Afghanistan and the White House that doing so would endanger U.S. troops, the Associated Press reports.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center said he understands the government's concerns, but plans to go forward with the burning this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the attacks.

He left the door open to change his mind, however, saying that he is still praying about his decision.

Gen. David Petraeus warned Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley echoed that later in the day, calling the plan to burn copies of the Quran "un-American" and saying it does not represent the views of most people in the U.S.

"While it may well be within someone's rights to take this action, we hope cooler heads will prevail," Crowley said. He said burning copies of the Quran would be "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom," and potentially puts the lives of U.S. soldiers and diplomats at risk.

Jones told the AP in a phone interview that he is also concerned but wonders how many times the U.S. can back down.

"We think it's time to turn the tables, and instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs — on the people who would do it," he said. "And maybe instead of addressing us, we should address radical Islam and send a very clear warning that they are not to retaliate in any form."

Jones, who runs the small, evangelical Christian church with an anti-Islam philosophy, says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip.

The threats started not long after the 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn a Quran Day." Supporters have been mailing copies of the Islamic holy text to his Dove World Outreach Center to be incinerated in a bonfire that evening.

The fire department has denied Jones a required burn permit for Saturday, but he has vowed to go ahead with his event. He said lawyers have told him his right to burn the Quran is protected by the First Amendment whether he's got permission from the city or not.

Muslims consider the Quran to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect, along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the Quran is deeply offensive.

In this progressive north Florida town of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus, the lanky preacher with the bushy white mustache is mostly seen as a fringe character who doesn't deserve the attention he's getting.

Still, at least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in Gainesville have mobilized to plan inclusive events — some will read from the Quran at their own weekend services — to counter what Jones is doing. A student group is organizing a protest across the street from the church Saturday.

The Vatican newspaper on Tuesday published an article in which Catholic bishops, including Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha of Lahore, Pakistan, criticized Jones' plan.

"No one burns the Quran," read the headline in Tuesday's L'Osservatore Romano.

Jones, who has about 50 followers, gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his small church proclaiming "Islam is of the Devil." But his Quran-burning scheme, after it caught fire on the Internet, brought rebukes from Muslim nations and an avalanche of media interview requests just as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic center near the Ground Zero site in New York.

The Quran, according to Jones, is "evil" because it espouses something other than the Christian biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

"It's hard for people to believe, but we actually feel this is a message that we have been called to bring forth," he said last week. "And because of that, we do not feel like we can back down."

FBI agents have visited to talk about their concerns for Jones' safety, as multiple Facebook pages with thousands of members have popped up hailing him as either a hero or a dangerous pariah.

His plan has drawn formal condemnation from the world's pre-eminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning, Al-Azhar University in Egypt, whose Supreme Council accused the church of stirring up hate and discrimination and called on other American churches speak out against it. Last month, Indonesian Muslims demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, threatening violence if Jones goes through with it.

"Whenever there's a perception that America is somehow anti-Muslim, that harms our image and interests around the Islamic world," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights group that has worked to discredit Jones and counter his message.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned Tuesday an American church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide, the Associated Press reports.

The comments from Gen. David Petraeus followed a protest Monday by hundreds of Afghans over the plans by Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center — a small, evangelical Christian church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy — to burn copies of the Quran on church grounds to mark the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that provoked the Afghan war.

"Images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence," Petraeus said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Muslims consider the Quran to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect, along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the Quran is deeply offensive.

In 2005, 15 people died and scores were wounded in riots in Afghanistan sparked by a story in Newsweek magazine alleging interrogators at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay placed copies of the Quran in washrooms and flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk. Newsweek later retracted the story.

At Monday's protest, several hundred Afghans rallied outside a Kabul mosque, burning American flags and an effigy of Dove World's pastor and chanting "death to America." Members of the crowd briefly pelted a passing U.S. military convoy with stones, but were ordered to stop by rally organizers.

Two days earlier, thousands of Indonesian Muslims rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and in five other cities to protest the church's plans.

Petraeus warned images of burning Qurans could be used to incite anti-American sentiment similar to the pictures of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"I am very concerned by the potential repercussions of the possible (Quran) burning. Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday," Petraeus said in his message. "Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult."

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul also issued a statement condemning the church's plans, saying Washington was "deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups."

Dove World Outreach Center, which made headlines last year after distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil," has been denied a permit to set a bonfire but has vowed to proceed with the burning. The congregation's website estimates it has about 50 members, but the church has leveraged the Internet with a Facebook page and blog devoted to its Quran-burning plans.

The American's death brings to at least six the number of U.S. forces killed in Afghanistan this month, along with at least four other non-American members of the international coalition.

Engagements with insurgents are rising along with the addition of another 30,000 U.S. troops, bringing the total number of international forces in the country to more than 140,000.

