Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has been chosen to head a Catholic order of knights based in Rome, the Vatican announced Monday, an appointment likely to move O'Brien closer to becoming a cardinal, but also will make him the first of Baltimore's archbishops not to finish his career here.

Pope Benedict XVI named O'Brien to lead the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a 1,000-year-old group charged with supporting the Christian community and sacred sites of the Holy Land.

O'Brien, the spiritual leader of the Baltimore area's half-million Catholics, will continue administering the archdiocese until his successor is named until his own successor is named, the Baltimore archdiocese said in a news release early Monday.

The archdiocese has scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m.

Read more on O'Brien's new assignment at baltimore sun.com.

The press release follows, after the jump.

Continue reading "O'Brien to lead order of knights in Rome" »

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Pope Benedict XVI is set to name Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien to a Rome-based order of knights charged with protecting the Christian community and sacred sites of the Holy Land, a prominent Catholic blogger is reporting.

Blogger Rocco Palmo writes that O’Brien, 72, could be named pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem as early as Monday.

The Baltimore Sun has been unable to confirm the report independently. Messages left for the archdiocese have not been returned.

By tradition, Palmo writes on his Whispers in the Loggia blog, the “pro-” designation indicates that the individual is next in line to be named a cardinal, at which point the prefix disappears.

O’Brien arrived in Baltimore in 2007, succeeding Cardinal William Keeler as archbishop of Baltimore and spiritual leader of the area’s 500,000 Catholics.

He presided over the restructuring of the archdiocesan school system last year, closing 13 of 64 schools, consolidating those that remained and introducing new programs in the hope of attracting more families.

More recently, he urged Gov. Martin O’Malley last month against supporting same-sex marriage, which he described in a letter as “a goal that so deeply conflicts with your faith.”

O’Brien joined Benedict in 2008 to concelebrate a Mass at Nationals Park in Washington during the pope’s visit to the United States.

Continue reading "Report: Archbishop to leave Baltimore for Rome" »

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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Director of Project Genesis, a Jewish cyber-outreach organization based in Baltimore.

According to a new book from a professor at UCLA, the media's left-wing bias is so overwhelming and pervasive that the few balanced news outlets appear to have a conservative slant.

"It's like concluding that six-three is short just because it is short compared to professional basketball players," writes Professor Tim Groseclose. He asserts that by a neutral standard, Fox News and the Drudge Report are centrist, with perhaps even a minor left-wing tilt -- but due to the steep liberal bias of every other major outlet, "commentators mistake relative bias for absolute bias." From the article:

Groseclose opens his book quoting a well-known poll in which Washington correspondents declared that they vote Democratic 93 percent to 7 percent, while the nation is split about 50-50. As a result, he says, most reporters write with a liberal filter. "Using objective, social-scientific methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see."

If the liberal media tends to "shrink" conservative facts, this is true to a still more extreme degree with anything concerning religion. The Deseret News, the commercial paper of the Mormon Church, recently published a two-part series on news coverage of religion -- or the lack thereof. Journalists not only tend to be much more liberal, but much less religious, then the American population.

A 2002 survey (the most recent data available) of 1,149 randomly selected journalists conducted by the Indiana University found that 34 percent of journalists say they have no religious affiliation, compared with 13 percent among the general population who said the same in a 2002 Pew Research Center survey.

The journalists were also asked how important religion or religious beliefs were to them. Roughly a third (35 percent) said they were “very important.” By comparison, the figure among the general population, as measured that same year by Gallup, was nearly double at 61 percent.

Continue reading "Menken: Bias has consequences" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

The Vatican told bishops around the world Monday that it is important to cooperate with police in reporting priests who rape and molest children and said they should develop guidelines for preventing sex abuse by next year.

But the suggestions in the letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are vague and nonbinding, and they contain no enforcement mechanisms to ensure bishops actually draft the guidelines or follow them.

That is a significant omission given that the latest scandal in the United States involves allegations Philadelphia's archbishop left accused priests in ministry despite purportedly tough U.S. guidelines, and evidence that Irish bishops were stonewalling an independent board overseeing compliance with the guidelines of the church in Ireland.

The document marks the latest effort by the Vatican to show it's serious about rooting out priestly pedophiles and preventing abuse following the eruption on a global scale of the abuse scandal last year with thousands of victims coming forward.

But it failed to impress advocates for victims who have long blamed the power of bishops bent on protecting the church and its priests for fueling the scandal. Without fear of punishment themselves, bishops frequently moved pedophile priests from parish to parish rather than reporting them to police or punishing them under church law.

"There's nothing that will make a child safer today or tomorrow or next month or next year," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the main U.S. victims group Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests.

Critically, the letter reinforces bishops' exclusive authority in dealing with abuse cases. It says independent lay review boards that have been created in some countries to oversee the church's child protection policies and ensure compliance "cannot substitute" for bishops' judgment and power.

Recently, such lay review committees in the U.S. and Ireland have reported that some bishops "failed miserably" in following their own guidelines and had thwarted the boards' work by withholding information and by enacting legal hurdles that made ensuring compliance impossible.

"Our central concern is that bishops and religious leaders retain enormous discretionary powers to decide if an allegation is credible," said Maeve Lewis, executive director of the Irish victims group One in Four.

Continue reading "Vatican suggests bishops report abuse to police" »

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Associated Press correspondent Selcan Hacaoglu reports:

Turkey has launched a project to conserve an ancient Armenian cathedral and church in what is seen as a gesture of reconciliation toward its neighbor.

Turkey and Armenia have been locked in a bitter dispute for decades over the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Efforts to normalize relations have been dealt a setback by the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a close Muslim ally of Turkey.

Turkey, however, says it is committed to improving ties with Armenia, and has already restored the 10th century Akdamar church, perched on a rocky island in Lake Van in eastern Turkey. It has also allowed once-yearly worship at the site as a gesture to Armenia and its own ethnic Armenian minority.

Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said Tuesday the new project was being launched in partnership with the World Monuments Fund to conserve the remains of the cathedral and the Church of the Holy Savior in Ani, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the eastern Turkish city of Kars.

According to the New York-based World Monuments Fund, Ani — "one of the world's great cities in the 10th century" — was once the site of hundreds of religious buildings, palaces, fortifications, and other structures. Today it stands abandoned, and the remnants of its celebrated buildings are in a precarious state.

The site, in an earthquake-prone area, has been listed on the World Monuments Watch since 1996.

"Ani, which is of global significance, presents particularly complicated challenges," Gunay said. "We hope that giving new life to the remains of once-splendid buildings, such as the Ani Cathedral and church, will bring new economic opportunities to the region."

Continue reading "In gesture, Turkey conserving Armenian churches" »

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The Associated Press reports:

An Australian bishop who was fired by Pope Benedict XVI after suggesting the church consider ordaining women and married men says the Vatican is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

The Vatican said Monday that Bishop William Morris of the Toowoomba diocese, west of Brisbane, had been "removed from pastoral care."

Morris says he was removed because of a letter he wrote to his parish in 2006 that suggested the church consider ordaining women and married men to help solve priest shortages. Currently, only celibate men can be ordained in the Roman Catholic church.

On Tuesday, Morris told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the Vatican has become increasingly authoritarian and dismissive of local bishops.

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The Associated Press reports:

Peruvian President Alan Garcia says Pope John Paul II should get credit for the death of Osama bin Laden.

The late pope was beatified on Sunday and Garcia says: "His first miracle was to remove from the world the incarnation of evil, the demonic incarnation of crime and hatred, giving us the news that the person who blew up towers and buildings is no longer."

Garcia made the comment Monday as he inaugurated a hydroelectric power station.

Garcia also says bin Laden's death also vindicates President George W. Bush's decision "to punish Bin Laden and patiently continue this work that has born fruit."

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Associated Press correspondent Hamza Hendawi reports:

Muslim clerics said Monday that Osama bin Laden's burial at sea was a violation of Islamic tradition that may further provoke militant calls for revenge attacks against American targets.

Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.

"The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration," said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.

A U.S. official said the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There was also speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.

President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial, and the Pentagon later said the body was placed into the waters of the northern Arabian Sea after adhering to traditional Islamic procedures — including washing the corpse — aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

But the Lebanese cleric Mohammed called it a "strategic mistake" that was bound to stoke rage.

In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta warned that "terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge" the killing of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Bin Laden is dead," Panetta wrote in a memo to CIA staff. "Al-Qaida is not."

According to Islamic teachings, the highest honor to be bestowed on the dead is giving the deceased a swift burial, preferably before sunset. Those who die while traveling at sea can have their bodies committed to the bottom of the ocean if they are far off the coast, according to Islamic tradition.

Continue reading "Islamic scholars criticize bin Laden burial at sea" »

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim advocacy group, has issued a statement welcoming the 'elimination' of Osama bin Laden on Sunday by a team of Navy Seals in Pakistan Sunday:

"We join our fellow citizens in welcoming the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been eliminated as a threat to our nation and the world through the actions of American military personnel. As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam. In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and Al Qaeda caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide. We also reiterate President Obama's clear statement tonight that the United States is not at war with Islam."

CAIR issued the statement at 1:17 a.m., less than two hours after Obama began his announcement.

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Associated Press correspondent Victor L. Simpson reports:

A visit to Rome's main synagogue. Diplomatic relations with Israel. A handwritten plea asking forgiveness for Christian persecution left at Judaism's holiest site in Jerusalem.

With his landmark actions, Pope John Paul II strove throughout his 27-year papacy to overcome the tortured two-millennia history of Catholic-Jewish relations.

In a sign of appreciation for those efforts, some in the crowd at his beatification Sunday in St. Peters's Square will be Jews, including an Israeli Cabinet minister who lost most of his family in the Holocaust but was hidden by a Belgium family who raised him as a Christian.

"We have a high respect, a unique respect for John Paul," Yossi Peled, a retired Israeli general, said Friday. "He is not just another pope for us."

The preparations for the beatification — the last formal step before possible sainthood — got under way in an official capacity Friday morning when John Paul's tomb was opened and his sealed casket removed for public viewing starting Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica.

The simple white marble tombstone that had marked John Paul's resting place in the grottoes underneath the basilica will be sent to a new church dedicated to him in Krakow, the Vatican said.

Eighty-seven official delegations have confirmed their presence at the ceremony, including 16 heads of state, six heads of government and members of five royal houses, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Peled, a minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, said the participation of an Israeli Cabinet member at what is a religious event — the U.S. delegation is limited to its ambassador to the Holy See and two former envoys — is a sign of the importance given to John Paul's accomplishments.

Continue reading "On eve of beatification, Jews praise John Paul II" »

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Associated Press writer William C. Mann reports:

A government agency's annual report on violations of religious rights added Egypt on Thursday to the list of the world's 14 worst violators.

The situation there for religious minorities, especially Coptic Christians, has deteriorated markedly, even since former President Hosni Mubarak resigned in February, the report said.

China also is on the list of worst violators, compiled by the Commission on International Religious Freedom, and in his opening remarks as he released the report, commission Chairman Leonard Leo accused China of trying to hack into the commission's emails.

"They're trying awfully hard to read our private emails," Leo said. "So let me, if I may, take a brief moment to address these esteemed authorities publicly: For your reading enjoyment, you can go to our website and see all of our reports on your government.

"It's http://www.uscirf.gov ... and I'm sure you will find what you need."

The others on the list of "countries of particular concern" are repeats from last year: Myanmar, also known as Burma, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The Egypt report said the commission was "acutely aware that the success of Egypt's current political transition depends on its full respect for the rule of law, including respect for fundamental human rights, of which religious freedom is critical."

The report said the government "engaged in and tolerated religious freedom violations" before and after Mubarak's departure.

"In his waning months, religious freedom conditions were rapidly deteriorating, and since his departure, we've seen nothing to indicate that these conditions have improved," the report said.

Because of the new designation, the report recommended that the U.S. take money from aid to Egypt earmarked for military use and use it "to enhance physical protection for Copts and other religious minorities.

Continue reading "U.S. adds Egypt to worst religious freedom violators" »

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore is hosting several events this weekend to celebrate the beatification on Sunday of Pope John Paul II.

The pontiff came to the archdiocese in October 1995, visiting the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the Our Daily Bread soup kitchen and St. Mary’s Seminary & University.

The pope also visited the Baltimore Basilica in 1976, as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. The archdiocese has commemorated his visits with the Pope John Paul II Prayer Garden at Charles and Franklin streets, dedicated in October 2008.

His beatification Sunday in Rome will move him a step away from sainthood. The Baltimore archdiocese will celebrate the event with a succession of events Sunday and Monday. They include:

Sunday, May 1
10:45 a.m. Mass at the Baltimore Basilica

11:45 a.m. Eucharistic Procession from the Basilica to the Pope John Paul II Prayer Garden
Praying of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Prayer Garden

4:30 p.m. Mass for young adults, Basilica

5:30 p.m. Eucharistic Procession following from Basilica to Pope John Paul II Prayer Garden
Praying of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Prayer Garden

Monday, May 2
Students in all Catholic schools will recite special beatification prayer, and learn about life of Pope John Paul II and making of saints.

Continue reading "Baltimore archdiocese to celebrate JPII beatification" »

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington reports:

The newly elected prime minister of Tibet's government-in-exile predicted Wednesday that the 75-year-old Dalai Lama will return during his lifetime to the homeland he fled five decades ago.

In Dharmsala, India, the Tibetan spiritual leader's exile headquarters, Harvard legal scholar Lobsang Sangay was declared on Wednesday the winner of a vote cast by tens of thousands of Tibetans around the world, after the Buddhist leader said he wanted to devolve political authority to an elected leader.

Sangay grew up as a refugee, and his father, a former monk, fought as a guerrilla against China's occupation of Tibet. Sangay told reporters in Washington he would seek to restore the freedom, dignity and identity of Tibetans.

He also promised to reach out to China and pursue the Dalai Lama's stated desire for greater autonomy for Tibetans within China.

"Tibet is under occupation. There is political repression, ethnic assimilation, economic marginalization and environmental destruction," said the 43-year-old Sangay, dressed in a smart business suit. He said that if China wanted to become a world superpower, it could not do so through economic or military might but would need to exercise moral authority in how it treats people.

Sangay urged Beijing to review its "hard-line" Tibet policy and take a "more moderate and liberal approach." He said the government-in-exile remained ready for negotiations. Nine previous rounds of talks have made no headway.

Continue reading "New Tibetan PM expects Dalai Lama to return" »

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In other Obama religious holiday news, the president extended best wishes to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the start of Passover, the White House reports.

The weeklong holiday, which marks the biblical story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, began Monday night with a traditional seder meal.

Obama hosted a seder at the White House for the third straight year, the Associated Press reported.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Netanyahu expressed appreciation during their telephone conversation Monday for U.S. funding for a military weapons system that has intercepted several rockets aimed at Israeli communities, the AP rpeorted.

The leaders also discussed cooperation on counterterrorism, the Middle East peace process and violence in the Gaza Strip, Carney said.

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Associated Press correspondent Elaine Ganley reports:

Karima has a plan. If police stop her for wearing a veil over her face, she'll remove it — then put it back on once they're out of sight. If that doesn't work, she'll stay home, or even leave France.

For Muslim women in France who cover their faces with veils, it is the moment for making plans. Starting April 11, a new law banning garments that hide the face takes effect. Women who disobey it risk a fine, special classes and a police record.

The law comes as Muslims face what some see as a new jab at their religion: President Nicolas Sarkozy's party is holding a debate Tuesday on the place of Islamic practices, and Islam itself, in strictly secular but traditionally Catholic France.

The increasing focus on France's Muslims — who number at least 5 million, the largest such population in western Europe — comes with presidential elections a year away and support for a far-right party growing. A recent palpable rise in tensions has also been boosted by fears of a mass migration of Muslims due to disarray in the Arab world.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant put it bluntly Monday.

"This growth in the number of (Muslims) and a certain number of behaviors cause problems," he said in remarks carried on French radio. "There is no reason why the nation should accord to one particular religion more rights than religions that were formerly anchored in our country."

Continue reading "Veil ban comes amid tightening focus on Muslims" »

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A 9.0-magnitude earthquake has shaken Japan, killing at least hundreds, igniting fires and sending waves across the Pacific Ocean. Following are links to organizations that are accepting donations for relief of the people of Japan.

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

American Red Cross

Caritas

Catholic Relief Services

Doctors Without Borders

Episcopal Relief and Development

International Rescue Committee

IMA World Health

Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief

Jewish Federations of North America

Mercy Corps

Oxfam America

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Salvation Army

World Relief

World Vision

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The Vatican has accepted the resignation of Bishop John H. Ricard, who served 13 years in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore and chaired Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services for five.

Ricard, 71, suffered a stroke in December 2009 and has undergone several surgeries since. He submitted his resignation to the Vatican last month.

Bishops ordinarily serve until they turn 75, but are asked to resign if they are unable to function effectively.

Ricard was a popular auxiliary bishop in Baltimore from 1984 until 1997, when he was tapped by Pope John Paul II to head the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in Florida. The Baton Rouge, La., native was ordained a Josephite father in 1968.

Catholic Relief Services President Ken Hackett said the organization will be praying for his health and happiness.”

“Bishop Ricard was a visionary leader for CRS at a time when the agency was going through expansion and many changes,” Hackett said in a statement. “I was privileged to visit CRS programs on many occasions with Bishop Ricard and witness firsthand his understanding and compassion for people in some of the poorest places in our world.”

Continue reading "Vatican accepts resignation of former Balto. bishop" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea of Jesus as a political revolutionary and insists that violent revolution must never be carried out in God's name in a new book being released Thursday amid great fanfare at the start of Lent.

"Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection," is the second installment of Benedict's planned trilogy on Jesus. Part I, which covered Jesus' early ministry, shot to the top of the best-seller lists in Italy when it was published in 2007.

Already, 1.2 million copies of Part II have been printed in seven languages, and reprints of 100,000 more are planned for the Italian editions and 50,000 in German.

In the book, Benedict exonerates the Jews as a people for Christ's death. He also insists that Jesus never advocated violent revolution, as some liberation theologians have suggested, saying violence was not His way no matter how valid the motivation.

Benedict has spoken out frequently to denounce religiously motivated violence against Christians in the Middle East, Pakistan and elsewhere. "The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all," he noted in the book.

"Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be," Benedict wrote. "It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity."

Continue reading "Pope's new book: Never violence in God's name" »

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Associated Press correspondent Hamza Hendawi reports:

Clashes that broke out when a Muslim mob attacked thousands of Christians protesting the burning of a Cairo church killed at least 13 people and wounded about 140, officials said Wednesday.

The Muslims torched the church amid an escalation of tensions over a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian that set off a violent feud between the couple's families.

The officials said all 13 fatalities died of gunshot wounds.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The clashes late Tuesday night added to a sense of ongoing chaos in Egypt after the momentous 18-day democracy uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. The uprising left a security vacuum after police pulled out of Cairo and several other cities three days into the uprising.