At least 322 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year, exceeding the previous annual record of 304 for all of 2009, according to an AP count.

Petraeus is asking for 2,000 more soldiers for the international force, NATO officials said Monday. It was unclear how many would be Americans.

Coalition officials said nearly half will be trainers for the rapidly expanding Afghan security forces and will include troops trained to neutralize roadside bombs that have been responsible for about 60 percent of the 2,000 allied deaths in the nearly nine-year war.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to talk about the issue with media, said the NATO-led command had been asking for the troops even before Petraeus assumed command here in July.

Petraeus recently renewed that request with the NATO command in Brussels. The alliance has had trouble raising more troops for the war effort, with at least 450 training slots still unfilled after more than a year.

With casualties rising, the war has become deeply unpopular in many of NATO's 28 member countries, suggesting the additional forces will have to come from the United States.

Also Tuesday, authorities confirmed the ambush killing of a district chief by suspected insurgents in the northern province of Baghlan on Monday afternoon. Nahrin district chief Rahmad Sror Joshan Pool was on his way home after a memorial service for slain anti-Soviet guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud when rocket-propelled grenades hit his vehicle, setting it on fire, said provincial spokesman Mahmood Haqmal.

Pool's bodyguard was also killed in the attack, and one militant died and two were wounded in the ensuing fire fight with police, Haqmal said.

Five children were killed and five wounded in Yaya Khil district in the southern province of Paktika when an insurgent rocket fired at an Afghan army base hit a home Monday evening, provincial government spokesman Mokhlais Afghan said.

Kidnappers also seized two electoral workers and their two drivers in the western province of Ghor, according to deputy provincial police chief Ahmad Khan Bashir.

Insurgents have waged a campaign of violence and intimidation to prevent Afghans from voting, especially in rural areas, while some pre-election violence has also been blamed on rivalries among the candidates.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned on an adultery conviction said Monday that he and her children are worried the delayed execution could be carried out soon with the end of a moratorium on death sentences for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Associated Press reports.

In an unusual turn in the case, the lawyer also confirmed that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her. Under Iran's clerical rule, women must cover their hair in public. The newspaper later apologized for the error.

With the end of Ramadan this week, the mother of two could be executed "any moment," said her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian.

The sentence was put on hold in July after an international outcry over the brutality of the punishment, and it is now being reviewed by Iran's supreme court.

Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men after the murder of her husband the year before and was sentenced at that time to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession that she says was made under duress.

"The possibility of stoning still exists, any moment," Kian told The Associated Press. "Her stoning sentence was only delayed; it has not been lifted yet."

Italy is among several countries pressing for Iran to show flexibility in the case. The country's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said the Italian ambassador in Iran met with authorities in Tehran who "confirmed to us that no decision has been made" about the stoning sentence.

"I interpret that in the sense that the stoning, for now, won't take place," Frattini said in an interview on Italian state TV.

After putting the stoning sentence on hold, Iran suddenly announced that the woman had also been brought to trial and convicted of playing a role in her husband's 2005 murder. Her lawyer disputes that, saying no charges against her in the killing have ever been part of her case file.

In early August, Iranian authorities broadcast a purported confession from Ashtiani on state-run television. In it, a woman identified as Ashtiani admits to being an unwitting accomplice in her husband's killing.

Kian says he believes she was tortured into confessing.

In the latest twist, authorities are said to have flogged her for the publication of a photo of a woman without her hair covered in the Times of London newspaper. The woman in the photo was misidentified as Ashtiani.

She was lashed on Thursday, Kian said, citing information from a fellow prisoner who was released last week. Kian has been allowed no direct contact with his client since last month.

"We have no access to Ashtiani, but there is no reason for the released prisoner to lie" about the flogging, he said.

There was no official Iranian confirmation of the new punishment.

The woman's son, 22-year-old Sajjad Qaderzadeh, said he did not know whether the new lashing sentence had been carried out yet, but that he also heard about the sentence from a prisoner who recently left the Tabriz prison where his mother is being held.

"Publishing the photo provided a judge an excuse to sentence my poor mother to 99 lashes on the charge of taking a picture unveiled," Qaderzadeh told the AP.

The Times apologized in its Monday edition but added that the lashing "is simply a pretext."

"The regime's purpose is to make Ms. Ashtiani suffer for an international campaign to save her that has exposed so much iniquity," the newspaper said.

Another lawyer who once represented Ashtiani, Mohammad Mostafaei, said in a news conference in Paris that it was not certain if there really had been a new conviction and sentence over the photograph.

"I have contacted my former colleagues at the court who told me nothing was clear on this situation," he said at the news conference with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. "There isn't any punishment for this act in our law."

Kouchner called the stoning sentence "the height of barbarism" and said her case has become a "personal cause" and he was "ready to do anything to save her. If I must go to Tehran to save her, I'll go to Tehran."

Ashtiani's two children remain in Iran and her son is a ticket seller for a bus company in the northern Iranian city of Tabriz. He said he and his younger sister, Farideh, 18, have not seen their mother since early August.

"We have really missed her," he said. "We expect all influential bodies to help to save her."

The Vatican on Sunday raised the possibility of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save her life as well.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The University of California, Irvine has upheld its decision to suspend a campus Muslim group after some of its members disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador at a campus event, the Associated Press reports.

However, the university said last week it would lift the suspension of the Muslim Student Union on Dec. 31 instead of enforcing it for a full year.

In addition, the group will be on probation for two years instead of one, and members must complete 100 hours of community service.

Eleven students were arrested in February for disrupting Michael Oren's speech.

Hadeer Soliman, the group's interim vice president, says the punishment will affect hundreds of Muslims who regularly attend prayer meetings and socialize together.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The EU's trade chief apologized Friday for blaming Jews and the "Jewish lobby" in Washington for blocking Mideast peace as the embarrassed EU head office quickly distanced itself from his comments, the Associated Press reports.

Karel De Gucht, 56, said he did not mean to stigmatize Jewish people and stressed in a statement that "anti-Semitism has no place in today's world." The remarks in a Thursday radio interview came as the U.S. formally convened the first direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in nearly two years.

The European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group, had demanded a retraction of De Gucht's remarks in which he maintained that Israel frustrates U.S.-led peace efforts and warned not to "underestimate the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill."

"That is the best organized lobby that exists there," the former Belgian foreign minister said in the interview with the Dutch-speaking VRT radio network.

"Don't underestimate the opinion ... of the average Jew outside of Israel," he said. "There is, indeed, a belief, I can hardly describe it differently, among most Jews that they are right. So it is not easy to have a rational discussion with a moderate Jew about what is happening in the Middle East. It is a very emotional issue."

Jewish groups warned that De Gucht's comments were part of a growing wave of anti-Semitism in Europe. Germany's central bank said Thursday it will ask a board member to step down for stereotyping Muslims and Jews. The official, Thilo Sarrazin said in a book published this week that Muslim immigrants in Europe cannot or will not integrate. He also has cited studies he says prove that "all Jews share a certain gene" — ideas he stressed in recent interviews.

European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly told reporters De Gucht made "personal comments [that] do not reflect the EU attitude about the Middle East peace process."

Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in Washington in the first round of talks in two years to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep disputes and achieving lasting peace within a year. The eventual aim is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.

At issue are the borders of an eventual Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees and security. Another major issue is the Palestinians' demand that Israel freeze all settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to be part of their future state.

De Gucht spoke in a 14-minute interview about the Middle East peace process, citing the isolation of the Gaza Strip and divisions among Palestinians as complicating matters. He also said the talks are overshadowed by the fact that "Jewish politics have hardened."

In his Friday apology, De Gucht said he did not mean "to cause offense or stigmatize the Jewish Community. I want to make clear that anti-Semitism has no place in today's world and is fundamentally against our European values."

Moshe Kantor, of the European Jewish Congress called De Gucht's remarks part of a "new wave of new anti-Semitism growing in Europe."

"It has somehow become acceptable to attack Jews through Israel, even at the highest levels," said Kantor. "The old anti-Semitic libels of the all-powerful Jewish cabals, the recalcitrant Jew and the irrational Jews only caring for their own, are remade to fit 21st- century hostility to the Jewish State."

The European Commission runs the EU's day-to-day affairs. It has 27 commissioners — one from each EU nation handling a particular area.

Many EU commissioners come to Brussels after careers in national politics, and with some regularity they make political statements that embarrass the EU head office.

This rarely leads to dismissal. In one exception, the entire EU executive resigned in 1999 when the then French commissioner, Edith Cresson, refused to quit after she was found guilty of financial mismanagement and cronyism.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Note to big companies hoping to tap into France's lucrative but long-neglected Muslim consumer market: Pitfalls may await, and not only in the form of complaints from the far-right.

As of this week, the Associated Press reports, 22 outlets of popular French fast food chain Quick are serving burgers it says respect Islamic dietary law. And while many Muslims are delighted, the powerful main Paris Mosque complained Thursday that Quick's criteria aren't all-encompassing enough, and that the operation is meaningless.

Quick's meat is certified as halal, but Cheikh Al Sid Cheikh, assistant to the rector of the Paris Mosque, said the burger chain should have had the other ingredients checked as well, from its mustard to buns to fries.

"The rest must be validated too, or else there's no point," he told The Associated Press. Quick responded that it has no intention of making any of its restaurants halal through-and-through — beer is still served there, for example, said spokeswoman Valerie Raynal.

Such cultural sensitivities are new territory for many French companies. Until recently in France, a country obsessed with secularism, companies were hesitant to reach out to France's Muslim population, estimated to be 5 million, the largest in Europe.