The police have yet to fully take back the streets, leaving space for a wave of violent crime and lawlessness in some parts of the nation.

Continue reading "13 dead in Christian-Muslim clashes in Egypt" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

In "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

While the Catholic Church has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said Wednesday the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was a landmark statement from a pope that would help fight anti-Semitism today.

"Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of 'Christ killer' against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realized in the Holocaust," said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

The pope's book, he said, not only confirms church teaching refuting the deicide charge "but seals it for a new generation of Catholics."

Continue reading "Pope: Jews as whole not responsible for Jesus' death" »

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Associated Press correspondent Kirsten Grieshaber reports:

In a rare move that needed the pope's approval, a Lutheran convert was ordained Tuesday as a Catholic priest in Germany and is being allowed to remain married to his wife — who has already become a nun.

Harm Klueting, 61, was ordained by Archbishop Joachim Cardinal Meisner in a private ceremony at the city's seminary, the Cologne archdiocese said.

Pope Benedict XVI gave Klueting a special permission to remain married to his wife Edeltraut Klueting, who became a Catholic Carmelite nun in 2004.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, said the exception is rare but there have been similar cases.

"It doesn't happen every day," he said.

Klueting and his wife were Lutherans when they married in 1977 and both served as Lutheran clerics before converting to Catholicism several years ago. They have two grown children.

The Cologne archdiocese said in a statement that the couple would not have to take the traditional vow of celibacy as long as they remain married — a highly unusual move since celibacy is normally a key requirement for Catholic priests.

Klueting and his family could not be reached for comment, and it was not clear whether they still lived together as a couple.

Lombardi said he didn't have any specific information about the Kluetings, including what the pope said about the case.

Continue reading "Pope approves ordination of married father of two" »

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Associated Press correspondent Cassandra Vinograd reports:

In Britain, gay couples may get a chance to go to the chapel and get married — almost.

The British government on Thursday announced plans to allow gay couples to hold civil partnership ceremonies in houses of worship — a move gay rights activists say is a step in the right direction towards marriage, but falls short of affording full equal rights.

The government stressed, however, that houses of worship can opt out if they wish.

Although marriage and civil partnership are already similar under British law, civil partnership ceremonies are currently not allowed to have religious references, are banned from places of worship, and must take place in a public building overseen by a government registrar.

The new rules, being introduced under British equality laws, will give same-sex couples the chance to hold civil partnership ceremonies in religious buildings — an option that did not exist for Mark Harrison and his partner, who wore traditional tailcoats to their ceremony at a north London town hall in May 2009.

Harrison described himself as not religious "at all," but said its "about having the option" — all couples he knows who've married in churches are straight and not religious.

"It's the tradition and the dream to have a beautiful church wedding," he said. "If straight couples have that opportunity and want to get married in a church despite not being religious then it should be the same for everyone."

In Britain, only heterosexual couples can get married, while civil partnership is available only to same-sex couples. Activists argue both should be open to all couples.

Continue reading "Gay rights activists: New UK rules a positive step" »

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The Associated Press reports:

The Vatican has named a tiny shrine in a small northeast Wisconsin town as a holy site.

The Catholic Church has recognized the chapel in Champion, near Green Bay, as the location of an official sighting of the Virgin Mary. Milwaukee radio station WTMJ-AM says it is the only site in the country with that distinction.

Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay says the Virgin Mary appeared there three times to Belgium immigrant Adele Brise in 1859. Devotees have since visited the site to pray for miracles.

Ricken started investigating the events and three theological experts soon picked up the work. After two years of poring over letters and documents, experts decided her claims were true. The Vatican validated those results in December.

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Associated Press correspondent Alison Mutler reports:

There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches.

A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country's soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don't come true.

Witches argue they shouldn't be blamed for the failure of their tools.

"They can't condemn witches, they should condemn the cards," Queen witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone.

Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

In January, officials changed labor laws to officially recognize the centuries-old practice as a taxable profession, prompting angry witches to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube in an attempt to put a hex on the government.

The new draft bill passed in the Senate last week. It still must be approved by a financial and labor committee and by Romania's Chamber of Deputies, the other house of Romania's parliament.

Bratara called the proposed bill overblown. "I will fight until my last breath for this not to be passed," she said.

Continue reading "Bill would hold witches responsible for predictions" »

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Associated Press writer Victor L. Simpson reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has long championed organ transplants, but don't expect an organ donation from him. The Vatican says his body belongs to the whole church.

While the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has possessed an organ donor card since the 1970s when he lived in Germany, it was rendered void when he became pope in 2005, his secretary said.

Monsignor Georg Gaenswein addressed the issue in a letter to a German doctor who has been using the fact that Benedict possessed a donor card to recruit other donors. Vatican Radio reported on the letter in a German language broadcast this week.

Gaenswein sought to put the matter to rest, saying any references to the now invalid document are mistaken.

Polish Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, head of the Vatican's health office, told La Repubblica newspaper that it was understandable that a pope's body remains intact because it belongs to the entire church.

"It is also understandable in view of possible future veneration," he said, referring to future sainthood. "This doesn't take anything away from the validity and the beauty of the gift of organ donation."

Continue reading "Vatican: Pope Benedict no longer an organ donor" »

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Police have arrested a 17-year old Pakistani boy for writing an allegedly blasphemous remark in an examination paper, an officer said Tuesday.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under intense scrutiny since the murder last month of a prominent politician who had campaigned to change them. They allow for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Islam. Critics say they are often used to settle scores and unfairly target the country's non-Muslim minorities.

School authorities lodged a police complaint against the boy, identified as Sami Ullah, in January after reading an examination paper he took in the city of Karachi, said police officer Qudrat Shah Lodhi.

Lodhi said he could not repeat what the boy, who is a Muslim, had written because he would be committing blasphemy if he did. He said the boy told police he wrote the blasphemous material out of frustration when he was not able to answer the exam question.

"He submitted an apology to the examination authorities and feels ashamed and depressed," Lodhi said.

Continue reading "Pakistini student arrested for 'blasphemous' answer" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

The Associated Press reports:

Pope Benedict XVI says public officials today would do well to model themselves on Joan of Arc, the French saint who was tried for heresy and burned at the stake for her convictions.

Benedict highlighted the life of the 15th century mystic in his Wednesday audience, which over the past several months he has used to highlight important women in the church's history.

Joan of Arc led the French to several victories over the English during the Hundred Years War. She was tried for heresy and witchcraft and burned at the stake in 1431. Her conviction was later annulled and she was canonized in 1920.

Benedict says: "Hers is a beautiful example of holiness for lay people working in public life, particularly during the most difficult situations."

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI told priests over the weekend to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding.

Benedict made the comments Saturday in his annual speech to the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments. An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.

Benedict acknowledged that the problems that would allow for a marriage to be annulled cannot always be identified beforehand. But he said better pre-marriage counseling, which the Catholic Church requires of the faithful, could help avoid a "vicious circle" of invalid marriages.

He said the right to a church wedding requires that the bride and groom intend to celebrate and live the marriage truthfully and authentically.

"No one can make a claim to the right to a nuptial ceremony," he said.

Continue reading "Pope: No one has absolute right to marriage" »

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Categories: Catholicism, Faith Practices, International, People, Sexuality
        

Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has signed off on the miracle needed to beatify Pope John Paul II and set May 1 as the date to honor one of the most beloved popes of all times as a model of saintliness for the church.

Benedict said in a decree Friday that a French nun's recovery from Parkinson's disease was miraculous, the last step needed for beatification. A second miracle is needed for the Polish-born John Paul to be made a saint.

The May 1 ceremony, which Benedict himself will celebrate, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome — a major morale boost for a church reeling from a wave of violence against Christians and fallout from the clerical sex abuse scandal.

"This is a huge and important cause of joy," Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz told reporters at his residence in the Polish capital.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul's longtime secretary and friend, expressed "huge thanks" to Benedict for the decree. "We are happy today," he said.

Benedict put John Paul on the fast track to possible sainthood just weeks after he died in 2005, responding to the chants of "Santo Subito!" or "Sainthood immediately!" that erupted during his funeral.

Benedict waived the typical five-year waiting period before the process could begin, but he insisted that the investigation into John Paul's life be thorough so as to not leave any doubts about his virtues.

John Paul's beatification will nevertheless be the fastest on record, coming just over six years after his death and beating out Mother Teresa's then-record beatification in 2003 by a few days.

Continue reading "Pope John Paul II set for beatification May 1" »

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Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, the first anniversary of the earthquake that leveled Haiti.

O'Brien is inviting Catholics and others in the Archdiocese to "stand in prayerful solidarity" with the people of Haiti.

The archdiocese, which has a long-established Haiti Outreach Project, raised more than $730,000 last year for earthquake relief efforts.

Through a sister relationship with the Catholic Diocese of Gonaives, the archdiocese sponsors three schools, including the Cardinal William H. Keeler Trade School, and feeds 15,000 children each day. Eighteen parishes in the archdiocese have partnerships with parishes in Haiti, funding feeding programs and improving teacher salaries in schools.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called on Catholics to participate in a novena — nine days of prayer — for the people of Haiti beginning on Wednesday. More information is availablet at the conference website.

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Associated Press correspondent Alison Mutler reports

MOGOSOIA, Romania – Solace for world leaders trying to enforce painful austerity measures: At least you're not running Romania.

Angry witches are using cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government who are forcing them to pay taxes. Also in the eye of the taxman are fortune tellers, who should have seen it coming.

And President Traian Basescu isn't laughing it off. In a country where superstition is mainstream, the president and his aides wear purple on Thursdays, allegedly to ward off evil spirits.

Witches from Romania's eastern and western regions will descend to the southern plains and the Danube River Thursday to threaten the government with spells and spirits. Mauve has a high vibration, it makes the wearer superior and wards off evil attacks, according to the esoteric group Violet Flame — which practices on Thursdays.

A dozen witches will head to the Danube to put a hex on the government and hurl mandrake into the river "so evil will befall them," said a witch named Alisia. She identified herself with one name, as is customary among witches.

"This law is foolish. What is there to tax, when we hardly earn anything?" she said by telephone on Wednesday. "The lawmakers don't look at themselves, at how much they make, their tricks; they steal and they come to us asking us to put spells on their enemies."

Continue reading "Witches casting spells to protest taxes" »

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Associated Press correspondent Maggie Michael reports:

CAIRO – In the weeks before the New Year's Day suicide bombing of an Egyptian church, al-Qaida-linked websites carried a how-to manual on "destroying the cross," complete with videos on how to build a bomb and the locations of churches to target — including the one that was attacked.

They may have found a receptive audience in Alexandria, where increasingly radicalized Islamic hard-liners have been holding weekly anti-Christian demonstrations, filled with venomous slogans against the minority community.

The blast, which struck Saturday as worshippers were leaving midnight Mass at the Mediterranean city's Saints Church, killed 21 people.

President Hosni Mubarak has accused foreign groups of being behind the attack, which has sparked a wave of angry protests by Christians in Egypt.

But on the ground, investigators are searching in a different direction — scrutinizing homegrown hard-liners, known as Salafis, and the possibility they were inspired by al-Qaida.

Continue reading "Anti-Christian drumbeat grew before Egypt attack" »

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Associated Press correspondents Asif Shahzad and Nahal Toosi report:

ISLAMABAD – The governor of Pakistan's most dominant province was shot and killed Tuesday by a bodyguard who authorities said was angry about his opposition to blasphemy laws carrying the death sentence for insulting the Muslim faith.

Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, regarded as a moderate voice in a country increasingly beset by zealotry, was a close ally of U.S.-backed President Asif Ali Zardari. He is the highest-profile Pakistani political figure to be assassinated since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto three years ago, and his death underscores the growing danger in this country to those who dare challenge the demands of Islamist extremists.

Taseer was riddled by gunshots while walking to his car after an afternoon meal at Kohsar Market, a shopping center in Islamabad popular with Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis.

Initial reports indicated the suspected gunman, a police commando guarding Taseer, unloaded up to 26 rounds from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle. The gunman could have fired that number of rounds in a matter of seconds.

Other guards then forced the police commando to the ground, according to police and hospital officials.

"It was one shot first and then a burst," said R.A. Khan, a witness who was drinking coffee at the time. "I rushed and saw policemen over another police commando, who was lying on the road with his face down."

Continue reading "Pakistani governor who opposed blasphemy law slain" »

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Associated Press correspondent Shawn Pogatchnik reports:

Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion violates pregnant women's right to receive proper medical care in life-threatening cases, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday, harshly criticizing Ireland's long inaction on the issue.

The Strasbourg, France-based court ruled that a pregnant woman fighting cancer should have been allowed to get an abortion in Ireland in 2005 rather than being forced to go to England for the procedure. The judgment put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health.

Ireland has resisted doing that despite a 1992 judgment from the Irish Supreme Court that said Ireland should provide abortions in cases where a woman's life is endangered — including, controversially, by her own threats to commit suicide.

The 18-year delay has created a legal limbo, forcing many women to travel overseas for an abortion rather than rely on Irish doctors fearful of being prosecuted.

In an 11-6 verdict, the 17 Strasbourg judges said Ireland was wrong to keep the legal situation unclear and said the Irish government had offered no credible explanation for its failure. The Irish judge on the panel, Mary Finlay Geoghegan, sided with that majority view.

The judges wrote that Ireland's failure "has resulted in a striking discordance between the theoretical right to a lawful abortion in Ireland on grounds of a relevant risk to a woman's life, and the reality of its practical implementation."

Under Irish law dating back to 1861, a doctor and patient both could be prosecuted for murder if an abortion was later deemed not to be medically necessary.

Continue reading "Court: Irish abortion ban violates women's rights" »

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The Associated Press reports:

A French court has annulled a fine given to a woman driver wearing an Islamic face veil, months before a ban on wearing the garments goes into effect.

Traffic police in the western city of Nantes fined 31-year-old Sandrine Mouleres euro22 ($29.22) in April, saying she did not have a clear field of vision, but the court quashed the fine Monday.

Jean-Michel Pollono, Mouleres' attorney, said the court in Nantes had ruled "we are in a free country, and as a result, everything that isn't forbidden is allowed."

The initial fine drew widespread attention amid a nationwide debate over the place of Islamic veils. In September, the French parliament agreed to a ban on face-covering veils — such as the niqab or burqa — from being worn in public. The ban goes into effect in spring.

Many Muslims see the legislation as another blow to Islam — France's No. 2 religion — and fear it could raise levels of Islamophobia in a country where mosques are sporadic targets of hate.

Continue reading "French court annuls fine for veil-wearing woman" »

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The Associated Press reports:

The Legionaries of Christ is ordering images of its disgraced founder removed from its buildings worldwide as part of Vatican-mandated reforms.

The conservative order says photographs showing the late Rev. Marciel Maciel alone or with the pope must be removed from its installations.

Maciel founded the influential Legion in Mexico in 1941. He was dogged for years by allegations that he abused seminarians. But it was only after his 2008 death that the order admitted the allegations were true and that Maciel had fathered three children.

The Legion also announced on its website Monday that it was prohibiting the celebration of Maciel's birthday. It also banned the sale of Maciel's writings inside Legion centers.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

Associated Press correspondent Amy Teibel reports:

Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews — an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.

The action by the clerics — chief rabbis in some of Israel's largest cities and influential among the devout — fueled charges of racism.

The religious opinion first became a focus of controversy last year when the chief rabbi of Safed — a town in northern Israel that has a large concentration of devout Jews — urged that it be applied specifically to Arabs.

Nitai Morgenstern, an aide to Safed's chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliahu, said the town has "a problem of a lot of people renting and selling to Arabs, and that destroys the city's social fabric."

Recently, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews asked other chief rabbis to express their support for the ruling to prove it has widespread backing, Morgenstern said Tuesday. Thirty-seven rabbis signed it. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the ruling with their signatures attached on Tuesday.

Mordechai Nagari, chief rabbi of Maaleh Adumim, a large West Bank settlement outside Jerusalem, defended the letter, which he signed. "The rabbinical ruling is that you cannot sell houses to gentiles, and its purpose is to protect the Jewish identity of the state of Israel," he told AP Television News.

Morgenstern said he understood how this attitude could cause friction with the Arab minority, which accounts for one-fifth of Israel's population of 7.6 million.

"But people have to see the other side," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the initiative. "Israel categorically rejects these words" against its Arab citizens, Netanyahu said in a speech Tuesday evening in Jerusalem. "This must not happen in any democratic nation, and certainly not in the Jewish and democratic state" of Israel.

Continue reading "Israeli rabbis: Don't sell, rent property to non-Jews" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

The Vatican on Thursday released documentation showing Pope Benedict XVI sought as early as 1988 to find quicker ways to permanently remove priests who raped and molested children but was rebuffed.

A 1988 letter from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger could serve as the Vatican's best defense to date that the future pope wanted to quickly remove pedophile priests but found himself stymied by church law.

In the letter, republished in Thursday's Vatican newspaper, Ratzinger complained that church law made it exceedingly difficult to remove abusers if they didn't request to be laicized voluntarily. He asked to get around the problem by finding "a quicker and simpler procedure" than a cumbersome church trial to punish those priests who "during their ministry were found guilty of grave and scandalous behavior."

He was turned down on the grounds that the priests' ability to defend themselves would be compromised.

The documentation was included in an article in L'Osservatore Romano explaining an upcoming revision of church law, which was last updated in 1983.

The article, penned by the No. 2 in the Vatican's legal office, highlighted some of the problems and loopholes of the 1983 Code of Canon Law's penal section that presumably will be addressed in the revision.

The Vatican has long sought to portray Benedict as having done more than anyone else at the Vatican to crack down on pedophile priests. But it has usually cited as his starting point a 2001 decision to have all abuse cases sent to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Continue reading "Benedict sought to remove abusive priests sooner" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop the spread of HIV, a stunning comment for a church criticized for its opposition to condoms and for a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse.

The pope made the comments in a book-length interview with a German journalist, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," which is being released Tuesday. The Vatican newspaper ran excerpts on Saturday.

Church teaching has long opposed condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception, although it has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticized for its opposition.

Benedict said that condoms are not a moral solution. But he said in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, they could be justified "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection."

Benedict called it "a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way of living sexuality."

He used as an example male prostitutes, for whom contraception is not an issue, as opposed to married couples where one spouse is infected. The Vatican has come under pressure from even some church officials in Africa to condone condom use for monogamous married couples to protect the uninfected spouse from getting infected.

Benedict drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activisits when he told reporters en route to Africa in 2009 that the AIDS problem on the continent couldn't be resolved by distributing condoms.

"On the contrary, it increases the problem," he said then.

Journalist Peter Seewald, who interviewed Benedict over the course of six days this summer, raised the Africa condom comments and asked Benedict if it wasn't "madness" for the Vatican to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility," Benedict said.