Quick, the No. 2 burger chain in France after McDonald's, is the latest group to enter the expanding French market for halal food, which has an estimated euro5.5 billion ($7 billion) in annual sales, according to a study by France's Solis marketing agency.

Both the Casino supermarket chain and the Fleury Michon line of cold cuts have halal offerings. The Paris Mosque has high praise for Kentucky Fried Chicken France, which it says spent four months consulting with Muslim officials recently about its fare. The chain is a rarity in that it has offered halal food for years — though it never trumpeted the fact.

Part of companies' reticence may have been political. Quick's announcement prompted a torrent of negative commentary from the far right and from the rest of the political spectrum, with complaints that the company was forcing halal food on non-Muslims. Only about 6 percent of the chain's outlets have gone halal.

The brouhaha over the burgers follows a debate on burqas, which France is preparing to ban — a symbol of the country's insistence that integration is the only path for its minorities.

Beyond the political chatter, the Paris Mosque's reaction highlights disagreement among France's Muslims about what foods are really halal, who is qualified to decide, and whether the certification agencies are rigorous enough in making sure that animals are slaughtered properly.

Halal meat must come from animals that have been killed by a cut to the jugular vein. The animal's head is pointed toward Mecca, and a blessing is recited.

Fateh Kimouche, founder of the French Muslim consumer Web site Al-Kanz, says most of the 40 to 50 outlets in France that provide halal certification aren't rigorous enough and don't have their own inspectors to verify that Islamic law is being respected.

He says the situation is scandalous, calling it "halal-gate."

"Up to 90 percent of meat marked 'halal' isn't really, and there are big names in French industry that are up to their necks in the problem," he said.

Beyond that concern, he says Quick's decision will be a wake-up call to big business about how important the halal market is in France. Quick, for its part, says business has doubled in recent months at eight outlets that have already tested the concept.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The Mormon church says it has changed its genealogical database to better prevent the names of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps from being submitted for posthumous baptism by proxy, the Associated Press reports.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a coalition of Jewish leaders said a new computer system and policy changes related to the practice should resolve a yearslong disagreement over the baptisms.

Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy provides an opportunity for deceased persons to receive the Gospel in the afterlife. Baptisms are performed in Mormon temples with members immersing themselves in a baptismal pool as proxies for others. The names used in the ceremonies are drawn from a church-run genealogical database.

Faithful Mormons use the practice primarily to have their ancestors baptized into the 180-year-old church and believe the ceremonies reunite families in the afterlife.

But the practice also includes proxy rites for others around the world from all faith traditions. The church also believes departed souls can accept or reject the baptismal rites in the afterlife and contends the offerings are not intended to offend anyone.

Jews are offended by the idea that Mormons are trying to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion.

In 1995, the church inked an agreement with the New York City-based American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors that prevented Mormons from performing baptisms or other rites for Holocaust victims, except in the very rare instances when they have living descendants who are Mormon. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already in the massive database.

Database monitoring since then, however, has found that the agreement had failed to prevent both the submission of names and the baptismal rites from continuing. That sparked a dispute between the Mormons and the American Gathering over a breech of the agreement. The Jewish group withdrew from discussions with the church in 2008, saying the issue could not be resolved.

Church officials say conversations were renewed last year after a coalition of Jewish rabbis and community leaders led by former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams were invited to Salt Lake City to tour a newly constructed temple and its downtown genealogy library to better understand the process.

Under new church polices, members will be required to certify names submitted to the database for baptism. Further safeguards include monitoring those names for submissions that don't meet policy standards and the removal of records, church spokesman Michael Purdy said in story posted on a church-owned newspaper's website.

Abrams, who discussed the baptisms issue with American Gathering leader Ernest Michel before talking with Mormon leaders, said he believes the Mormon church is sincere in trying to address Jewish concerns. Abrams said church leaders have assured him that members who fail to comply with church baptism policies will face sanctions that include losing their access to church temples.

"They have made this extraordinary exception to the doctrine for Holocaust victims," Abrams told the AP on Wednesday. "Their doctrine seeks to offer baptism to the souls of all people who have ever lived on the face of the earth and one grouping has been carved out. That is an act of extraordinary sensitivity and commitment, which is understood and appreciated by the Jewish community."

A telephone message left at Michel's office in New York City was not immediately returned Wednesday.

New Jersey-based Jewish genealogy expert Gary Mokotoff, who was part of the American Gathering group that had negotiated with the church, said the rules and safeguards will correct past problems — if they are enforced.

Past promises of reprimands and the removal of names have not always been kept and recent checks of the database by independent Salt Lake City researcher, Helen Radkey, have found baptisms were performed for Holocaust victims as recently as May, he said.