But he stressed that it wasn't the way to deal with the evil of HIV, and elsewhere in the book reaffirmed church teaching on contraception and abortion, saying: "How many children are killed who might one day have been geniuses, who could have given humanity something new, who could have given us a new Mozart or some new technical discovery?"

He reiterated the church's position that abstinence and marital fidelity is the only sure way to prevent HIV.

Continue reading "Pope: Condoms may be justified in some cases" »

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The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville. He is traveling in Israel with the Maryland Clergy Initiative, sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies.

JERUSALEM – I don’t know what I was expecting, but somehow it wasn’t what I expected.

Earlier this week I walked on the Temple Mount, the site where the first and second Temples stood. Today it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. For all the controversy that surrounds it, the Temple Mount is a very peaceful place – it’s a broad plaza populated by tourists, most of them apparently on organized tours.

For years I’ve studied various biblical passages about the events that took place on this site; I’ve looked at pictures and satellite images and helicopter flyovers to try to get something useful in my mind’s eye. It looked from a distance about how I thought it would, but the feeling of walking on it was the feeling of walking on an alien world. That’s not all too unusual, as that’s what walking through the rest of Jerusalem felt like too. But whatever connection I may have with the place spiritually, theologically … I don’t know that any connection was an experiential reality for me.

Some of this disconnect may come from the fact that I know enough about the history of the place to know that there is virtually no place one can stand that is as it was in the first century. Jerusalem has changed hands a number of times since then, and as we walked through the tunnels next to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount we learned about the ways successive administrations carried out massive building projects that would be impressive today but are stunning in scope for a pre-industrial age. The result of these building projects, though, is that streets in the neighborhood aren’t at the same levels they were two thousand years ago. So in a couple of days when we walk the Via Dolorosa, the path of Jesus’ journey carrying his cross, we will not be walking the same stones he walked.

Continue reading "Poling: A mountaintop experience…maybe" »

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The Associated Press reports:

A prominent Egyptian blogger jailed for four years for writings deemed insulting to Islam and for calling President Hosni Mubarak "a symbol of tyranny" has been released, his brother said Wednesday.

Abdel Kareem Nabil was the first blogger in Egypt convicted specifically for his writings in a case that government critics said was intended to serve as a warning to others.

His prosecution was part of a government crackdown on bloggers and media outlets and drew a flood of condemnation from international and Egyptian rights groups.

He was released Monday after being held 10 days beyond the end of his sentence without explanation, said his brother, Abdel Rahman. The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said last week that during that time he was subjected to repeated beatings by an officer at the State Security Investigation office in Alexandria.

His brother said Wednesday that Nabil needed a rest before talking to media and that the family was not yet prepared to release a statement.

Nabil, who wrote under the name Kareem Amer, was an unusually scathing critic of conservative Muslims.

Much of his criticism was directed at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, the pre-eminent institution of religious thought in Sunni Islam, where he was studying law.

He denounced the school as "the university of terrorism," accusing it of promoting radical ideas and suppressing free thought. Al-Azhar "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts ... teaching them that there is not place for differences in this life," he wrote.

In other writings, he called Al-Azhar the "other face of the coin of al-Qaida" and called for the university to be dissolved or turned into a secular institution.

Continue reading "Egypt frees blogger convicted of insulting Islam" »

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We met several Iraqi Mandaeans in Jordan and Syria a couple of years ago while reporting stories about the Iraqi refugee crisis.

Members of the tiny sect, which follows the teachings of John the Baptist, have been targeted in ethnic violence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. About 60,000 have fled Iraq or Iran in recent years for the relative safety of neighboring countries.

Now the Associated Press reports that the United Nations is having difficulty resettling Iraqi Mandaeans, and acknowledging that the challenge is putting the group at risk.

Vincent Cochetel, who represents the United States and the Caribbean for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told the AP that no single country wants to take all of the Mandaeans. He said nations typically don't accept entire ethnic or religious groups and that countries face capacity issues.

Dr. Wisam Breegi, a Mandaean who lives in Boston, told the AP that members of the religion need to resettle together or it will disappear. The Boston area has one of the larger U.S. populations with around 450.

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

This week I have the privilege of joining two dozen of my colleagues on an interfaith clergy trip to Israel. Rabbis, ministers, scholars, priests and a bishop ... we have the makings of unlimited jokes as well as deep theological intercourse.

This trip, called the Maryland Clergy Initiative, is being co-sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies. In addition to visiting major sites in Jerusalem and Galilee, we will meet with several of the leading voices on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I look forward to posting to In Good Faith as often as our schedule and wireless connections allow. My colleagues will also be contributing on the MCI trip blog.

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The Associated Press reports:

The Anti-Defamation League is criticizing remarks by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck about billionaire financier George Soros and the Holocaust.

The conservative pundit described Soros this week as a "Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps."

But he also said he can't imagine what it must have been like trying to survive.

Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and donates to liberal causes.

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman says Beck's remarks about Soros' childhood were "inappropriate, offensive and over the top."

Foxman later told Salon.com that he still believes Beck is a strong supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.

A Beck spokesman cited an Oct. 22 letter from Foxman praising Beck as a "friend of Israel." The letter was posted Friday on Beck's website.

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Associated Press correspondent Diaa Hadid reports:

A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.

The case of the unlikely apostate, a shy barber from the backwater West Bank town of Qalqiliya, is highlighting the limits of tolerance in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority — and illustrating a new trend by authorities in the Arab world to mine social media for evidence.

Residents of Qalqiliya say they had no idea that Walid Husayin — the 26-year-old son of a Muslim scholar — was leading a double life.

Known as a quiet man who prayed with his family each Friday and spent his evenings working in his father's barbershop, Husayin was secretly posting anti-religion rants on the Internet during his free time.

Now, he faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for "insulting the divine essence." Many in this conservative Muslim town say he should be killed for renouncing Islam, and even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.

"He should be burned to death," said Abdul-Latif Dahoud, a 35-year-old Qalqiliya resident. The execution should take place in public "to be an example to others," he added.

Over several years, Husayin is suspected of posting arguments in favor of atheism on English and Arabic blogs, where he described the God of Islam as having the attributes of a "primitive Bedouin." He called Islam a "blind faith that grows and takes over people's minds where there is irrationality and ignorance."

If that wasn't enough, he is also suspected of creating three Facebook groups in which he sarcastically declared himself God and ordered his followers, among other things, to smoke marijuana in verses that spoof the Muslim holy book, the Quran. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors, overwhelmingly from Arab countries.

His Facebook groups elicited hundreds of angry comments, detailed death threats and the formation of more than a dozen Facebook groups against him, including once called "Fight the blasphemer who said 'I am God.'"

Continue reading "Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam" »

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The Associated Press reports.

Pope Benedict XVI has told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the discrimination and violence Catholics suffer in the Mideast and said he hopes relations between the local churches and authorities can improve.

The Vatican released the text of a letter Benedict wrote Ahmadinejad after receiving a letter from the Iranian leader last month. Ahmadinejad had thanked the pontiff for opposing a Florida pastor's threat to burn the Quran on the Sept. 11 anniversary.

In his letter, dated Nov. 3 but released only Thursday, Benedict noted that a recent meeting of Mideast bishops had decried the discrimination many Catholics face in the region. He said he hoped a bilateral commission would help address the legal status of the Catholic Church in Iran.

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Associated Press correspondent Sarah Brumfield reports:

A Muslim civil rights group said Tuesday it's concerned that the U.S. government is delaying the shipment of passports to those who are trying to make religious pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations raised the issue after a northern Virginia mosque reported that 17 people missed their flight to Saudi Arabia when their passports were temporarily seized. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol bought replacement tickets for those passengers, the mosque said.

On Tuesday, the council said it had learned of three other packages sent via UPS from California containing pilgrims' passports with hajj visas — for travel to Mecca — being held up by security checks or government seizure.

"The American Muslim community needs to know whether packages sent from point to point within our borders are being screened based on the religion of the sender or recipient, and whether or not such packages can be seized and opened by government officials without a warrant," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

Hajj, a pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city, Mecca, is a requirement for all able-bodied Muslims who can afford it. The pilgrimage is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and many people save for months or years to pay for the trip, said Khadija Athman, the council's national civil rights manager.

Continue reading "Muslim group: U.S. delaying pilgrims' passports" »

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A conservative Muslim government minister admits he shook hands with first lady Michelle Obama in welcoming her to Indonesia but says it wasn't his choice.

Footage on YouTube shows otherwise, sparking a debate that has lit up Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the blogosphere.

"I tried to prevent (being touched) with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me (so) we touched," Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring told tens of thousands of followers on Twitter.

While Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, the vast majority practice a moderate form of the faith. But Sembiring has flaunted his conservatism and says he avoids contact with women who are not related to him.

The minister was among the dignitaries in a receiving line that greeted President Barack Obama and his wife as they arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday — a homecoming of sorts for the president who spent part of his childhood here. Indonesians gathered around television sets across the country to watch the American president touch down. Children at the school he attended practiced a song dedicated to him just in case he visited.

In footage of the official welcome, Sembiring appeared to share his countrymen's enthusiasm. He smiled broadly as he shook the president's hand and then reached with both hands to grasp Michelle Obama's. But later he said she forced their contact.

His denial was in a response to tweets from Indonesians who noted the handshake and questioned his long-standing claims that, as a good Muslim, he restricts his contact with women.

Many posts had a "gotchya" quality to them.

One female journalist — who said the minister had refused to shake her hand — gleefully noted that now he would no longer be able to wriggle out of it.

Sembiring has often tweeted controversial comments, including blaming natural disasters on a lack of morality and joking about AIDS.

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The Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama says he believes the United States is on "the right path" to a better relationship with the Muslim world, but acknowledges that policy differences will continue.

Standing next to Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at a joint news conference in Jakarta, Obama said he has worked hard to repair frayed relations with the Muslim community.

He called his administration's efforts to repair relations with the Muslim world "earnest, sustained." But Obama also said he doesn't think "we're going to completely eliminate some of the misunderstandings and mistrust that have developed."

The president said he wants to make sure America is "building bridges and expanding our interactions with Muslin countries."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Associated Press correspondent Jill Lawless reports:

Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI — the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said Bishop of Ebbsfleet Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Richborough Keith Newton, Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst — as well as retired bishops Edwin Barnes and David Silk — have decided "to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church."

Burnham and Newton are "flying bishops," who minister to Church of England parishes where congregations have voted not to allow a woman priest to preside at services.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said he had accepted the resignations of Burnham and Newton, "with regret."

"We wish them well in this next stage of their service to the Church," he said.

Broadhurst, leader of the traditionalist group Forward in Faith, announced his intention to leave the Church of England last month, accusing the Anglican church of being "fascist in its behavior" and marginalizing those opposed to the ordination of women.

Continue reading "Five Anglican bishops to join Catholic Church" »

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The following is a dispatch from Jeff and Martha Landaw. Jeff Landaw is a copy editor at The Baltimore Sun.

The “modern” Orthodox community, Rabbi Daniel Sperber says, “is becoming less ‘modern’ and more Orthodox.”

Sperber, who left his native Wales at age two, is the rabbi of a congregation in the Old City of Jerusalem and chair of Talmud and Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University, Israel’s Orthodox institution of higher learning. He has written many books, including a history of Jewish customs, and scores of articles on Jewish history, language and halacha, or Jewish law. He represents the Israeli rabbinate in interfaith organizations and won the Israel Prize in 1992.

He spoke Monday night at Netivot Shalom, a modern Orthodox congregation in Pikesville, on “21st Century Halacha: Obligations, Opportunities in Hazards.”

The 20th and 21st centuries, Sperber told an audience of about 45, brought “tremendous changes to the world of Judaism” in science and technology, where halacha “to a certain extent has been able to face up to the new challenges;” in social affairs such as the role of women and in ideological matters such as the establishment of a Jewish state run as a democracy: What happens, he asks, if Israel’s majority decides to do something that violates halacha?

The Orthodox world has dealt with the “uncertainty” and “perplexity” brought on by these changes in two ways, Sperber says. One is to “retreat behind the walls,” condemning all change as a threat to “the nostalgic picture of what Judaism was.” The haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community, and “the so-called right wing of modern Orthodoxy,” take their cue from the 18th- and 19th-century Talmudist and teacher known as the Chatam Sofer, who ruled that “chadash assur min ha-Torah,” or, “Innovation is forbidden by the Torah.” That began, Sperber says, as a technical point about the laws of the harvest; was applied “out of context” to Orthodoxy’s conflict with the new Reform movement in Germany and Hungary (and even among the Orthodoxc, Sperber says, it was considered “a very extreme statement”) and finally became a universal rule.

Continue reading "Sperber: Less modern, more Orthodox" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI strongly defended traditional families and the rights of the unborn Sunday, directly attacking Spanish laws that allow gay marriage, fast-track divorce and easier abortions as he dedicated Barcelona's iconic church, the Sagrada Familia.

It was the second time in as many days that Benedict had criticized the policies of Spain's Socialist government and called for Europe as a whole to rediscover Christian teachings and apply them to everyday life.

As he headed to the church named for the sacred family, about 200 gays and lesbians staged a 'kiss-in' to protest his visit and church policies on homosexuals, condom use and a host of other issues. Church teaching holds that gays should be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered."

Benedict has focused much of his pontificate on trying to fight secular trends in the West such as the legal recognition of same-sex unions. Benedict has visited Spain twice so far and has a third trip planned next year, an indication he sees this once staunchly Roman Catholic country as a battleground for the future of the faithful in Europe.

During his homily Sunday, Benedict noted that the Sagrada Familia church, a soaring, Art Nouveau marvel begun over a century ago, was initially conceived of as a temple to the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

As he inaugurated the church's main altar, he railed against same-sex marriage and divorce, saying families are built on the "indissoluble love of a man and a woman" who should be provided with financial and social benefits from governments. The pontiff also consecrated the building for use as a church in a colorful ceremony seldom seen performed by a pope.

Continue reading "Gay protesters stage 'kiss-in' as pope drives by" »

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Associated Press correspondent Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili reports:

Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that no final decision has been made about a woman who could be stoned to death for adultery, amid reports that her execution was imminent.

Manouchehr Mottaki's statement follows an international outcry over the stoning sentence against the 43-year-old woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

"Everyone has to be punished for murder," Mottaki said at a news conference in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. "The person has killed her husband and I think this fact will be considered as a crime in every country ... But in this case the final decision has not been made yet."

Earlier Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also said in a statement that Mottaki had told him that a final verdict in Ashtiani's case has not been issued yet and that reports "about her eventual execution don't correspond to reality." But Kouchner said France is "very worried" about the case.

Iran has temporarily suspended the stoning verdict and has suggested Ashtiani might be hanged instead.

The case has further elevated tensions between Iran and the West, already running high over suspicions about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The office of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his wife Laureen Harper sent an open letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad calling for Ashtiani's release. Mrs. Harper wrote that she was "deeply troubled by the flagrant disregard of women's rights in Iran" and said Ashtiani's case "is an affront to any sense of moral or human decency."

Continue reading "Iran foreign minister: No verdict in adultery stoning" »

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Associated Press correspondent Mark Stevenson reports:

A chapel where Roman Catholic priests celebrate Mass every Sunday bears a plaque thanking the donor who built it — the leader of one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels.

The revelation has the church distancing itself from the property in central Mexico, while admitting it knows of other donations from drug traffickers.

"We know that the narcos ... look for a way to redeem themselves in religious terms, by doing some good work. Obviously, sins cannot be washed away by a donation or a collection," said the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico, the country's largest.

"We have examples of five or six cases of projects, generally in rural communities, where they don't just build churches, they build roads and bridges and clinics," he said.

On a wall of the brightly painted chapel in the village of Tezontle, a plaque says it was donated by the leader of the violent Zetas cartel.

"Donated by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, Lord, hear my prayer," reads the bronze-colored marker, which says the chapel was built in honor of Pope John Paul II.

Continue reading "Mass held in Mexico chapel built by drug lord" »

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Associated Press correspondent Robert Wielaard reports

The spokesman for Andre Leonard, Belgium's ultraconservative archbishop, quit Tuesday, saying he can no longer speak for a "loose canon," who has shocked Catholics by sympathizing with priests accused of pedophilia and condemning homosexuals.

The resignation of spokesman Juergen Mettepenningen reflected turmoil in Belgium's Catholic Church that began with a June 24 police raid on church offices, part of an investigation into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests.

Aggravating matters — at a time when the church needed public support — Leonard has aired conservative views, calling AIDS "immanent justice" for homosexuals and saying that prosecuting retired priests for child abuse cases would be "vengeful."

Mettepenningen said Leonard is out of touch with Belgium's Catholic base.

"At times, he behaved like a loose cannon who thinks everybody else is wrong," Mettepenningen said at a news conference. "I was his GPS for three months. But it is the driver who has his hands on the wheel and sets the course."

In recent weeks, mainstream Catholic organizations have publicly spoken out against Leonard's conservative views.

On Tuesday, socialist legislator Jean-Marie de Meester filed a complaint against him with Belgium's anti-racism center for his "homophobic" viewpoints.

Continue reading "Spokesman for 'loose canon' archbishop quits" »

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Associated Press correspondents Barbara Surk and Hamid Ahmed report:

Iraq's dwindling Christian community was grieving and afraid on Monday after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 52 people killed and 67 wounded — nearly everyone inside.

The attack, claimed by an al-Qaida-linked organization, was believed to be the dealiest ever recorded against Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.

Outside Our Lady of Deliverance church, Raed Hadi leaned against the car carrying his cousin's coffin, waiting for the police to let him bury him on church grounds.

"It was a massacre in there and now they are cleaning it up," he said Monday morning. "We Christians don't have enough protection ... What shall I do now? Leave and ask for asylum?"

"Now they make a show," said Jamal Jaju, who watched as Iraqi forces set up a chain link fence around the church and pushed back observers. "What can I say? I lost at least 20 friends in there."

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the assault as "ferocious" and called for renewed international efforts to broker peace in the region. Catholics made up 2.89 percent of Iraq's population in 1980; by 2008 they were merely 0.89 percent.

Continue reading "Iraqi Christians mourn after church siege kills 52" »

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The Associated Press reports:

Pope Benedict XVI says all countries have the right to regulate immigration flows and protect their borders, and immigrants must respect the laws and national identity of their host nations.

The pontiff said in a message that every person has a right to migrate in search of better living conditions.

The Vatican on Tuesday issued the pope's message for the church's World Day for Migrants and Refugees, which is celebrated Jan. 16.

Benedict said that, as the word's societies become more multiethnic and intercultural, people should seek dialogue and respect each other's differences. States must respect the dignity of all migrants and share their resources, while immigrants "have the duty to integrate into the host country."