"This has been going on so long that you have to be suspicious," said Mokotoff. "Qualified Mormons have access to the complete database so they can do proper temple work, there should be some way Jewish people can confirm that they are abiding by the 1995 agreement."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (50)
        

It's the conundrum Protestant denominations with declining memberships and shrinking budgets are desperate to solve: How to stem the decades-long losses and attract new worshippers.

As the Associated Press reports, the United Methodist Church, the third largest denomination in the country, thinks it could be closer to finding the answer. It commissioned an ambitious survey of nearly all its 33,000 U.S. churches to find out what its growing memberships are doing to keep congregations thriving.

Of those churches, the four key factors of vitality stood out as "crystal clear findings that are actionable," according to the survey:

• Small groups and programs, such as Bible study and activities geared toward youth.

• An active lay leadership.

• Inspirational pastors who have served lengthy tenures at churches.

• A mix of traditional and contemporary worship services.

One of the successful churches is St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, which has seen its membership steadily grow over the years to nearly 6,200.

The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Kent Millard, said it has offered both traditional and contemporary worship services for years. At a contemporary service, congregants kick back with doughnuts and coffee, a live band plays music and clips from Hollywood movies are shown to illustrate Gospel messages.

"Worship is like going to a mall," Millard said. "There are all kinds of stores. Some people like specialty shops. Some like department stores. When you have variety, people can go where they like."

Religious scholars say the exhaustive survey is likely the first of its kind to try solving problems that for years have plagued mainline Protestant denominations like the Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Episcopalians.

The U.S. membership of the United Methodist Church, which has most of its offices and operations in Nashville, dropped by nearly 1 percent last year, to 7.9 million members, according to Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, released by the National Council of Churches.

The Methodists' survey, conducted by consulting firm Towers Watson and sent out to churches in May, found that about 5,500 Methodist churches were considered vital, with high attendance, growth and congregation engagement. The project cost about $200,000.

Churches and pastors were asked survey questions like, "Approximately, what percent of your church's children participate in programs other than worship?" and to rate the "general effectiveness of the lay leadership in motivating and inspiring vitality in the life of the congregation."

"The most important outcome of the research is that there are clearly drivers that are absolutely understandable and actionable," said Neil Alexander, president and publisher of the United Methodist Publishing House and co-chair of the steering committee that commissioned the survey.

"This gives us great hope. We believe we can see dramatic, positive results in more congregations over the next few years."

Millard agrees with the importance of longer-serving pastors.

"I have been here 17 years and my predecessor was here 26 years," Millard said. "We've had two very long-term pastors and I think that's part of the reason why the church has thrived."

His church also has a very active lay leadership with a governing board of 12 — composed of attorneys, business owners, teachers and other professionals. And the church recently brought on four new staff members to help develop children and youth ministries. About 1,200 children and youth participate in the church's programs.

"All pastors and bishops have anecdotes and ideas about what makes a vital church," Millard said. "But we've never done a survey of all United Methodist churches like this.

"The exciting thing is any church can do this. They're all possible for any size congregation. Any congregation can become vital if they start to practice these things."

The steering committee met last week in Nashville to determine how to use the survey and what recommendations might be made to the Methodists' Council of Bishops at its semiannual meeting in Panama City, Panama in November.

William B. Lawrence, Dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, said he's not aware of other major denominations doing similar surveys.

"We are a denomination that still has the capacity to look at ourselves and ask some hard questions," he said. "It's an attempt to examine seriously the challenges facing the church today and the opportunities facing the church in the future."

What the Methodists do with the information gathered from the survey will be key, Lawrence said. It's going to require "mobilizing the whole system," lay leadership as well as pastors, to get behind recommendations to turn around churches with sagging memberships and budgets.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It is "unethical, insensitive and inhumane" to oppose the planned mosque near ground zero, more than 50 leading Muslim organizations said Wednesday as they cast the intense debate as a symptom of religious intolerance in America, the Associated Press reports.

The imam behind the project, meanwhile, was preparing to return to the U.S. after a taxpayer-funded good will tour to the Mideast, where he said the debate is about much more than "a piece of real estate." Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf sidestepped questions about whether he would consider moving the $100 million mosque and Islamic community center farther from where Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center. Instead, he stressed the need to embrace religious and political freedoms in the United States.

Leaders of the Majlis Ash-Shura of Metropolitan New York, an Islamic leadership council that represents a broad spectrum of Muslims in the city, gathered on the steps of City Hall to issue a statement calling for a stop to religious intolerance and affirming the right of the center's developers to build two blocks north of the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"We support the right of our Muslim brothers who wish to build that center there," said Imam Al Amin Abdul Latif, president of the Majlis Ash-Shura. "However, the bigger issue and the broader issue is the issue of ethnic and religious hatred being spread by groups trying to stop the building of mosques and Islamic institutions across the country."

This is the first time that the council as a body has spoken out on the weeks-old debate over the proposed center.

"When the issue became hotter and hotter, and people made more statements against the mosques, then we decided to get involved in it," said Syed Sajid Husain, secretary general of the council. He said the process of bringing together the leaders to agree on a statement also took a handful of meetings.

Leaders of the council said they were calling attention to what they claimed was an anti-Islamic climate, and that the development of a center near ground zero is simply one example.

They also cited a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee that is being investigated by the FBI, and the successful opposition to the proposed conversion of a property owned by a Catholic Church into a mosque and community center on Staten Island, a New York City borough off the southern tip of Manhattan.

Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor of New York who has opposed the mosque in lower Manhattan, has said criticism is "not an issue of religion." Like many critics, he has said it is an issue of being sensitive to the families of 9/11 victims and transparency regarding the center's funding.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed 71 percent of New Yorkers want the developers to voluntarily move the project.

Islamic leaders on Wednesday said they would support a move to another location, if that's what the imam and his supporters choose to do. But they emphasized that Muslims also were killed in the terrorist attacks and were first responders.

"We declare unethical, insensitive and inhumane, the notion that our co-religionists are not entitled to the respect of a place of worship according to their faith, near the location where men and women of our religion worked, lived and died — just like other people," the group's statement said in part.

The group is not associated with the planned Islamic center but is representative of a significant number of New York Muslim leaders.

Rauf has been on a U.S. State Department-sponsored interfaith tour of the Middle East for several weeks and is currently in the United Arab Emirates, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C. Rauf was expected to return to the U.S. on Thursday.

The imam told a group that included professors and policy researchers in Dubai on Tuesday that the dispute over the mosque "has expanded beyond a piece of real estate and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for America."

Rauf is named as a director of a recently formed nonprofit organization spearheading efforts to raise money for the project, along with a core group of developers that own the property where the center would be established. The developers say they are negotiating with the city to reduce and pay back over $225,000 in back taxes owed on the property.

Early plans for the Islamic center near ground zero call for a swimming pool, a Sept. 11 memorial open to the public and a prayer space.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and another Muslim inmate have asked a judge to order a federal prison to allow them and other Muslims in their highly restricted cell block to pray as a group, in accordance with their beliefs, the Associated Press reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union last Thursday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for summary judgment on behalf of Lindh, 29, and Enaam Arnaout, 47, who claim that the prison's policy restricting group prayer in the Communications Management Unit violates their religious rights. The ACLU contends there are no disputes over the facts of the case and that the law is on the inmates' side, and asks the judge to rule in their favor.

Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence at the Terre Haute prison for aiding Afghanistan's now-defunct Taliban government, wrote in a legal declaration that his religion requires him to pray five times a day, preferably in a group. "This is one of the primary obligations of Islam," he wrote.

Praying in his cell is not appropriate, he said, because the Koran requires a ritually clean place for prayer and he is forced to kneel "in close proximity to my toilet."

Lindh wrote that Muslims in the unit are currently being allowed to pray together once a day during Ramadan. At other times, the group prayers had been limited to once a week, court documents said.

The suit seeks class action status. Terre Haute associate warden Harvey Church testified in a deposition given in January that 24 of the 41 CMU inmates were Muslim.

The government says in court documents that there is no evidence that Muslims were confined to the CMU because of their religion and that most Muslims don't adhere to the requirement of five daily prayers.

"Plaintiffs have shown ... only six other Muslim inmates in the CMU who identify themselves as sharing the same views on daily congregate prayer as Plaintiffs," government attorneys wrote.

Meanwhile, the government asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that alleges conditions at the CMU at Terre Haute and another one in Marion, Ill., violate inmates' religious and civil rights.

In that lawsuit, five CMU prisoners and two of their wives complain that the units place draconian restrictions on inmates' contact with the outside world and even their own families without offering any reason. They also say inmates can be placed in the CMU without being told why, and have no way to earn their way out.

The government contends that conditions at the CMU_ where inmates are free to leave their cells to watch television or play basketball, but not to hug their loved ones when they come to visit — don't violate prisoners' civil rights.

It argues in court documents filed last month that inmates don't have a constitutional right to contact visits or a certain number of phone calls.

In April, another Terre Haute inmate, Sabri Benkhala, dropped his lawsuit claiming that the Bureau of Prisons had created the CMU in secrecy without following federal rule-making procedures. The bureau published rules governing the unit earlier this year, but they have not yet been finalized, said agency spokesman Edmond Ross.

U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison said Benkahla dropped his suit after he was moved out of the CMU.

Benkahla, 34, of Virginia is serving a 10-year sentence for his 2007 convictions for obstruction of justice and lying about training with militants in Pakistan. He is expected to be released in May 2016.