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The Associated Press reports:

The Vatican on Monday released a letter from the pope to seminarians again expressing "profound shame and regret" for the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the global Roman Catholic church.

He said that "thank God, all of us know exemplary priests" who have chosen a life of celibacy.

Some have questioned whether celibacy is in part to blame, but the Vatican insists celibacy isn't responsible.

Recently two bishops from the scandal-hit Belgian church openly questioned the celibacy requirement.

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A Church of England assistant bishop and a parish church have announced that they intend to become Roman Catholics within a new structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI.

John Broadhurst, the bishop of Fulham in London, and St. Peter's Church in Folkestone, southeastern England, both oppose moves in the Church of England to allow women to serve as bishops.

Broadhurst, the first serving Church of England bishop to say he will accept the pope's invitation, is leader of Forward in Faith, a group representing traditionalists within the Church of England. He announced his decision on Friday at the group's national assembly.

St. Peter's Church, which is affiliated with Forward in Faith, announced its decision on Saturday.

Benedict has created a structure called an ordinariate, in which Church of England defectors could continue to use some of their traditional liturgy and be served by their married priests.

"I intend to resign as bishop of Fulham before the end of the year," Broadhurst told the Forward in Faith meeting.

"I am not retiring, I am resigning," he added. "Secondly, I expect that I will enter the ordinariate when it is established."

The parochial church council of St. Peter's said it had resolved to join the ordinariate and "is anxious that this should be made as easy as possible."

Continue reading "Anglican bishop plans Catholic conversion" »

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Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI formally created a new Vatican office Tuesday to revive Christianity in Europe, his latest attempt to counter secular trends in traditionally Christian countries.

In a decree, Benedict said the new office would promote church doctrine, use the media to get the church's message out and mobilize missionary-type activities.

But even on its first day of existence, the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization ran into an all-too-typical Vatican snag: The four-page decree instituting the office was issued in only Latin and Italian.

Asked how the pope expected to bring the church's message to the world in such relatively unknown languages, the head of the new office, Monsignor Rino Fisichella said he hadn't been in charge until Tuesday and wasn't responsible for how the decree was issued.

He stressed that he planned to have language sections in his department to deal with the faithful in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Slavic languages.

Continue reading "Pope outlines new effort to revive Christianity" »

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The Associated Press reports:

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas acknowledges she touched a nerve with remarks about Israel that led to her retirement. But in a radio interview, she says the comments were "exactly what I thought," even though she realized soon afterward that it was the end of her job.

"I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive," Thomas told Ohio station WMRN-AM in a sometimes emotional 35-minute interview that aired Tuesday. It was recorded a week earlier by WMRN reporter Scott Spears at Thomas' Washington, D.C., condominium.

Thomas, 90, stepped down from her job as a columnist for Hearst News Service in June after a rabbi and independent filmmaker videotaped her outside the White House calling on Israelis to get "out of Palestine." She gave up her front row seat in the White House press room, where she had aimed often pointed questions at 10 presidents, going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

She has kept a low profile since then.

It was "very hard for the first two weeks," Thomas said. "After that, I came out of my coma."

Rabbi David Nesenoff, who runs the website rabbilive.com, said he approached Thomas after he'd been at the White House for Jewish Heritage Day on May 27. He asked whether she had any comments on Israel.

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," she replied.

"Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not Germany, it's not Poland," she continued. Asked where they should go, she answered, "They should go home."

"Where's home?" Nesenoff asked.

"Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else," Thomas replied.

"I told him exactly what I thought," she told Spears.

Continue reading "Helen Thomas on anti-Semite charge: 'Baloney!'" »

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Six rabbis from West Bank settlements have taken a step to defuse tension over the burning of a West Bank mosque, apparently by extremist settlers — they presented 20 new Quran books to replace those damaged in the blaze, the Associated Press reports.

During their visit to the mosque in the village of Beit Fajjar, Palestinian residents held charred pages of the burned Quran books.

Israeli politicians rushed to condemn the attack. It came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators try to salvage peace talks by working out a deal over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Rabbi Menachem Froman, who led Tuesday's reconciliatory visit, said those who committed the attack "oppose peace."

The attackers left Hebrew slogans on the mosque walls. Israeli police are investigating.

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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.”

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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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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Continue reading "French Senate approves Muslim veil ban" »

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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.

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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.

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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.

Continue reading "Jason Poling: I'm with stupid" »

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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."

Continue reading "Preacher cancels Quran burning, then reconsiders" »

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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!"

Continue reading "Afghans burn U.S. flag to protest Quran burning" »

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.

Continue reading "Obama urges pastor to drop Quran-burning plan" »

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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.

Continue reading "Mikulski: Burning Quran 'disgraceful,' 'un-American'" »

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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."

Continue reading "Catholic church honors Muslim worker" »

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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.

Continue reading "Pastor 'determined' to burn Quran" »

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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.

Continue reading "Pastor plans to burn Quran despite military warning" »

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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.

Continue reading "Petraeus: Burning Quran could endanger troops" »

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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."

Continue reading "Lawyer: Iranian woman could be stoned soon" »

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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.

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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.

Continue reading "EU official apologizes for comment on 'Jewish lobby'" »

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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.

Continue reading "Mosque objects to burger chain's Muslim outreach" »

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The Mormon church is in talks with the People's Republic of China to improve relations for church members living in mainland China, the Associated Press reports.

The discussions are aimed at ensuring that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says are practicing their faith within the boundaries of Chinese law, the church said. The talks were initiated by a senior Chinese government official, who was not identified by name in the statement.

Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the church's senior leadership circle, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, who both oversee church operations in Asia attended meetings in Beijing in February and May.

A third meeting was held Aug. 24 in Salt Lake City between a Chinese official and the 13 million-member faith's First Presidency.

"No U.S. government official or diplomat has been involved in any way in these discussions," said Mike Otterson, who runs the church's public affairs department. "This is purely between the leadership in Salt Lake City and the leadership in Beijing."

None of the discussions have addressed the possibility of church missionaries proselytizing in China, Otterson said.

"That issue is not even under consideration," Otterson said.

Continue reading "Mormon church, China in talks" »

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Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American in Maryland. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

For a moderate Muslim who has lived continuously in the West for more than thirty-eight years, the protests against the interfaith center proposed for Lower Manhattan is a wakeup call.

It highlights a deep distrust of Muslims and of our moderate belief system. In my version of Islam, I share my God and prophets with the Christians and the Jews, and hold them in equal reverence. I firmly believe that our religion is determined at birth by God and we must respect all religions. The only role of religion in my life is to give me hope and help me become a good citizen.

I do not need to grow a beard but those that do for symbolism are exercising their personal freedom -- and, perhaps without realizing it, are helping the environment by not wasting the water and energy consumed in the shaving process. I do not need any intermediary to pray for me to God, and strongly believe in the absolute separation of church and state.

Save for a tiny minority, Muslims do not subscribe to the orthodox brand of Islam that mistakenly assumes that Muslims are superior to all others and all humanity must be converted to Islam. If God wants us all to be Muslims, he surely has the power to make us so.

As human beings, we have every right to be very angry with the 19 madmen who killed thousands of innocent civilians on Sept. 11, 2001.

Continue reading "Guest post: A Muslim perspective on the mosque" »

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Britons planning to attend open-air services by Pope Benedict XVI next month have been told it's OK to bring a picnic — but leave the wine at home, the Associated Press reports.

Organizers of the pontiff's visit released a detailed list Monday of what is allowed and barred from two large-scale gatherings.

Sunscreen, banners, flags, cushions and folding chairs are all permitted, and people are encouraged to bring a "pilgrim picnic."

But barbecues, candles, musical instruments, pets and alcohol are banned because they "could pose a threat to yourself or others."

Some 80,000 people are expected to attend a Sept. 18 prayer meeting in London's Hyde Park, and 65,000 a Mass in Birmingham's Cofton Park the next day.

The four-day trip is the first papal visit to Britain since 1982.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

The furor over the planned mosque and Islamic center near ground zero has put Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in a curious position: At the same time he is being vilified in the U.S. for spearheading the project, he is traveling the Mideast on a State Department mission as a symbol of American religious freedom.

Some of the imam's American critics said they fear he is using the taxpayer-funded trip to raise money and rally support in the Muslim world for the mosque, the Associated Press reports.

"I think there is no place for this," said the Rev. Franklin Graham, who is the son of evangelist Billy Graham and opposes the Islamic center and mosque. "Can you imagine if the State Department paid to send me on a trip anywhere? The separation of church and state — the critics would have been howling."

At his first event Friday in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain, Rauf refused to discuss the uproar over plans for the community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley has said Rauf understands that he cannot solicit funds for the project on his 15-day tour.

The $100 million, 13-story project is modeled after the YMCA and Jewish Community Center. Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, a co-leader of the project, have a long record of interfaith outreach and insist the center will promote moderate Islam.

Continue reading "Imam's goodwill tour comes amid mosque furor" »

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The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the Manhattan site of the Sept. 11 attacks said Friday he hopes to draw attention during his trip in the Middle East to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs, the Associated Press reports.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on the first leg of a 15-day Mideast tour funded by the U.S. State Department, refused to discuss the political firestorm over the plans for an Islamic cultural center about two blocks from the World Trade Center towers. Foes of the project say it is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. The debate has become politicized ahead of November's midterm congressional elections.

Instead, Rauf preferred to focus on shared concerns. Speaking after leading Friday prayers at a neighborhood mosque outside Bahrain's capital Manama, he said radical religious views pose a security threat in both the West and the Muslim world.

"This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world," Rauf said. "This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this ... major security challenge."

The imam also said he has been working on a way to "Americanize Islam." While he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like, he did note that different interpretations of the faith have emerged over the religion's nearly 1,400-year existence.

"The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations," he said. "So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places."

Continue reading "N.Y. mosque imam: Extremism is global threat" »

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It's a plain wooden cross almost austere in its simplicity.

But as Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera reports from Warsaw, it is stirring passions in heavily Roman Catholic Poland that expose bitter divisions which make it seem like two separate nations sharing the same land and language.

The pale wood cross about four meters (13 feet) high was erected in front of the presidential palace by Boy and Girl Scouts days after the April plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others.

It quickly became a spot for mourners to light candles, place flowers and pray.

Now, with a new president installed and the country returning to normal, the question of whether the cross should stay or go has set off wider disputes that underscore the deep divisions between traditional and modern Poles, conservatives and liberals, and even rich and poor.

"The cross is a catalyst that has mobilized people who are fed up with the clericalization of Polish public life," said Jacek Kucharczyk, president of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Warsaw think tank.

On one side are deeply nationalistic and religious supporters of the late president who want the cross to stay until a fitting memorial is built to the victims, among whom were top military brass and church leaders. Some of them cling to a conspiracy theory suggesting that Kaczynski's domestic political rivals and Russians conspired to kill him.

On the other is an increasingly self-confident secular society that dismisses the conspiracy theory as lunacy and believes the religious symbol does not belong in front of such an important public building. This group argues that despite the country's Catholic influence, the constitution guarantees a separation of church and state, and that the cross should move to a church.

Continue reading "Battle over cross reveals cultural divide in Poland" »

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American Muslim leaders who recently returned from visiting Dauchau and Auschwitz have released a statement condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, the Associated Press reports.

The trip earlier this month was led by Rabbi Jack Bemporad of the Center for Interreligious Understanding in New Jersey, and co-sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany.

The Muslim leaders said that denying or justifying the Holocaust violates Islamic ethics.

"We condemn anti-Semitism in any form," the leaders wrote. "No creation of Almighty God should face discrimination based on his or her faith or religious conviction."

The leaders pledged to fight prejudice against Jews, Muslims and all people based on their religion, race or ethnicity.

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Mexico City's leftist mayor said Tuesday he will take legal action if a Roman Catholic cardinal doesn't apologize for suggesting he bribed the Supreme Court to uphold a city law allowing adoptions by same-sex couples, the Associated Press reports.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says that if Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez does not apologize by midnight, he is going to file a slander complaint.

The church opposes the Mexico City law, but the Supreme Court has ruled it constitutional.

Over the weekend, the cardinal suggested the justices may have been paid to uphold the law, using a slang word for corruption that refers to giving feed to livestock.

The court has denied and condemned the accusation.

In a statement, the Mexican Council of Bishops expressed its "solidarity and regards" for Sandoval Iniguez.

Continue reading "Mayor threatens suit if cardinal doesn't apologize" »

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Taliban militants stoned a young couple to death for adultery after they ran away from their families in northern Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports.

Amnesty International said it was the first confirming stoning in Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban rule in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The Taliban-ordered killing comes at a time when international rights groups have raised worries that attempts to negotiate with the Taliban to bring peace to Afghanistan could mean a step backward for human rights in the country. When the Islamist extremists ruled Afghanistan, women were not allowed to leave their houses without a male guardian, and public killings for violations of their harsh interpretation of the Quran were common.

This weekend's stoning appeared to arise from an affair between a married man and a single woman in Kunduz province's Dasht-e-Archi district.

The woman, Sadiqa, was 20 years old and engaged to another man, said the Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raza Yaqoubi. Her lover, 28-year-old Qayum, left his wife to run away with her, and the two had holed up in a friend's house five days ago, said district government head, Mohammad Ayub Aqyar.

They were discovered by Taliban operatives on Sunday and stoned to death in front a crowd of about 150 men, Aqyar said.

Continue reading "Taliban execute couple in first stoning since 2001" »

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres on Friday for thanking Romania for saving Jews, saying he should have condemned the Romanian state for the tens of thousands of Jews who were killed there during World War II, the Associated Press reports.

On Thursday, Peres publicly thanked Romania for helping 400,000 Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel during the communist regime that ended in 1989. Peres did that while making the first visit to Romania by an Israeli head of state since 1948 when Israel was formed.

Peres was speaking at a news conference with Romanian President Traian Basescu, who said that Romania would be a loyal partner of Israel and NATO, if there was a conflict with Iran. During that event, Peres did not mention Romania's role in the Holocaust.

In 2004, a historical commission set up to study the Holocaust in Romania found the country was responsible for the deaths of 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma during the Second World War under the regime of pro-Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu.

On Friday, Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, issued a statement essentially saying Peres should have mentioned this.

"His failure to condemn the horrific crimes of the Antonescu regime against the Jewish people are likely to have very dire consequences, especially in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, where there is a growing tendency in post-Communist societies to deny or minimize the highly significant role played by local Nazi collaborators in the annihilation of the Jews," said Zuroff, who also is a Holocaust historian.

Continue reading "Jewish center criticizes Israeli president's comment" »

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Russia has rejected a U.S. court ruling to turn over a Jewish library to a Hasidic group in New York, the Associated Press reports.

A U.S. judge last week ruled against the Russian government for its refusal to return thousands of manuscripts that once belonged to a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi. The library was seized by Red Army in Nazi Germany as war booty.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said late Wednesday that the ruling is a "rude violation" of international law.

It said the library was nationalized because its owner, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, had no heirs. Schneersohn was forced to leave Russia in 1927.

The ministry said the library is available for scientific study and worship.

Chabad-Lubavich said it feared some manuscripts were headed to the black market.

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An attorney suing the Vatican on behalf of a clergy abuse victim in Oregon says the withdrawal of a similar lawsuit in Kentucky won't jeopardize other cases taking aim at Rome, the Associated Press reports.

The 6-year-old Kentucky suit that named the Holy See as a defendant virtually ended this week when the plaintiff's attorney filed a motion to dismiss his own case.

Jeff Anderson, the attorney in the lawsuit filed in Portland, noted the difficulty in taking on the head of the Roman Catholic Church. He says "it's not for the faint of heart (or) the weak of pocketbook."

And a legal expert says that the Oregon case has a tough road ahead in proving that American priests should be considered employees of the Vatican.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)
        

The first sign of danger was the crackle of gunfire over their heads. Ten gunmen, their faces covered, rushed toward terrified humanitarian workers and began shouting "Satellite! Satellite!" — a demand to surrender their phones.

Moments later, 10 of them lay dead, including two women hiding in the back seat of a car the attackers hit with a grenade, according to an Afghan official familiar with the account the sole survivor gave police.

It is the first detailed narrative of the slaying of six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton on Aug. 5 in remote northern Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports. They were ambushed and shot Aug. 5 after journeying about 100 miles — much of it on foot and horseback — through the Hindu Kush mountains, giving eye and other medical care to impoverished villagers.

Afghan and U.S. investigators spent at least four hours this week questioning the survivor, a 24-year-old father of three named Safiullah. He was employed as a driver for International Assistance Mission, a nonprofit Christian organization that has worked in Afghanistan since 1966.

Safiullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, told investigators that the killings occurred around 7:30 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details of the ongoing investigation.

Continue reading "AP Exclusive: The aid workers' last minutes" »

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A name like Maria or Jose isn't a solid clue anymore that the person who answers to it will worship in a Catholic church on Sunday, the Associated Press reports.

An Associated Press-Univision poll finds that younger Latinos, as well as those who speak more English than Spanish, are much less likely to identify as Catholics than older, Hispanics who mostly speak Spanish.

The poll of 1,500 Latino adults also found significant divisions on social issues such as same-sex unions and abortion, along lines of age, language and whether one is Catholic or Protestant.

It's been more than a year since Melissa Solis went to Mass. An executive assistant at a New York financial firm, she was raised by a pious Catholic mother but calls herself "nonpracticing."

"There is peace in the house of God for me, but there is also inner peace," said Solis, 35. "I do believe there is a God, and that has helped me through tough times. But you can practice your religion in your home, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in a building labeled the house of God."

Overall, 62 percent of Hispanics identify as Catholic, but that includes only 55 percent of young adults 18 to 29, compared with 80 percent of elders 65 and over.

Continue reading "Poll: Young Latinos less likely to be Catholic" »

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Three men who sued the Vatican over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Kentucky have asked a court to dismiss their case, the Associated Press reports.

Plaintiff's attorney William McMurry told the AP that the case is ending because of an earlier ruling that the Vatican is a foreign nation and can't be held liable for policies the suit contended shielded abusive priests. He said most U.S. victims have reached settlements with a diocese and can't go after the Vatican now.

McMurry said a months-long search for victims who haven't settled and could pursue the lawsuit failed to find any willing to come forward.

The dismissal motion was filed Monday in federal court in Louisville.

Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena says the case showed "absolutely no evidence of Holy See involvement in the abuses."

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Cardinal Norberto Rivera sharply criticized Mexico's Supreme Court on Sunday for upholding a law allowing homosexuals to marry in the capital, calling the ruling "aberrant" and "immoral," the Associated Press reports.

The Roman Catholic archbishop said it was wrong to go against Christian doctrine that recognizes only marriages between a man and a woman.

"The church cannot fail to call evil evil," Rivera said in a statement.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court on an 8-2 vote upheld the constitutionality of gay marriages in Mexico City under a law passed by the state legislature. The federal government had sought to nullify the law.