Arnaout, 47, is serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering after admitting in 2003 that he defrauded donors to his Benevolence International Foundation by diverting some of the money to Islamic military groups in Bosnia and Chechnya. The Syrian-born U.S. citizen is scheduled to be released in 2011.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Archaeologists in Jordan have unearthed a 3,000-year-old Iron Age temple with a trove of figurines of ancient deities and circular clay vessels used for religious rituals, the Associated Press reports.

The head of the Jordanian Antiquities Department, Ziad al-Saad, said the sanctuary dates to the eighth century B.C. and was discovered at Khirbat 'Ataroz near the town of Mabada, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of the capital Amman.

He said the complex boasts a main room that measures 388 square feet (36 square meters), as well as two antechambers and an open courtyard.

The sanctuary and its artifacts — hewn from limestone and basalt or molded from clay and bronze — show the complex religious rituals of Jordan's ancient biblical Moabite kingdom, according to al-Saad.

"Today we have the material evidence, the archaeological proof of the level of advancement of technology and civilization at that period of time," he said.

The Moabites, whose kingdom ran along present-day Jordan's mountainous eastern shore of the Dead Sea, were closely related to the Israelites, although the two were in frequent conflict. The Babylonians eventually conquered the Moabites in 582 B.C.

Archaeologists also unearthed some 300 pots, figurines of deities and sacred vessels used for worship at the site. Al-Saad said it was rare to discover so many Iron Age items in one place.

Excavations began in Khirbat 'Ataroz in 2000 in cooperation with the California-based La Sierra University, but the majority of the items were only discovered in the past few months.

Among the items on display Wednesday, there was a four-legged animal god Hadad, as well as delicate circular clay vessels used in holy rites. Al-Saad said the objects indicate the Moabites worshipped many deities and had a highly organized ritual use of temples.

The items will be scientifically analyzed and conserved before going on display in Jordan's archaeological museum.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York said the fight is over more than "a piece of real estate" and could shape the future of Muslim relations in America, the Associated Press reports.

The dispute "has expanded beyond a piece of real estate and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for America," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group Tuesday that included professors and policy researchers in Dubai.

Rauf suggested that the fierce challenges to the planned mosque and community center in lower Manhattan could leave many Muslim questioning their place in American political and civic life.

But he avoided questions over whether an alternative site is possible. Instead, he repeatedly stressed the need to embrace the religious and political freedoms in the United States.

"I am happy to be American," Rauf told about 200 people at the Dubai School of Government think tank.

It was his last scheduled public appearance during a 15-day State Department-funded trip to the Gulf that was intended to promote religious tolerance.

The State Department said that Rauf was returning early to the United States on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the imam was departing the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, and will return to New York. Toner said Rauf's early return did not cause the cancellation of any programs on his State Department-funded trip.

He said he became closer to Islam after moving to America, where he had the choice to either follow the faith or drift away.

"Like many of our fellow Muslims, we found our faith in America," he said.

During his Middle East trip, Rauf generally sidestepped questions over the backlash to the Islamic center location about two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center towers.

But in an interview published Monday in the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National, he linked the protests to the U.S. elections in November. Many conservatives have joined the opposition to the center, which is being spearheaded by a newly formed nonprofit organization that includes real estate developers and has named Rauf as one of the directors.

"It is important to shift the discussion from a discussion of identity politics," he said. "We have to elevate the discourse because there is more that bonds us ... in terms of mutual responsibility."

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed 71 percent of New Yorkers want the developers to voluntarily move the project. A similar percentage also said they wanted New York's state attorney general to investigate sources of funding for the project in lower Manhattan.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said an investigation would set "a terrible precedent."

"You don't want them investigating donations to religious organizations and there's no reason for the government to do so," he said.

He also played down the fact that the developers of the building where the center would be established owe over $200,000 in back taxes on the property. "They're going to be treated like everybody else," he said. "We enforce the law against everybody, or we protect everybody. And if they owe money, they should pay it. and if they don't, they don't."

The developers have said they are negotiating with the city to pay back the taxes.

Opponents of the center, which could include a swimming pool and a Sept. 11 memorial, have seized on the question of the project's funding, raising concerns that the money will come from overseas extremists or anti-American sources.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican who is the ranking minority leader of the Homeland Security Committee, said on Tuesday that he disagreed with the mayor. He said the question of financing is fundamental to assessing the Islamic center project's backers.

"A number of terror plots have emanated from mosques," he said, citing the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center as one example.

Arrests of conspirators in the attack that killed six people and injured more than a thousand led FBI to a Brooklyn mosque, where core members of those involved in the 1993 plot worshipped and where Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman sometimes led prayers. Abdel-Rahman was later convicted in the bombing.

King said he would call for churches or synagogues to undergo the same kind of scrutiny of their finances if there was evidence that terrorist plots were originating from them.

Developers of the planned Islamic center have pledged to hire "security consultants" to review potential contributors. A spokesman for the developers didn't immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment Tuesday.