The Federal District is the only part of Mexico that allows gay marriages. The city government said last week that since 320 same-sex couples had married since March, 173 of them male and 147 female.

Rivera said homosexuals have suffered abuses from the broader society, but argued that allowing same-sex marriages is not the way to try to atone for such injustices.

Continue reading "Cardinal calls gay marriage 'inherently immoral'" »

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A new Iranian website that denies and mocks the Holocaust with anti-Semitic cartoons is provoking outrage in Israel, the Associated Press reports.

Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem said the site — which features sketches of long-nosed Jews conspiring to create "the great lie" of the Holocaust — is yet another example of Iran's continued contempt of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews.

The semiofficial Iranian Fars news agency reported that cartoonist Maziar Bijani launched the site and said it is financed by a non-governmental cultural foundation. The site has English, Arabic and Farsi versions.

"The vulgar and cynical approach of the website, a combination of Holocaust denial and distortion, illustrated with anti-Semitic caricatures, further illustrates Iran's disregard for reality and truth vis-a-vis the Holocaust, Jews and Israel," Yad Vashem said.

It called it "the latest salvo emanating from Iran that denies the facts of the Holocaust and attempts to influence those who are ignorant of history."

Iranian authorities would have had to approve the creation of the new site, but not necessarily its content and there was no indication the government was connected to it.

However, the views are in line with the government, which has repeatedly questioned or denied the Holocaust. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called the Holocaust a "myth," and Iran has also hosted a conference endorsing Holocaust denial.

Continue reading "Iranian Holocaust-denying site angers Israel" »

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A federal judge has issued a judgment against the Russian government for its refusal to return a library of historic books and documents to a Jewish group, the Associated Press reports.

Royce Lamberth, the chief judge of U.S. District Court in Washington, ruled that taking the material was discriminatory, not for a public purpose and occurred without just compensation to the Jewish religious organization that is suing, Chabad-Lubavitch.

At issue are 12,000 religious books and manuscripts seized during the Bolshevik revolution and the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1925 and 25,000 pages of handwritten teachings and other writings of religious leaders stolen by Nazi Germany during World War II.

The documents seized by the Nazis were transferred by the Soviet Red Army as trophy documents and war booty to the Russian State Military Archive.

Last year, lawyers for the Russian government argued that judges have no authority to tell the country how to handle the sacred Jewish documents.

Under the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a sovereign nation is not immune to lawsuits in cases where property is taken in violation of international law.

Lamberth found that the religious group had established its claim to the material, which he said is "unlawfully" possessed by the Russian State Library and the Russian military archive.

Continue reading "U.S. judge rules against Russia on Jewish papers" »

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The debate over a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero became a court fight Wednesday, as a conservative advocacy group sued to try to stop a project that has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Associated Press reports.

The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, filed suit Wednesday to challenge a city panel's decision to let developers tear down a building to make way for the mosque two blocks from ground zero.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission moved too fast in making a decision, underappreciated the building's historic value and "allowed the intended use of the building and political considerations to taint the deliberative process," lawyer Brett Joshpe wrote in papers filed in a Manhattan state court. The Washington, D.C.-based group represents a firefighter who responded to and survived the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center.

City attorneys are confident the landmarks group adhered to legal standards and procedures, Law Department spokeswoman Kate O'Brien Ahlers said. A spokesman for the planned Islamic center, Oz Sultan, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said organizers were continuing to work toward choosing an architect.

The mosque has become a national political flashpoint, pitting several influential Republicans and the nation's most prominent Jewish civil rights group against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. In one of the latest signs of the issue's political reach beyond Manhattan, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick expressed support Wednesday for the proposed mosque.

Continue reading "Opponents sue to stop Ground Zero mosque" »

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Over at the Huffington Post, New York media and fashion mogul Russell Simmons writes that the debate over construction of a mosque near Ground Zero is "digging a hole in the soul of America."

Simmons, the activist cofounder of the Def Jam record label and the Phat Farm fashion line, writes of being able to see the hole that remains at Ground Zero from his apartment in Lower Manhattan, and of greeting the firefighters at his neighborhood station, who lost nearly all of their comrades on Sept. 11, 2001.

This is my neighborhood, my backyard. And in my backyard, I have no tolerance for a new fear-mongering, hateful rhetoric that has sprung up over the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center that they plan on building blocks away from Ground Zero.

It is not insensitive to put a cultural center of any sort, that has a place of worship, anywhere in our city. This is what makes our country and our city great. As a nation that was founded by men and women who were being persecuted for their particular faith, we should know that the best path to finding freedom is finding freedom for others. We were formed as a pluralistic society and this means we welcome all religions. Islam did not attack the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, sick and twisted men did, who not only hijacked four airplanes but also hijacked a religion. Let us not stereotype the over one billion Muslims around the world because of the evil acts of a few. A decision like this one, to support or not support the construction of this center, defines who we are as a nation. It's at the essence of our values, our freedom of expression, freedom of religion and religious tolerance.

As the Chairman of The Foundation Of Ethnic Understanding, my partner Rabbi Marc Schneier (also the Vice President, World Jewish Congress; Chairman, World Jewish Congress United States) and I have worked tirelessly to promote dialogue among different ethnic groups all over the world, particularly Jews and Muslims. We have witnessed the power of the fostering of this dialogue. We know that we must fight Antisemitism and Islamaphobia together and at the same time. We welcome and support this cultural center, as it will continue constructive conversations around a moderate approach to co-existence between all people, regardless of religious preference. In fact, we strongly feel that this center will bridge the divide that many of our nation's citizens have with the Islamic faith.

Continue reading "Simmons: Ground Zero mosque 'not insensitive'" »

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Groups representing victims of clergy sex abuse in the U.S. are urging Pope Benedict XVI to remove Cardinal Bernard Law as head of a Rome basilica, issuing their appeal shortly before the former Boston archbishop leads an annual high-profile ceremony in the church, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, named Law as archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica after his 2002 resignation as Boston archbishop. Law quit to quell an outcry over handling of sex abuse cases in his diocese, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. church official to fall in the scandal that rocked the American church.

The traditional ceremony Thursday includes the release of white petals from the basilica's ceiling to recall a legendary August snowfall in Rome in 352.

Kristine Ward of the National Survivors Advocates Coalition called the ceremony a "bread and circuses" approach in the church at a time of crisis over sex abuse.

Since the crisis in the United States, the clergy abuse scandal has spread across Europe, with new accusations this year hitting the church in Germany, Italy, Belgium and elsewhere.

Victims groups have been lobbying for years to get Law removed, accusing the Vatican of giving a major culprit in the crisis a soft landing. The 78-year-old prelate also sits on a number of Vatican congregations and councils.

Law did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Continue reading "Groups call for Cardinal Law's removal" »

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Categories: Abuse, Catholicism, International, People
        

A New York City panel cleared the way Tuesday for the construction near ground zero of a mosque that has caused a political uproar over religious freedom and Sept. 11 even as opponents vowed to press their case in court, the Associated Press reports.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to deny landmark status to a building two blocks from the World Trade Center site that developers want to tear down and convert into an Islamic community center and mosque. The panel said the 152-year-old lower Manhattan building isn't distinctive enough to be considered a landmark.

The decision drew praise from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who stepped before cameras on Governor's Island with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop shortly after the panel voted and called the mosque project a key test of Americans' commitment to religious freedom.

"The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts," said Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. "But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves, and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans, if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan."

The vote was a setback for opponents of the mosque, who say it disrespects the memory of those killed at the hands of Islamic terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. Jeers and shouts of "Shame on you" could be heard after the panel's vote.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative advocacy group founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, announced it would challenge the panel's decision in state court Wednesday.

Continue reading "NYC panel denies Ground Zero mosque opponents" »

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Protesters shouting "Defend the cross!" scuffled with police Tuesday but managed to prevent Polish officials from moving a cross erected outside the presidential palace in memory of the late President Lech Kaczynski, the Associated Press reports.

About 20 demonstrators stood in front of the wooden cross, pleading with priests who were supposed to move it to the nearby St. Anne's Church. They were supported by a cheering crowd of hundreds gathered behind a police barrier across the street.

Security officials dragged away a few of the chanting, praying protesters — including a woman who tried to tie herself to the cross. But officials decided not to immediately press ahead with the plan, which is opposed by some Kaczynski supporters.

"The cross will not be moved to the church today," said Jacek Michalowski, a presidential palace official. "The level of aggression is too high ... the cross should not be used for political games."

It wasn't immediately clear whether officials would make another attempt to move it.

Amid deep national mourning, scouts groups put up the cross five days after the April 10 plane crash in Russia that killed Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and 94 others, including top military leaders.

Some members of the main opposition party — which is led by the late president's twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski — have said the cross should remain put until a permanent monument is built at the site, a call backed by their conservative Roman Catholic supporters.

But President-elect Bronislaw Komorowski and Warsaw city officials want the cross moved to the church and worked out an agreement with church leaders to do so.

Continue reading "Protesters prevent cross from being moved" »

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A special coin issued by Romania's central bank to commemorate a prime minister and religious leader who stripped Jews of their citizenship before World War II has drawn protests from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Associated Press reports.

Radu Ioanid, who runs the museum's international archives, said he was "shocked" by the bank's decision to mint the coin depicting late Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1925 to 1939 and was prime minister from 1938 to 1939.

The patriarch was responsible for revising the citizenship law, stripping about 225,000 Jews — or 37 percent of the Jewish population — of their Romanian citizenship, Ioanid said.

"I can't understand how the patriarch managed to pass through the filter," said Robert Schwartz, representative for Romanian Jews in the city of Cluj. "It is known there are black stains connected to his attitude towards the Jews." Schwartz said there were other Romanians, such as the patriarch's contemporary Queen Maria, who had done much for Jews and should have been honored.

Continue reading "Holocaust museum to Romania: Scrap 'racist' coin" »

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Pilgrims will have to pay as much as 25 pounds ($39) to attend one of the two public events in England to be led by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit in September, the Associated Press reports.

The charges — believed to be a first for a papal event — are for a prayer vigil in London's Hyde Park on Sept. 18 and the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman in Birmingham on Sept. 19.

Benedict's four-day visit to England and Scotland has been controversial almost from the start, with thousands of Britons signing a petition earlier this year against the pope's presence in the wake of outrage over sex crimes against children committed by Catholic priests.

Critics have also complained about the cost. Chris Patten, the official coordinating the event, has said the taxpayers' tab for the visit to Britain could be as much as 12 million pounds, not counting extra policing costs.

The previous government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited the pope — a decision the austerity-minded new coalition government has not sought to change, despite some public unease.

Continue reading "In apparent first, faithful must pay to see pope" »

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Amare Stoudemire already knows some Hebrew phrases and sports a Star of David tattoo. Now he's gone to Israel to explore what might be his Jewish heritage, the Associated Press reports.

The five-time NBA All-Star who recently signed with the New York Knicks is on a weeklong visit to learn about Israel, its language and religions. He believes he has "Hebrew roots" through his mother, Carrie.

"She studied the scriptures and history and she believes she is a Hebrew," he told The Associated Press on Friday in Jerusalem. "I grew up in a very spiritual home. It's not about religion, it's about spirituality for me."

Stoudemire said he was "soaking up the culture," with his girlfriend and a few other friends from home.

He has long suspected his Jewish lineage — Judaism is passed down through the mother's side. Stoudemire's agent, Happy Walters, said his client is a "student of history" and is "exploring religions in general." He added that Soudemire may turn to a genealogist when he returns to New York to dig deeper.

The 6-foot-10 forward signed a five-year, $100 million contract with the Knicks three weeks ago. He will now be playing in the city with the largest Jewish population in the United States.

The NBA features two Jewish players: Israeli Omri Casspi of the Sacramento Kings and Jordan Farmar of the New Jersey Nets. When Farmar joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2006, he became the NBA's first Jewish player since Danny Schayes — son of Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes — retired in 1999.

Continue reading "NBA star Stoudemire in Israel to trace Jewish roots" »

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A draft constitution that Kenya votes on next week guarantees women the same rights as men — unless a judge in a Muslim family court decrees otherwise, the Associated Press reports.

Critics, including some American evangelicals, complain that the document carves out too many exceptions for the country's Muslim minority and could create tensions between Muslims and Christians.

Creating a new constitution was a key part of a power-sharing deal that ended weeks of bloody riots 2 1/2 years ago. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence after a disputed presidential election.

But the inclusion of the publicly funded Muslim courts has galvanized opposition among some Christians ahead of next Wednesday's vote. A clause in the bill — which polls show is likely to pass — grants equality to women, as long as it doesn't interfere with the application of Muslim law.

"All Kenyans should have the same rights regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender," said Oliver Kisaka, the deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Kenya. "This is the unfair creation of a system within a system. And why should taxpayers pay for a judicial system that doesn't include them?"

Muslim leaders call that kind of attitude scare mongering, and point out that Kenya's Islamic courts predate the country's independence from Britain, when they were formally brought under the Ministry of Justice. Muslims make up about 10 percent of Kenya's 40 million people.

Continue reading "Constitution would accommodate Muslim courts" »

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Thousands of Israelis marched calmly Thursday in Jerusalem's longest gay pride parade despite opposition from anti-gay demonstrators, the Associated Press reports.

The subdued march from Jerusalem city center to the parliament building contrasted with flamboyant gay pride parades elsewhere in the world. Organizers said they were adjusting to the city's religious character and using it to promote their political agenda.

Carrying rainbow banners, several thousand demonstrators walked along the 1.5 mile (2.5 kilometer) route. Absent were standard features of many such parades — multicolor floats carrying scantily and provocatively dressed participants, loud music, wild costumes and explicit public examples of homosexual activity.

Even so, a few dozen black-suited ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters at the beginning and end of the route held signs denouncing homosexuals, with slogans like "Gays Play in Hell, Not Jerusalem." Many ultra-Orthodox Jews consider homosexuality to be an abomination.

Marchers said such opposition has forced Jerusalem's gay community underground in most parts of the city.

"In a religious society, a lot of people still don't realize we actually exist," said Sarah Weil, 26, who helps run an organization for lesbians who are also Orthodox Jews.

Continue reading "Gay Israelis march on anniversary of shootings" »

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Police in Swaziland say they have arrested three traditional healers for allegedly desecrating graves to retrieve human skulls and bones for healing rituals, the Associated Press reports.

Police official Wendy Hleta said Thursday the three — who might be described in the West as witchdoctors — claimed a healer from neighboring Mozambique offered to make them "instant millionaires" if they dug up human bones.

Police found a skull on the property of one of the suspects who then identified a remote grave that had been opened.

Hleta said the healers were arrested Thursday and charged with violating grave sites in this tiny mountainous southern African kingdom.

Last month a Swazi court fined two traditional healers for using body parts of protected animals.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday ordered authorities to expel gypsy illegal immigrants and dismantle their camps, amid accusations that his government is acting racist in its treatment of the group known as Roma, the Associated Press reports.

Sarkozy called a government meeting Wednesday after Roma clashed with police this month after the shooting death of a gypsy youth fleeing officers in the Loire Valley.

Sarkozy said those responsible for the clashes would be "severely punished" and ordered the government to expel all illegal Roma immigrants, almost all of whom have come from eastern Europe.

He pushed for a change in France's immigration law to make such expulsion easier "for reasons of public order." He said illegal gypsy camps "will be systematically evacuated," calling them sources of trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution.

French Roma representatives were not invited to Wednesday's presidential meeting, which included the interior, justice and immigration ministers and top police officials.

Community leaders contend the very principle of the meeting — which singled out an ethnic group in a country that is officially blind to ethnic origins — is racist and warn of grave consequences if their side isn't heard. France's government does not count how many of its citizens are of a certain ethnicity; everyone is simply considered French.

"Today ... I am afraid we're preparing to open a blighted page in the history of France, which could sadly lead to acts of reprisal in the days ahead," said lawyer Henri Braun said at a Wednesday news conference by French Roma leaders. "There is a huge problem of racism in France towards this population, there is enormous discrimination."

Continue reading "France expels illegal Roma immigrants" »

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A Malaysian court fined 12 Muslims on Tuesday and sentenced one of them to a week in prison for illegally protesting the construction of a Hindu temple and parading a severed cow's head, the Associated Press reports.

The protest last August stoked tensions among Malaysia's three main ethnic groups — the Malay Muslim majority and Chinese and Indian minorities, most of them Buddhists, Christians or Hindus who have complained that their religious rights are often sidelined in favor of Islam.

The 12 men were among scores of Muslims who marched with a bloodied cow's head from a mosque to the central Selangor state chief minister's office to denounce the state government's plan to build a Hindu temple in their largely Muslim neighborhood.

The cow is the most sacred animal in Hinduism.

All 12 pleaded guilty in a Selangor district court to a charge of illegal assembly and were fined US$320 each, said defense lawyer Afifuddin Hafifi. They faced up to a year in prison and a fine for the charge.

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The Catholic Church in Italy, still reeling from the clerical sex abuse scandal, lashed out Friday at gay priests who are leading a double life, urging them to come out of the closet and leave the priesthood, the Associated Press reports.

The Diocese of Rome issued the strongly worded statement after the conservative Panorama newsweekly said in a cover story and accompanying video that it had interviewed three gay priests in Rome and accompanied them to gay clubs and bars and to sexual encounters with strangers, including one in a church building.

One of the priests, a Frenchman identified only as Paul, celebrated Mass in the morning before driving the two escorts he had hired to attend a party the night before to the airport, Panorama said.

In a statement Friday, the Rome diocese denounced those priests who were leading a "double life," said they shouldn't have been ordained and promised that the church would rigorously pursue anyone who is behaving in a way that wasn't dignified for a priest.

It insisted that the vast majority of Rome's 1,300 priests were truthful to their vocations and were "models of morality for all."

Those who aren't faithful to their vows "know that no one is forcing them to remain priests, taking advantage of only the benefits," the diocese said. "Coherency would demand that they come forward. We don't wish any ill-will against them, but we cannot accept that because of their behavior the honor of all the others is sullied."

Continue reading "Vatican urges gay clergy out of closet, priesthood" »

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

I, for one, am glad to see that the Sun is selling enough advertisements to necessitate the abbreviation of wire stories. But I was disappointed to see that the piece in today's paper ("Man arrested on terror charges," page A10) relating the arrest of one Zachary Adam Chesser failed to mention the infamy he earned by threatening the creators of South Park for their depiction of Muhammad.

No doubt Chesser's alleged association with notable terrorist figures like Anwar al-Awlaki and Nidal Hassan had earned him a spot on the no-fly list (and a federal wiretap) before he put Trey Parker and Matt Stone in his sights. His defenders at the time tried to portray him as a harmless blogger, parroting his statement that he was simply observing (rather than threatening) that Parker and Stone might end up like murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Chesser was picked up at JFK earlier this month when he allegedly tried to fly to Somalia in order to join up with the terrorist organization al-Shabaab, presumably not in the role of harmless blogger. Indeed, according to his own statements to FBI investigators, Chesser traveled with his infant son in order to deflect suspicion. Anyone who has attempted air travel with an infant knows that you don't do this unless you absolutely, positively, have to be there on an airplane. So clearly the guy was pretty serious.

What's especially sobering about this story is that Chesser is all of 20 years old. According to his interviews with the FBI, Chesser's commitment to the violent propagation of Islam was in considerable flux during the exactly two years between when he became interested in Islam and when he set off to another continent to join a terrorist organization. At times he was personally committed to violence, at times he was opposed; at times, Cuomo-esque, he supported others' violence but didn't want to perpetrate it himself.

Continue reading "Goin' after South Park? Goin' down to court" »

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Shaukat Malik is a certified public accountant who lives in Potomac. He is also an entrepreneur and a business and political strategist.

Extremist Islam has done so much damage to the Muslim image that during the 2008 U.S. presidential election opponents of Barack Hussain Obama tried to scare voters by declaring that he was a Muslim and supported terrorists.

President Obama’s being labeled as a Muslim for political advantage is a wakeup call for Muslims everywhere, as it clearly confirms the pariah status of the 1.2 billion people who were born in a Muslim home.

As a religion of submission and acceptance of other religions that gave refuge to the Jewish people running from persecution in Europe to Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia, today, unfortunately, it has been hijacked by the oil rich theocracies of Iran and the Middle East.

The great Rabbi Maimonides -- also known as Rambam – became leader of the Jewish community in Egypt in 1183 and was subsequently appointed physician to King Saladin’s vizier. He lived all his life in an Islamic society and died in Egypt. Harmonious co-existence between Muslims and Jews in 1183 confirms the existence of an Islam that was inclusive and welcoming to all, much like the United States of today. There is no reason why we cannot have Muslim states that are inclusive and welcoming to all.

The question we must ask is this. Let us imagine for a moment that Barak Hussein Obama is indeed a Muslim. Would this suddenly take away his intellect and his loyalty to the United States and transform him into an Osama bin Laden-like terrorist living in the White House?

No religion teaches you to harm another human being. The aim of all of the great faiths is to promote a just and fair society. We cannot say that Moses and Jesus were wrong and Prophet Mohammad is right. They were all God’s messengers who brought his message and wanted to spread peace, love and understanding.

Continue reading "Guest post: The image of Islam, under siege" »

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President Hugo Chavez says Venezuela will rethink its relations with the Vatican as tensions rise between his government and Catholic Church representatives who accuse the socialist leader of becoming increasingly authoritarian, the Associated Press reports.

During a televised speech, Chavez instructed his foreign minister to "examine" relations with the Vatican. Without elaborating, he questioned the validity of an agreement giving the Catholic Church privileges that are not extended to other religious organizations in Venezuela.

Chavez also challenged the authority of Pope Benedict XVI, saying the pope "isn't God's emissary on Earth."

There was no immediately reaction from the papal nuncio in Caracas.

Chavez and Venezuela's Catholic Church are clashing like never before.

In recent weeks, Chavez has said that Christ would whip church leaders for suggesting that he's steering Venezuela toward a Cuban-style Marxist dictatorship. He also accused Cardinal Jorge Urosa of misleading the Vatican with warnings that Venezuela is drifting toward dictatorship.

Continue reading "Venezuela rethinking ties to Vatican" »

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An anti-Islam lawmaker in the Netherlands is forming an international alliance to spread his message across the West in a bid to ban immigration from Islamic countries, among other goals, the Associated Press reports.

Geert Wilders told the AP Thursday he will launch the movement late this year, initially in five countries: the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Germany.

"The message, 'stop Islam, defend freedom,' is a message that's not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world," Wilders said at the Dutch parliament.

Among the group's aims will be outlawing immigration from Islamic countries to the West and a ban on Islamic Sharia law. Starting as a grass-roots movement, he hopes it eventually will produce its own lawmakers or influence other legislators.

Ayhan Tonca, a prominent spokesman for Dutch Muslims, said he feared Wilders message would fall on fertile ground in much of Europe, where anti-Islam sentiment has been swelling for years.

"So long as things are going badly with the economy, a lot of people always need a scapegoat," Tonca said. "At the moment, that is the Muslims in Western Europe."

Tonca called on "well meaning people in Europe to oppose this."

Known for his bleached-blond mop of hair, Wilders is a shrewd politician who has won awards in the Netherlands for his debating skills and regularly stands up for gay and women's rights.

But he rose to local and then international prominence with his firebrand anti-Islam rhetoric that has led to him being charged under Dutch anti-hate speech laws and banned from visiting Britain — until a court there ordered that he be allowed into the country.

Continue reading "Wilders bringing anti-Islam movement to U.S., world" »

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The Vatican issued a revised set of in-house rules Thursday to respond to clerical sex abuse, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as well as children and priests who use child pornography, but making few substantive changes to existing practice, the Associated Press reports.

The new rules make no mention of the need for bishops to report clerical sex abuse to police, provide no canonical sanctions for bishops who cover up for abusers and do not include any "one-strike and you're out" policy for pedophile priests as demanded by some victims.

As a result, they failed to satisfy victims' advocates, who said the revised rules amounted to little more than "administrative housekeeping" of existing practice when what was needed were bold new rules threatening bishops who fail to report molester priests.

The rules cover the canonical penalties and procedures used for the most grave crimes in the church, both sacramental and moral, and double the statute of limitations applied to them. One new element included lists the attempted ordination of women as a "grave crime" subject to the same set of procedures and punishments meted out for sex abuse.

That drew immediate criticism from women's ordination groups, who said making a moral equivalent between women priests and child rapists was offensive.

The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor acknowledged it was "only a document," and didn't solve the problem of clerical abuse. He defended the lack of any mention of the need to report abuse to police, saying all Christians were required to obey civil laws that would already demand sex crimes be reported.

"If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law," Monsignor Charles Scicluna told reporters. But "it's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law."

Continue reading "Vatican issues revised rules on sex abuse" »

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Argentina legalized same-sex marriage Thursday, becoming the first country in Latin America to declare that gays and lesbians have all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples, the Associated Press reports.

After a marathon debate in Argentina's senate, 33 lawmakers voted in favor, 27 against and 3 abstained in a vote that ended after 4 a.m. Since the lower house already approved it and President Cristina Fernandez is a strong supporter, it becomes law as soon as it is published in the official bulletin, which should happen within days.

The law is sure to bring a wave of marriages by gays and lesbians who have found Buenos Aires to be a welcoming place to live. But same-sex couples from other countries shouldn't rush their Argentine wedding plans, since only citizens and residents can wed in the country, and the necessary documents can take months to obtain. While it makes some amendments to the civil code, many other aspects of family law will have to be changed.

The approval came despite a concerted campaign by the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical groups, which drew 60,000 people to march on Congress and urged parents in churches and schools to work against passage. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio led the campaign, saying "children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother."

Nine gay couples had already married in Argentina after persuading judges that the constitutional mandate of equality supports their marriage rights, although their validity was later challenged by other judges. Congressional passage now removes that doubt.

Continue reading "Argentina legalizes same-sex marriage" »

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Thousands of demonstrators opposed to same-sex marriage have gathered outside Argentina's congress ahead of a key vote by lawmakers, the Associated Press reports.

Supporters of the measure also took to the streets in loud rallies in the capital and other cities.

Argentina's House of Deputies has approved same-sex marriage and sent the legislation to the Senate for consideration on Wednesday. President Cristina Fernandez promises not to veto the measure if it reaches her desk.

The legislation would open the way to adoptions by same-sex couples and faces strong opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups.

The main slogan for Tuesday's protest against the legislation was "the children have a right to a mother and a father."

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday urged Jewish groups to help persuade Cuba to release a Maryland man detained on the communist island for seven months without charge, the Associated Press reports.

Clinton told representatives of the American Jewish community that they should add their voices to calls for Cuba to release Alan P. Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor who was helping members of Cuba's small Jewish community use the Internet to stay in contact with each other and with similar groups abroad.

"Alan was providing information and technology that would assist this community to be better connected," Clinton said at a State Department reception in honor of Hannah Rosenthal, the Obama administration's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Gross' wife, Judy, attended the event.

"Our government works every single day through every channel for his release and safe return home," Clinton said. "But I am really making an appeal to the active Jewish community here in our country to join this cause ... because this family deserves to be reunited and each and every one of us should do everything we can to make it clear to the Cuban government that Alan Gross needs to come home."

Gross, a 60-year-old native of Potomac, Md., was working in Cuba for a firm contracted by USAID when he was arrested as a suspected spy in Havana on Dec. 3. He has been held without charge in the capital's high-security Villa Marista prison since.

Continue reading "Clinton asks Jewish help to release Md. man" »

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France's lower house of parliament overhwelmingly approved a ban on burqa-like Islamic veils Tuesday, a move that is popular among French voters despite serious concerns from Muslim groups and human rights advocates, the Associated Press reports.

There were 336 votes for the bill and just one against it at the National Assembly. Most members of the main opposition group, the Socialist Party, refused to participate in the vote — though they support a ban, they have differences with President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives over some aspects of it.

The ban on face-covering veils will go in September to the Senate, where it also is likely to pass. Its biggest hurdle will likely come after that, when France's constitutional watchdog scrutinizes it. Some legal scholars say there is a chance it could be deemed unconstitutional.

The main body representing French Muslims says face-covering veils are not required by Islam and not suitable in France, but it worries that the law will stigmatize Muslims in general.

France has Europe's largest Muslim population, estimated to be about 5 million of the country's 64 million people. While ordinary headscarves are common, only about 1,900 women in France are believed to wear face-covering veils. Champions of the bill say they oppress women.

Continue reading "French parliament backs ban on face veils" »

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The Church of England national assembly decided Monday that women should be allowed to become bishops, making only minor concessions to theological conservatives who have threatened to break away over the issue, the Associated Press reports.

Dioceses will now consider the draft law, which would leave it up to individual bishops to allow alternative oversight for traditionalists who object to serving under women bishops. The dioceses must report back by 2012 and a final vote by the ruling body, the General Synod, will still be needed, but supporters say a milestone has been passed.

"The decision to consecrate women as bishops has been taken," said church spokesman Lou Henderson. "Everybody recognized the importance of offering safeguards and assurances to those who find it very difficult (to accept women bishops), but in the end Synod as a whole was not prepared to go as far as the traditionalists would have liked."

The decision was not final and still faced many hurdles.

After the dioceses make a decision over the draft law, the Synod will need to hold a final vote to approve it. That could be complicated by the formation and desires of the next incoming assembly, Henderson said.

Continue reading "Church of England paves way for women bishops" »

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Mormon church leaders have restated the faith's unequivocal position against gay marriage in a letter to members in Argentina, where the government is debating whether to legalize gay unions, the Associated Press reports.

"The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is absolutely clear: Marriage is between one man and woman and is ordained of God," said the July 6 letter from church President Thomas S. Monson.

A copy of the letter and its English translation began circulating over the weekend on websites for former Mormons.

Church spokeswoman Kim Farah on Monday confirmed the letter was sent to local leaders in Argentina, where the faith has more than 371,000 members, according to a 2010 church almanac. The country's population is more than 41 million.

Argentina's Senate is debating whether to approve either gay marriage or a civil union law. The country's other legislative body — the House of Deputies — approved same-sex marriage legislation in May. President Cristina Fernandez has promised not to veto the measure if it reaches her desk.

The letter falls short of calling for political activism by members in Argentina, but is an echo of a 2008 letter from Monson to Latter-day Saints in California. Monson had called for Mormons to give their time and money to help pass Proposition 8, a state ballot initiative to ban gay marriage.

The church was seen as a driving force behind that initiative's success, with members donating tens of millions of dollars to the campaign.

In a statement, Farah said "the church has taken no official position on the legislation being considered" in Argentina.

Still, Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn, said the letter is a significant step in political activism for the church outside the United States.

Continue reading "Mormon church restates opposition to gay marriage" »

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Police battled Irish nationalists for control of a Belfast road Monday as a day dominated by peaceful Protestant parades across Northern Ireland turned violent when night fell, the Associated Press reports.

Riot police in helmets and body armor dragged kicking, flailing protesters from the pavement of Crumlin Road even as other protesters packed into side streets pelted police with rocks, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

Many of the approximately 100 road-blocking protesters wore white T-shirts bearing the message "PEACEFUL PROTEST," while the rioters nearby wore balaclava masks, hoods or scarves to conceal their faces. Police deployed a massive mobile water cannon to blast the rioters while a helicopter overhead monitored the mob. Police also fired several snub-nosed plastic bullets to wallop or knock down rioters.

An Associated Press reporter saw one teenage rioter holding a brick get knocked off his feet as he prepared to throw it. Blood streamed from his face as he scrambled from the pavement. Other rioters stood further back and threw empty beer bottles blindly over rooftops into police lines.

The violence — beside a traditional Irish Republican Army power base called Ardoyne — underscores how socially divided Northern Ireland remains despite nearly two decades of peacemaking that has delivered paramilitary cease-fires and a fragile Catholic-Protestant government.

Continue reading "NI police, Catholics battle over Protestant parade" »

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Liberal Jewish groups were angered Monday after a parliamentary committee in Israel approved a bill that would give Orthodox rabbis more control over the sensitive issue of conversions to Judaism, the Associated Press reports.

The Reform and Conservative movements, which are the largest Jewish denominations outside Israel but wield little clout inside the Jewish state, fear the new bill could increase the influence of Orthodox rabbis at their expense and undermine their own legitimacy and connection to Israel.

Nathan Sharansky, the former Russian political prisoner who now heads the Jewish Agency organization responsible for Israel's relations with Jews abroad, said he had received angry calls from Jewish leaders.

"The meaning of this is a split between the state of Israel and large portions of the Jewish people," he told Israel Radio.

Continue reading "Ire in Israel over changes to Jewish conversions" »

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The controversial death sentence by stoning for an Iranian woman convicted of adultery will not be implemented for now, said a judicial official on Sunday.

The world outcry over the death sentence has become the latest issue in Iran's fraught relationship with the international community, the Associated Press reports.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the top judicial official in the province where the mother of two was convicted, told the Iranian state news agency that her crimes were "various and very serious" and not limited to adultery, but that the sentence "will not be implemented for the time being."

He added Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's stoning would still take place if the judiciary wanted, despite the "propaganda" by the West.

The United States, Britain and international human rights groups have all urged Tehran not to carry out the sentence.

Continue reading "Iran halts stoning of woman 'for the time being'" »

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President Hugo Chavez and leaders of the Venezuelan Catholic Church are tangling like never before, angering parishioners who feel the president and his clerical detractors aren't following Jesus Christ's creed of brotherly love, the Associated Press reports.

Over the past week, Chavez has said that Christ would whip church leaders for lying. Cardinal Jorge Urosa, speaking from Rome, countered he was right to warn the Vatican that Chavez is curbing freedoms.

Some parishioners are concerned over the tensions between Chavez and conservative priests, who are speaking out against what they see as the socialist leader's increasing authoritarianism. Venezuela is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Polls consistently show the church, which wields significant influence, is among the nation's most respected institutions.

"I don't like the insults that Chavez hurled against the cardinal, but I don't like seeing the Church getting involved in politics either," said Amanda Ortiz, 47, after attending Sunday Mass at a church in downtown Caracas. "Both sides are losing respect for each other."

During one recent speech, Chavez accused Urosa of misleading the Vatican with warnings that Venezuela is drifting toward dictatorship. During another public address, he urged the Vatican to replace Urosa, while heaping praise on a government-friendly priest he thinks should be appointed cardinal.

"May God forgive him, because he knows that he's lying. The cardinal who accuses me of running roughshod over the constitution knows that he's lying," Chavez said. "If Christ were to physically appear, what would he do with them? I have no doubt that he'd whip them."

In a newspaper column published on Sunday, the president denied he's steering Venezuela toward a dictatorship.

Continue reading "Chavez: Christ would whip church leaders" »

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Pope Benedict XVI will soon issue a document outlining the church's procedures for handling clerical sex abuse cases that will gather the norms now in use and make them permanent and legally binding, a Vatican official and canon lawyer said Tuesday.

The "instruction" from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been in the works for some time, the Associated Press reports. But its impending publication has taken on new relevance amid the abuse scandal that has roiled the Vatican for months, with hundreds of new cases coming to light of priests who raped and sodomized children, bishops who covered up for them and Vatican officials who turned a blind eye.

The norms concern the canonical procedures for dealing with abusive priests, with penalties as severe as being dismissed from the clerical state. Separately, the Vatican issued informal guidelines earlier this year saying bishops should follow civil reporting laws in terms of reporting abuse to police.

It's unclear whether the new set of norms will include any reference to civil reporting requirements. Since such requirements vary from country to country, it would be difficult to make reference to them in a document that is canonically binding on the church around the globe, noted the Rev. Davide Cito, a canon lawyer and consultant at the Congregation.

The norms now in place have been modified and updated from a 2001 Vatican document and set of procedures issued by Pope John Paul II outlining how the church should handle the abuse of minors by priests.

The 2001 documents require bishops to report credible accusations of abusive priests to the Congregation, which then decides how to proceed, including through a full canonical trial. In 2003 — a year after the U.S. abuse scandal exploded — the norms were amended to speed up administrative penalties against abusive clerics where the evidence them is overwhelming, among other things.

But those 2003 modifications were ad hoc and temporary in nature and had to be reconfirmed, for example, by Benedict after John Paul died in 2005. By gathering them together and including them now in an official, binding document, they become permanent church law.

As a result, the new instruction is expected to contain little that goes beyond what is currently the practice of the Congregation, Cito said. The instruction, for example, is expected to formally extend the 10-year statute of limitations for abuse cases that was imposed for the first time in the 2001 procedures. But those limits have been waived on a case-by-case basis already since 2002 since the 10-year limit was deemed too short.

Continue reading "Vatican to issue sex abuse case procedures" »

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France's justice minister went before parliament Tuesday to defend a hotly debated bill that would ban burqa-style Islamic veils in public, arguing that hiding your face from your neighbors is a violation of French values, the Associated Press reports.

Michele Alliot-Marie's speech at the National Assembly marked the start of parliamentary debate on the bill. It is widely expected to become law, despite the concerns of many French Muslims, who fear it will stigmatize them. Many law scholars also argue it would violate the constitution.

The government has used various strategies to sell the proposal, casting it at times as a way to promote equality between the sexes, to protect oppressed women or to ensure security in public places.

Alliot-Marie argued that it has nothing to do with religion or security — she argued simply that life in the French Republic "is carried out with a bare face."

"It is a question of dignity, equality and transparency," she said in a speech that made scant mention of Muslim veils. Officials have taken pains to craft language that does not single out Muslims: While the proposed legislation is colloquially referred to as the "anti-burqa law," it is officially called "the bill to forbid covering one's face in public."