It is common for the finances of religious groups to come under scrutiny either by the Internal Revenue Service, law enforcement or government agencies that protect consumers against fraud.

Religious nonprofits operate under a complex system of IRS rules on compensation, spending and governance. The IRS can revoke the nonprofit status of any group found to be violating the regulations.

Muslim charities have come under especially intense scrutiny under U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Federal prosecutors have brought cases against several American-based Muslim nonprofits, and in a separate case last year, seized U.S. mosques whose property is owned by a foundation federal officials say is secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Rev. Jason Poling is Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

The commentary page in this morning's Baltimore Sun carries a piece I wrote on the major gubernatorial candidates’ low levels of charitable giving, as first reported in the Sun over the weekend.

One issue that space didn’t permit me to explore was the question of whether one should give based on pre- or post-tax income. Some teach that we should give a percentage of our take-home pay, since that’s really the only money we have any control over. Others say that we should give a percentage of pre-tax income, since we are called to give of our “first fruits,” that is, of the first and best that we yield.

I incline strongly toward the latter view, for two reasons. Theologically, I can’t get past the idea that Uncle Sam would get his cut before God does. But from the perspective of personal responsibility, I think it’s essential for us to recognize that the big number on our pay stub is in fact what we’re getting paid — and that what we take home is that amount less the money that we have withheld as payment for other things.

In regard to some of those things we have no choice: our employers are required to deduct payroll taxes and to withhold income taxes. On others we do, and most of us should choose to have money withheld for retirement plans, health care and disability premiums, etc. Some employers even allow us to make charitable contributions directly out of our paychecks. But in all cases, the amount we take home is simply the number that ends up on our checks (or deposited directly in our bank accounts) after certain payments have reduced the amount we actually got paid. We might take home, say, $1000, but that doesn’t change the fact that we got paid $1,500.

Some people believe that the amount one gives should be reduced in accordance with the fact that some functions covered by the “tithe” as directed in the Old Testament are handled by government — after all, ancient Israel was a theocratic nation-state. Others respond that if you add up the various “tithes” commanded the actual amount God instructed his people to give is closer to 27 percent than 10 percent, and involves giving a combination of a portion of both income and assets.

Probably the consensus view among evangelicals, at least, is that the tithe is not mandatory for Christians — this being a specific commandment of Torah that is not binding on those of us who are not ancient Israelites — but that it’s a very good idea to give away a significant portion of your income and 10 percent seems to be a good figure. For one thing, it’s very useful for those of us who are bad at math to simply move the decimal point over one place. But it’s also a figure significant enough to be meaningful without being so high as to be impossible. Don’t believe me? Believe the surveys that consistently show the most generous contributors to charitable causes are the working class and the very wealthy. The very wealthy can easily afford to give away well in excess of 10 percent of their incomes; the working class give away a fairly small amount in actual dollars when they give away even 10 percent.

The problem, it seems, comes when we move into the middle class. It’s counterintuitive, but for most folks it’s harder to give away $10,000 when they make $100,000 than it is to give away $5,000 when they make $50,000 — even though they have $50,000 more to play with. Perhaps it’s because things that were once out of reach become accessible; perhaps it’s because so many things are accessible that we think we can (or should) have not only the ski vacation but the new car and the private school tuition and the granite countertops and the boat and the spa weekend and the season tickets and so on and so on and so on.

The beauty of giving generously, even sacrificially, is that by doing so we are forced to deal with our own finitude, with the fact that for most of us our appetites can never be fully satisfied, that if we seek to gratify ourselves in every conceivable way we’ll still find ourselves wanting more. Giving — especially giving a specific percentage right off the top — is a discipline that ultimately frees us to allocate the money we have in accordance with our best ideals rather than simply to gratify our basest desires.

Not to mention it helps out a whole lot of people who need that money more than we do.

So try it out. Next time you get paid, immediately take 10 percent of the big number on your pay stub (not the really big year-to-date number, of course, but the big one for your pay this period) and give it to a worthy cause. We have three international relief organizations headquartered right here in Baltimore; our church sponsors World Relief, but there’s also Catholic Relief Services and Lutheran World Relief. Your local food bank can always use funds, especially since for all the fun we have rounding up canned goods it’s much more efficient for them to receive cash donations and use them to buy food from vendors at a steep discount. Our church sponsors the Community Crisis Center, which serves needy people in the Reisterstown-Owings Mills area. Baltimore is also host to a number of fine educational institutions; our church supports the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University. And don’t forget the cultural institutions keeping those starving artists fed; my wife is a conductor for the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestras, which run a wonderful program that puts instruments in the hands of the neediest schoolchildren in Baltimore.

No doubt my fellow In Good Faith readers have their own favorite charities; please, list them in the comments. Perhaps O’Malley and Ehrlich campaign staff will wander through soon looking to do some damage control.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)