Ordinary Muslim headscarves are common in France, but face-covering veils are a rarity — the Interior Ministry says only 1,900 women in France wear them.

Yet the planned law would be a turning point for Islam in a country with a Muslim population of at least 5 million people, the largest in western Europe.

Continue reading "French parliament debates ban on burqa-style veils" »

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The Church of England may be on the verge of promoting a gay priest to bishop, a step that would widen the split over sexuality in the global Anglican Communion.

If that happens, the Associated Press reports, it would appear to be a significant turnaround for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the Church of England and the world's Anglicans, who recently imposed sanctions on the U.S. Episcopal Church for electing a lesbian bishop.

According to newspaper reports, Williams is prepared to back the elevation of the Very Rev. Jeffrey John, who withdrew seven years ago from an appointment as a suffragan (assistant) bishop in the face of a heated controversy about his homosexuality. Williams' office will not comment.

"I think the strength of the opposition is much weaker this time," Rev. Canon Giles Goddard, the chairman of Inclusive Church, said Tuesday. His group was founded by people disappointed by John's failure to become a bishop in 2003.

John, who is now dean of St. Albans Cathedral, might be seen as a more acceptable candidate than the U.S. bishop because he has declared he is celibate — and therefore not in violation of church teaching.

A Crown Nominations Commission, composed of 14 Church of England representatives, including Williams, met in secret Monday and Tuesday to choose two nominees to become bishop of Southwark diocese, the half of London that lies south of the River Thames.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who has spoken strongly in favor of equal rights for gays, will have the final decision about whom to recommend to Queen Elizabeth II, who will make the formal appointment. Southwark diocese says a decision may not be announced before October.

Williams has said nothing publicly about the issue.

After the Episcopal Church elected Annapolis priest Mary Douglas Glasspool as an assistant bishop in Los Angeles, Williams moved to bar Episcopalians from representing the Anglican Communion on international ecumenical bodies. "This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice," Williams said in a letter to the global church.

Continue reading "A gay bishop for the Church of England?" »

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The Roman Catholic Church is petitioning Chile's government for prisoner pardons that would include people responsible for crimes against humanity, angering rights activists and some conservatives, the Associated Press reports.

The church is asking for the pardons as part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Chile's independence on Sept. 18. The church proposes pardons for those older than 70, any with a terminal decease and women who are mothers.

The controversy centers on the inclusion of some convicted of committing crimes during the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. According to official statistics, 3,065 opponents of Pinochet's regime were killed and 1,200 more disappeared.

"There shouldn't be any pardons under any circumstances for those guilty of crimes against humanity," Mireya Garcia, vice president of the Group of Families of Detainees and Missing People, told The Associated Press on Monday.

Last week, Garcia's group asked President Sebastian Pinera not to pardon anyone accused of committing such crimes during Pinochet's dictatorship.

Continue reading "Church seeks pardons for crimes against humanity" »

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Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that "for all our weaknesses" priests have an important role in the world, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict did not directly mention the clergy abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church for months. But during a daylong visit to a central Italian town, he received a round of applause and words of support by local youths greeting him "in this time of harsh attacks and media provocation."

Minutes later, Benedict told the youths that "for all our weaknesses, still priests are a precious presence in life."

The trip to Sulmona was dedicated to honoring Celestine V, the 13th-century hermit who resigned the papacy saying that he was not up to the task.

Benedict said his simple and humble lifestyle can serve as an example for modern men and women. The pontiff praised his predecessor for his detachment from material things such as money and clothes.

"We, too, who live in an epoch of greater comfort and possibilities, are called upon to appreciate a sober lifestyle," the pope said.

Celestine V resigned just months after becoming pope in 1294 at age 85. He was later put under guard for fear he would become the rallying point for a schism. Celestine died in 1296 and was declared a saint in 1313.

Continue reading "Benedict praises pope who quit" »

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An emotional debate over crucifixes in classrooms is opening a new crack in European unity, the Associated Press reports.

It all started in a small town in northern Italy, where Finnish-born Soile Lautsi was so shocked by the sight of crosses above the blackboard in her children's public school classroom that she called a lawyer to see if she could get them removed.

Her case went all the way to Europe's highest court — and her victory has set up a major confrontation between traditional Catholic and Orthodox countries and nations in the north that observe a strict separation between church and state. Italy and more than a dozen other countries are fighting the European Court of Human Rights ruling, contending the crucifix is a symbol of the continent's historic and cultural roots.

"This is a great battle for the freedom and identity of our Christian values," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

The court case underlines how religious symbols are becoming a contentious issue in an increasingly multiethnic Europe.

French legislators begin debate next week on a draft law, vigorously championed by President Nicolas Sakorzy, that would forbid women from wearing face-covering Islamic veils anywhere in public.

Continue reading "Crucifixes in classrooms testing European unity" »

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The pope has named a Swiss bishop with experience dealing with Orthodox and Lutheran churches to head the Vatican office responsible for relations with other Christians and Jews, the Associated Press reports.

Archbishop Kurt Koch replaces Cardinal Walter Kasper as head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Kasper, 77, is retiring.

Koch, 60, has been Basel's bishop for nearly 15 years, and has served as a member of the pontifical council since 2002. In a statement Thursday, he said a "credible and sincere" ecumenical dialogue had long been close to his heart.

Kasper had headed the office since 2001, and was often put in the position of defusing Vatican standoffs with Jews such as when the pope lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.

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The pope on Thursday told a German bishop who resigned amid accusations of physical abuse, sexual harassment and alcoholism that he must take time for silent prayer, treatment and reconciliation if he wants to return to pastoral work, the Associated Press reports.

Pope Benedict XVI laid out the terms for Bishop Walter Mixa's rehabilitation during a private audience with the 69-year-old prelate, during which Mixa again apologized for his mistakes, the Vatican said.

Benedict, for his part, "expressed the hope that his (Mixa's) request for forgiveness finds open ears and hearts" among the German faithful, the Vatican said.

Mixa's case marked an unusually public controversy that came to light at the height of the abuse scandal that rocked the church in Germany and elsewhere in the first half of the year.

Mixa, who served as bishop of the Augsburg diocese from 2005 to 2010, offered his resignation on April 22 after accusations surfaced that he had hit children decades ago as a priest and amid allegations of financial misconduct.

The pope accepted Mixa's resignation on May 8, but last month the bishop said members of the Augsburg diocese and two German bishops had forced him to resign against his will, and that he had written to the pope seeking to rescind the resignation. Fresh allegations later surfaced in the German media, including that Mixa was an alcoholic and had made sexual advances toward two priests.

Continue reading "Pope lays out conditions for bishop's return" »

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

No doubt my fellow In Good Faith readers have donned their tuques and opened up a can of Elsinore in honor of Canada Day, our northern neighbors' July 1st version of Independence Day. As my family has recently suffered at the hands of the land I often think of as America's Hat, I thought I'd invite the denizens of this blog to weigh in on the ethical question being hotly debated here at my grandmother's house in Milwaukee.

Back in the spring, somebody called my grandmother claiming that he was me, that he had been arrested for DUI in Canada, and that he needed her to wire bail money right away. My grandmother, a 95-year-old teetotaller, is sharp as a tack and wasn't going to fall for the scam, which has apparently been popular in recent months (Google "Canadian DUI grandson scam").

But the question arose whether she should have called my parents to let them know about the call. She figured that in the unlikely event this wasn't a scam, I would eventually have had to make them aware of my transgression. That was my business and my responsibility; she wasn't going to get involved. My parents felt she should have called them to let them know (and be reassured that I wasn't anywhere near Montreal at the time).

I'm with Grandma on this, and not just because I'm staying at her house right now. My view is that under normal circumstances if an adult family member calls another adult family member for help, the person called should keep that private while encouraging the person in trouble to let people close to him know that he needs help.

What do you think?

Either way, I blame Canada. If it weren't for the lovely honeymoon my wife and I had in Nova Scotia, and lobsters from New Brunswick, and mussels from Prince Edward Island, and the nice Mountie in Banff who patiently posed for a picture with my daughter the last time I was in the 51st state, and my Canadian friends, and Sarah McLachlan, and John Candy, and most of all Rush ... well, I'd be pretty bitter right now.

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A European ruling banning crucifixes in Italian schools should be overturned, nine European governments said in an appeal Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that crucifixes in Italian public schools violate religious and education freedoms last November. The case, part of a larger debate over the role of religious symbols in public places, has sharpened divisions between secular and religious advocacy groups.

Italian courts have previously ruled that the display of crucifixes is part of Italian national identity and not an attempt at conversion, an argument expanded by New York University legal scholar Joseph Weiler on behalf of the governments of Italy, Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, San Marino, Romania and Russia, who are appealing the ruling.

The decisions of the court — an arm of the Council of Europe, the continent's premier human rights watchdog — are binding on the council's 47 member states and therefore have an impact far beyond Italy.

"The democratic cohesion of society is dependent on the ability to uphold national symbols around which all society can coalesce," Weiler said. "It would be a strange (if Italy) had to abandon national symbols, and strip from its cultural identikit, any symbol which also had a religious significance."

Continue reading "Ban on crucifixes in Italian schools appealed" »

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Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. He left his native Pakistan in 1972 and has been living in the United States since 1980.

Western patience and capacity for continued spending on the Afghan war is running thin. The United Kingdom and other NATO countries are facing increasing opposition at home. The British Petroleum oil spill has added to the urgency for a speedy resolution in Afghanistan. We have reached a very critical stage in the Afghanistan war.

Creating a civil society in Afghanistan is a long-term project that may take a decade. Taliban rule of the 1990s, followed by nine years of continuous war and unrest, have destroyed local government and infrastructure necessary for bringing order to the ordinary lives of Afghans.

However, at least in Pakistan, where there is indeed an elected parliament, the politicians must earn their credentials and not allow critics to label them as useless rubber-stamp parasites hanging around for their monthly paychecks.

Time has come for Pakistan’s politicians to show maturity and counter criticism that they are inept, unqualified and unable to handle the problems of Pakistan. A free press in Pakistan has enough material for any politician to understand Pakistan’s important role in the war against terror and how it can directly influence the outcome of the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Ordinary Pakistani citizens must be convinced that the war against the Taliban is their war, and not just America’s war. The Taliban has supported Al-Qaeda. The organization that carried out the 9/11 murder of more that 3,000 innocent Americans in New York cannot be allowed to establish its headquarters in Pakistan to kill innocent Pakistanis. The Taliban are no different from cancer cells and must be neutralized or eliminated.

Continue reading "Guest post: Pakistan must rally against Taliban" »

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A reliquary containing the blood of Blessed Mother Teresa, along with her crucifix, rosary and sandals, will be put on display at Baltimore area churches this week, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced.

On Friday, Bishop Denis Madden will celebrate a Mass at 12:10 p.m. at the Baltimore Basilica, which was visited by the candidate for sainthood in May 1996, a year before her death.

The relics are coming to Baltimore as part of a tour of North America organized by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth. The missionaries operate Gift of Hope, a hospice center for AIDS patients in the former convent of St. Wenceslaus Church in East Baltimore.

The relics will be received at Gift of Hope at 4 p.m. Wednesday and may be venerated by visitors until 8:30 p.m. Mass will be celebrated at 8 a.m. Thursday at St. Wenceslaus, followed by a holy hour and veneration of relics until noon.

Thursday evening, the relics are to be transported to Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown where a Mass will be celebrated in Spanish at 5:30 p.m., followed by a holy hour, rosary and veneration until 8:30 p.m.

Mass will be celebrated at 8 a.m. at St. Leo in Little Italy on Friday, followed by a holy hour, rosary and veneration until 11 a.m.

Mother Teresa first visited Baltimore in 1992 to celebrate the opening of the AIDS hospice, according to the archdiocese.

“Any man, woman or child feeling unloved with nowhere to go is welcome to come here," she said. "I have no gold or silver to give you but I’m giving you my sisters.”

Mother Teresa died in 1997 at the age of 87. She was beatified -- a step toward sainthood -- in 2003 by Pope John Paul II.

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Pope Benedict XVI is creating a new Vatican office to fight secularization and "re-evangelize" the West — a tacit acknowledgment that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe haven't succeeded and need a new boost, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict announced the new office during a vespers' service Monday, confirming reports in the Italian media of a handful of new Vatican appointments expected to be announced before the pope goes on summer holiday and the Vatican bureaucracy slows down.

Benedict said parts of the world are still missionary territory, where the Catholic Church is still relatively unknown. But in other parts of the world like Europe, Christianity has existed for centuries yet "the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and role of the Church."

The new pontifical council, he said, would "promote a renewed evangelization" in countries where the Church has long existed "but which are living a progressive secularization of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God.'"

The pontiff's announcement came as he marked the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, a major feast day in Europe that is traditionally celebrated with representatives of the Orthodox church. While ties with some Orthodox remain strained, both churches have found a common ground in their fight against secularization.

Benedict didn't say who would head the new office, but Italian media have said he would tap Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life is the Vatican's top bioethics official.

Fisichella created a minor uproar last year when he defended Brazilian doctors who aborted the twin fetuses of a 9-year-old child who was raped by her stepfather. His call for mercy sparked heated criticism from some hardline conservative members of the Pontifical Academy who questioned his suitability to lead the institution.

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Belgium insisted Monday in a dispute with the Vatican over credibility that Belgian law enforcement authorities — not the potentially biased Catholic Church — will investigate sexual abuse cases involving clergy, the Associated Press reports.

A panel created by Belgian bishops 12 years ago to look into abuse cases disbanded on Monday, saying last week's seizure of its 500 case files rendered its existence pointless. Its chief, Peter Adriaenssens, accused authorities of betraying the trust of hundreds of victims and using his group to tap into information and testimony from abuse victims.

"We were bait," said Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist. He urged Belgian authorities to clarify to abuse victims — many of whom talked after being promised anonymity — "what is going to happen" to the allegations they made to his church-appointed commission.

Belgium's government doesn't appear to be concerned about having pushed the panel to the sidelines, despite an outburst from the Vatican that Thursday's police raid was an unprecedented intrusion into church affairs.

"I respect Peter Adriaenssens, but his commission was created by the Church," Glenn Audenaert, head of Belgium's judiciary police, said after last week's police raids. "That commission cannot start a prosecution. Only the justice department can."

In Belgium, it has been doing that with unusual force.

Continue reading "Belgium: Police, not church, will investigate abuse" »

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The Vatican issued an unprecedented public rebuke Monday of a leading cardinal who had questioned the church's policy of celibacy and openly criticized the retired Vatican No. 2 for his handling of clerical sex abuse cases, the Associated Press reports.

In a statement, the Vatican said only the pope can make such accusations against a cardinal, not another so-called prince of the church.

In April, Vienna's archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, accused the former Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of blocking a probe into a sex abuse scandal that rocked Austria's church 15 years ago.

Schoenborn also accused Sodano of causing "massive harm" to victims when he dismissed claims of clerical abuse as "petty gossip" on Easter Sunday.

Schoenborn has been a leading figure in the abuse crisis, forcefully denouncing abuse, presiding over service of reparations for victims and openly calling for an honest examination of issues like celibacy.

Schoenborn's comments about Sodano were remarkable in that they were directed at Pope John Paul II's No. 2, who has already come under fire for his alleged stonewalling of a Vatican investigation into the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who was found to have abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.

Sodano still wields enormous influence in Vatican circles as the dean of the College of Cardinals.

Such a public and formal reprimand of a cardinal is extremely rare — particularly for one like Schoenborn, who has long been close to Benedict, his onetime professor, and is seen as a possible papal contender himself.

Continue reading "Vatican admonishes cardinal for criticism" »

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The pope on Sunday called the raids carried out by Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse "surprising and deplorable" and voiced his support for the Belgian bishops who were held during the searches, the Associated Press reports.

In a message of solidarity to the head of the Belgian bishops' conference, Pope Benedict XVI said justice must take its course but also asserted the right of the Catholic Church to investigate abuse alongside civil law enforcement authorities.

It was first time the pope himself had commented on the June 24 raids, and his message to Monsignor Andre Joseph Leonard capped a daily ratcheting up of the Vatican's criticism. On Saturday, the No. 2 Vatican official said the raids were unprecedented even under communism.

In the raids, police searched the home and former office of former Archbishop Godfried Danneels, taking documents and his personal computer. The raid came as the country's nine bishops were starting their monthly meeting; the men were held for nine hours and — along with diocese staff — had to surrender their cell phones.

Police and prosecutors have not said if Danneels is suspected of abuse himself or simply had records pertaining to allegations against another person.

Separately, police seized the records of an independent panel investigating sexual abuse by priests, some 500 cases in all. The head of the panel called the raid a huge violation of the privacy of people — mostly men now in their 60s and 70s — who have lived with the shame of abuse.

Benedict said he wanted to write to Belgium's bishops "at this sad moment" to express his solidarity "for the surprising and deplorable way in which the searches were conducted." He noted that the monthly meeting of the bishops was to discuss precisely clerical abuse.

Continue reading "Pope: Police raids 'surprising and deplorable'" »

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A hidden-camera video showing Jews being harassed on the street in a Moroccan neighborhood of Amsterdam has led Dutch authorities to consider combating hate crimes with "decoy Jews" — undercover police officers wearing yarmulkes, the Associated Press reports.

Enthusiasm for the unusual idea is a sign of the ongoing tension between the Muslim minority and the rest of the Dutch population over issues of immigration and crime.

The idea of using "decoy Jews" to detect and arrest bigots has been embraced by both a prominent Moroccan politician and by Amsterdam's acting mayor, who is Jewish. Law enforcement officials say the idea is feasible but would only be of limited practical use due to entrapment concerns.

"It's important that it not provoke any intent to commit a criminal act that wasn't there in the first place," Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin told parliament in a debate Thursday night on how to combat discrimination.

Of course "it would be wrong to consider wearing a yarmulke itself a provocation," he said.

Continue reading "Authorities consider using 'decoy Jews' to fight hate" »

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The Vatican said Friday it was astonished and outraged that Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse had conducted raids that also targeted the graves of two archbishops, the Associated Press reports.

The Vatican summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to convey its anger over the raids, which also included the home and offices of the retired archbishop of Belgium. The ambassador was called in for a meeting with the Vatican's foreign minister.

In a statement, the Vatican said any sinful and criminal abuse of minors from members of the church must be condemned and repeated that there is a need for justice and amends.

But it added, "The Secretariat of State also expresses astonishment at the way in which the search took place." It expressed "outrage over the violation of the tombs."

On Thursday, police raided the home and former office of former Archbishop Godfried Danneels, taking documents and Danneels' personal computer. Police and prosecutors did not say if Danneels was suspected of abuse himself or simply had records pertaining to allegations against another person. He was not questioned.

Investigators also opened the graves of archbishops in the St. Rombouts Cathedral in Mechlin, north of Brussels, looking for possibly incriminating documents, said Jean-Marc Meilleur, spokesman for the Brussels public prosecutor.

Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, Belgium's current archbishop, condemned the search of the cathedral, saying that is stuff for "crime novels and 'The Da Vinci Code.'"

Continue reading "Raids included bishops' graves; Vatican outraged" »

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The Vatican is asking a federal judge to reject an attempt to question Pope Benedict XVI under oath in a Kentucky sex abuse lawsuit on the grounds that there has been no evidence of a link to church officials in Rome, the Associated Press reports.

The arguments filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Louisville also say that forcing Benedict, a head of state, to give a deposition would violate international law. The U.S. considers the Vatican to be a sovereign nation.

The lawsuit accuses the Vatican, referred to in papers as the Holy See, of orchestrating a coverup of priests sexually abusing children throughout the U.S.

Louisville attorney William McMurry asked to depose Benedict and other Vatican officials in a motion in March and the filing on Thursday is a response. McMurry has also asked that the Vatican turn over administrative documents and respond to questions related to the abuse scandal in the U.S.

Attorneys for the Vatican argue that thousands of documents provided in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville several years ago have turned up no connection to Rome. The Louisville archdiocese reached a settlement in 2003 with more than 240 abuse victims represented by McMurry for $25 million.

McMurry will have an opportunity to reply to the Vatican's latest arguments in a response to the court.

Continue reading "Vatican asks judge to block effort to question pope" »

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Police raided the home and former office of the recently retired archbishop of Belgium on Thursday, carrying off documents and a personal computer as part of an investigation into the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests, the Associated Press reports.

Police and prosecutors would not say if former Archbishop Godfried Danneels was suspected of abuse himself or simply had records pertaining to allegations against another person.

Separately, police seized the records of an independent panel investigating sexual abuse by priests, some 500 cases in all. The head of the panel called the raid a huge violation of the privacy of people — mostly men now in their 60s and 70s — who have lived with the shame of abuse.

The raids followed recent statements to police "that are related to the sexual abuse of children within the church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor's office. He would not offer specifics on the case.

Police took documents, but did not question Danneels at his home in the city of Mechlin, north of Brussels, said Hans Geybels, the spokesman for the former archbishop.

"They did take away his computer," he said.

Continue reading "Police raid home, offices of retired archbishop" »

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A Jewish dance group was attacked with stones by a group of children and teenagers during a performance at a street festival in the Germany city of Hannover, police said Thursday. One dancer suffered a leg injury and the group then canceled their performance, the Associated Press reports.

The teenagers also used a megaphone to shout anti-Semitic slurs during the Saturday afternoon attack, Hannover police spokesman Thorsten Schiewe said.

Police said the incident is under investigation and that they do not have an exact number of attackers yet. Schiewe said there were several Muslim immigrant youths among the attackers.

Two suspects, a 14-year-old and a 19-year-old, were being questioned, he said.

Alla Volodarska, whose Progressive Jewish community of Hannover group held the performance, told The Associated Press in an interview that members were still in shock.

"What happened is just so awful," Volodarska said. "The teenagers started throwing stones the moment our dance group was announced, even before they started dancing."

Continue reading "In Germany, youths attack Jewish dance group" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
        

A former German bishop accused of physical abuse, alcoholism and sexual harassment apologized for his misconduct on Wednesday and agreed to stand by his decision to resign, the Associated Press reports.

Germany's Augsburg diocese said in a statement that it has reached a written agreement with the Rev. Water Mixa that his decision to step down as its Roman Catholic bishop is final.

In a separate letter by Mixa, which was published on the diocese's website Wednesday, he also apologized for his shortcomings without specifying them in detail.

Mixa, 69, who served the Augsburg diocese from 2005 to 2010, offered his resignation on April 22 after accusations surfaced that he had hit children decades ago as a priest and allegations of financial misconduct in the congregation.

Pope Benedict XVI accepted Mixa's resignation on May 8, but earlier this month the bishop said members of the Augsburg diocese and two German bishops had forced him to resign against his will. But earlier this week fresh allegations surfaced, including that Mixa had made sexual advances at two priests.

In neighboring Austria, the country's Catholic cardinal also took steps designed to put the church sex scandal behind it. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn unveiled measures designed to prevent clerical abuse and help victims.

"The wall of silence has to be broken," he told reporters in Mariazell, a famous Austrian shrine to the Virgin Mary. "This is ... cannot be allowed to repeat itself."

Continue reading "Accused bishop won't take back resignation" »

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A Mexican man says that leaders of an influential Roman Catholic religious order knew their founder was a child molester and did nothing to stop him, the Associated Press reports.

Jose Raul Gonzalez is seeking unspecified damages from the Legionaires of Christ in a lawsuit filed Monday in Connecticut. The international group has its U.S. headquarters in the state.

Gonzalez says the Reverend Marcial Maciel (mahr-cee-AHL' mah-cee-EL') was his father, and started sexually abusing him when he was a little boy. The 30-year-old Gonzalez says the abuse continued for years. Maciel died in 2008.

Legion officials have acknowledged Maciel fathered at least one child, a girl, and abused seminarians, but insist they only recently learned of his double life. A recent Vatican investigation concluded Maciel lived a "life devoid of scruples."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

We have all seen the devastation of nuclear bombs as confirmed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even today the good people of these two cities are affected by the nuclear radiation injected by these bombs. To be honest, the enormity of long-term devastation that a single nuclear weapon can cause is such that it prohibits their use.

Countries that possess it use it to scare would-be invaders, and each other. It is more like a permanent “Boo!”

Iran is a one-party Islamic theocratic state ruled by mullahs who follow the Shia brand of Islam. The mullahs control Iran’s oil revenues. By using an interlocking system of financial patronage they exercise complete control over a strong regular army and a large private army, the Basijs (religious police) -- estimates include 7.5 million men and 5 million women ensuring compliance with Islamic laws -- and a legislature whose candidates must be approved by the council of mullahs in Qom, Iran’s Vatican. Like the Soviet Union of past, Iran is a police state, in which you are under constant surveillance.

Still, Iran is much more democratic than, say, Saudi Arabia, as women are part of the workforce. But it is not a democracy, as opposition to the party of God is not allowed. The opposition we saw last year on the streets of Tehran -- which was only opposing election results and not the writ of Imam Khomeni, who has the same stature as Pope in the Catholic Church -- was quickly suppressed.

There is a long proxy war being fought between mainly Sunni theocratic Saudi Arabia and theocratic Shia Iran. This war is being fought through sponsoring Islamic parties, including the Hizbollah in Lebanon, which wish to establish theocratic states all over the Muslim world. The viciousness of this war is evident on the streets of Baghdad, where men have been executed in Shia and Sunni neighborhoods and their bodies dumped on the pavement.

The suicide bombers in Afghanistan are infused with a religious ideology that promises paradise to them and to all the innocent people they might kill.

Continue reading "Guest post: Why are we afraid of a nuclear Iran?" »

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When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis' cult classic "The Blues Brothers," claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word, the Associated Press reports.

On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

The film is based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live." In the story, Jake and Elwood -- played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively -- embark on an unlikely road trip featuring concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.

But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as "The Penguin" and the brothers' periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film.

In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman).

Continue reading "Vatican honors Jake and Elwood" »

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A man who claims he is the son of Legionaries of Christ founder Marcial Maciel plans to sue the group, saying the Roman Catholic clergyman molested him for years, the Associated Press reports.

Jose Raul Gonzalez of Mexico plans to file the claim of fraud and negligence Monday in Connecticut against the worldwide Legionaries of Christ, said his attorney, Jeff Anderson. The order has its U.S. headquarters in the state.

Gonzalez' mother, Blanca Lara Gutierrez, has said the late Rev. Marcial Maciel led a double life, had two children with her, adopted another, then sexually abused two of the three.

Lara Gutierrez said she was 19 when she met the priest, then 56, who passed himself off as "Jose Rivas," an employee of an international oil company, a private investigator and a CIA agent. She said she didn't discover his real identity until 1997, through a magazine article.

After decades of vehemently denying abuse allegations against Maciel, Legion officials have recently acknowledged the priest fathered at least one child, a girl who now lives in Spain, and sexually abused seminarians. Leaders of the religious order have met several times with Gutierrez but have not publicly affirmed her claim. Maciel died in 2008 at age 87.

Gonzalez has acknowledged previously asking the Legion for $26 million to keep quiet, saying Maciel had promised him and his brothers a trust fund. Anderson said in an interview Friday that Gonzalez had only asked for "what, in effect, had been promised to them."

Continue reading "Man says he is Maciel's son, sues Legoinaries" »

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Muslims around the globe remain uneasy about the U.S. and are increasingly disenchanted with President Barack Obama, according to a poll that suggests his drive to improve relations with the Muslim world has had little impact, the Associated Press reports.

Even so, the U.S. image is holding strong in many other countries and continues to be far better than it was during much of George W. Bush's presidency, according to the survey.

There is one glaring exception: Mexico, where 62 percent expressed favorable views of the U.S. just days before an Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigrants was signed in April, but only 44 percent did so afterward.

The findings by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted in April and May in the United States and 21 other countries by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, come amid a global economic downturn and U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The poll has been measuring the views of people around the world since 2002.

Among the seven countries surveyed with substantial Muslim populations, the U.S. was seen favorably by just 17 percent in Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan and 21 percent in Jordan. The U.S.'s positive rating was 52 percent in Lebanon, 59 percent in Indonesia and 81 percent in Nigeria, where Muslims comprise about half the population.

None of those figures was an improvement from last year. There were slight dips in Jordan and in Indonesia, where Obama spent several years growing up. Egypt saw a 10-point drop, even though Obama gave a widely promoted June 2009 speech in Cairo aimed at reaching out to the Muslim world.

Continue reading "Global poll: Muslims leery of U.S., Obama" »

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Israel agreed Thursday to ease its three-year-old land blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, hoping to quell international outrage over its deadly raid on a flotilla bound for the Palestinian territory, the Associated Press reports.

In one of the major changes, Israel will allow in more desperately needed construction materials for civilian projects, provided those projects are carried out under international supervision, government and military officials said. Israel has barely allowed in goods such as cement and steel, fearing Hamas militants could use them to build weapons and fortifications. The policy has prevented rebuilding thousands of homes and other buildings damaged in Israel's war with Hamas last year.

An Israeli military official told The Associated Press all foods would be allowed in to the impoverished territory, effective immediately. Authorities had previously allowed a short and constantly changing list of foods in, but the list has been growing incrementally in recent months.

Israel is maintaining its naval blockade intended to keep weapons shipments out of the hands of Hamas.

"This is a step in the right direction," said Cristina Galach, spokeswoman for the European Union presidency.

However, Hamas was not satisfied.

"We want a real lifting of the siege, not window-dressing," said Hamas lawmaker Salah Bardawil.

Continue reading "After flotilla raid, Israel to ease Gaza blockade" »

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Tens of thousands of black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews staged mass demonstrations on Thursday to protest a Supreme Court ruling forcing the integration of a religious girls' school, the Associated Press reports.

Protesters snarled traffic in Jerusalem and another large religious enclave, crowded onto balconies in crowded city squares, and waved posters decrying the court's decision and proclaiming the supremacy of religious law. There were no reports of violence.

The showdown shined a spotlight on a wide array of social issues Israel has been grappling with for years, including discrimination inside the Jewish community, the disproportionate clout of the country's ultra-Orthodox minority and the precarious state of the country's education system.

Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, descent at a girls' school in the West Bank settlement of Emanuel don't want their children to study with schoolgirls of Mideast and North African descent, known as Sephardim.

The Ashkenazi parents insist they aren't racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated, as they have been for years, arguing that the families of the Sephardi girls aren't religious enough.

Continue reading "Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest school integration" »

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A former German bishop said Wednesday his peers in the Roman Catholic church pressured him into resigning over abuse allegations and that he is considering appealing his case to the Vatican court, the Associated Press reports.

The Rev. Walter Mixa's claims — published in an interview by the daily Die Welt — prompted immediate rebuttals from both his former diocese in Augsburg and the archdiocese in nearby Munich, which said in a statement "everything was done according to the rules."

Mixa, the most prominent cleric within the German catholic hierarchy to lose his post over the country's spiraling abuse scandal, offered his resignation on April 22 over allegations that he hit children decades ago as a priest. He had initially denied the reports, only to add later that he may have slapped kids.

After he offered to resign, public prosecutors launched an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse against Mixa, but ended up dropping the case.

In the interview, the former bishop said his resignation letter to Pope Benedict XVI was drafted by other clerics.

"The pressure under which I signed the prewritten resignation was similar to purgatory," Mixa was quoted as saying.

"Three days later, I repealed it in a letter to the pope," he said. "During those days I was desperate not knowing what to do."

Nonetheless, the pontiff accepted the resignation on May 8.

Continue reading "Accused bishop says peer pressured him to resign" »

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A Muslim civil rights group wants the U.S. government to allow a Virginia man stuck in Egypt for weeks to return to the U.S., the Associated Press reports.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says 26-year-old Yahya Wehelie (yah-yah we-HEEL'-ee) was interrogated aggressively by FBI agents in Cairo and placed on a no-fly list. He and his 19-year-old brother Yusuf apparently attracted FBI attention after a long stay in Yemen.

Government agents allowed Yusuf, who says he was chained to a wall at an Egyptian police facility for several days, to return to the U.S.

An Egyptian security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media confirms there is a Somali-American stranded in Cairo waiting for his name to be lifted from the no-fly list.

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Israel will significantly ease its bruising land blockade of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, officials said, in an effort to blunt the widespread international criticism that has followed a deadly Israeli commando raid on a blockade-busting flotilla.

Senior Cabinet ministers were meeting to limit restrictions on what gets into Gaza — materials Israel says militants could use in their battle against the Jewish state — to a short list of goods, some of them desperately needed by Gaza civilians, the Associated Press reports.

But the Israeli naval blockade that was at the root of the deadly raid that prompted the international outcry will remain intact.

It also wasn't clear whether key raw materials for industry would be permitted to enter again and whether Israel would end its ban on Gazan exports.

The three-year-old embargo has shuttered hundreds of Gazan factories, put tens of thousands of people out of work and brought the territory's fragile economy to a standstill. Travel restrictions that confine most of Gaza's 1.5 million people to the territory are also likely to remain in effect.

Israel, with Egypt's cooperation, has blockaded the Palestinian territory by land and sea ever since Hamas militants, with a violent anti-Israel agenda, seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Continue reading "Israel to vote on easing Gaza blockade" »

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French police are banning a street party whose organizers planned to serve alcohol and pork-based sausage in a heavily Muslim Paris neighborhood, the Associated Press reports.

Police said Tuesday that the party, called "Sausage and booze," was banned because it could have been viewed as a provocation in the Goutte-d'Or neighborhood of northern Paris, where Muslims pray on the streets on Fridays because there are not enough mosques. Alcohol and pork are banned in Islam.

Organizers said they were organizing Friday's party to protest Islam's encroachment on traditional French values in the neighborhood. The party was backed by several extreme-right associations. Muslim groups had announced a counterparty serving halal food.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

A University of California, Irvine, disciplinary committee ruled that a Muslim student group should be suspended for at least a year because of a protest that disrupted a talk by Israel's ambassador and led to the arrest of 11 students, according to documents released Monday.

The letter from a student affairs disciplinary committee to Muslim Student Union leaders said the group was guilty of disorderly conduct, obstructing university activities, furnishing false information and other violations of campus policy, the Associated Press reports.

University spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said the committee's decision will be a binding recommendation to the campus' office of student affairs if a planned appeal by the group does not succeed.

MSU attorney Reem Salahi said the committee relied on evidence relied that was "inadequate and problematic" but declined to outline the group's challenge in detail. She said the decision, if sustained, would leave Muslim students without an organization representing their interests.

"It really does have very lasting constitutional implications," she said. "It's a chilling effect for Muslims on campus and their right to associate."

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted and called "murderer" and "war criminal" by pro-Palestinian students as he was giving a talk on the Middle East peace process in February.

Eleven students were cited on charges of disrupting a public event after they were requested to refrain from heckling but did not.

Continue reading "Muslim group faces suspension for Israel protest" »

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A Saudi court convicted a man and sentenced him to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall, a government-owned daily reported Thursday.

Saudi religious police arrested the man and two women after seeing them on mall cameras "engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers," the Al-Yom newspaper said.

The man, who is in his 20s, was seen with a woman "sitting on one of the chairs, exchanging kisses and hugs." It was unclear what the other woman was doing. Neither the man nor the women were identified by name.

The kingdom's powerful religious police, under the control of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, enforce Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam, which prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling.

Zealous officers routinely jail unrelated couples found sitting together in restaurants or coffee shops.

The policemen also patrol public places to ensure women are covered and not wearing makeup; shops are forced in most places to close several times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Such kissing busts have increased as economic pressures have made it harder for young couples to marry and as the ultraconservative kingdom grapples with a push to relax its strict social mores.

Continue reading "Saudi sentenced for 'kisses and hugs' in public" »

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Pope Benedict XVI begged forgiveness Friday from abuse victims for the sins of priests and promised to "do everything possible" to ensure that Roman Catholic clerics don't rape or molest children ever again, the Associated Press reports.

AP correspondent Nicole Winfield writes that Benedict's pledge was similar to comments he has made in the past. But it was uttered in the highly symbolic setting of a Mass in St. Peter's Square, concelebrated by 15,000 white-robed priests, all marking the end of the Vatican's Year of the Priest — a year marred by revelations of hundreds of new cases of clerical abuse, cover-ups in several nations and Vatican inaction to root out pedophiles.

In his homily, Benedict lamented that during what should have been a year of joy for the priesthood the "sins of priests came to light — particularly the abuse of the little ones."

"We too insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again," he said.

He said in admitting men into the priesthood and in forming them as clergymen "we will do everything we can to weigh the authenticity of their vocation and make every effort to accompany priests along their journey, so that the Lord will protect them and watch over them in troubled situations and amid life's dangers."

Continue reading "Pope begs forgiveness, vows action on abuse" »

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Pope Benedict XVI strongly defended celibacy for priests as a sign of faith in an increasingly secular world during a rally Thursday that drew some 15,000 priests from around the world to Rome, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict didn't directly mention the clerical abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church for months, but he referred to what he called "secondary scandals" that showed "our own insufficiencies and sins."

Benedict's comments came during an evening vigil service in St. Peter's Square to mark the end of the Vatican's year of the priest — a year that has been marred by revelations of hundreds of new cases of clerical abuse, cover-up and Vatican inaction to stop it.

There had been speculation that Benedict might again refer to the scandal, following his recent comments en route to Portugal during which he acknowledged that it was born of the "sin within the church" and not from outside elements. Previously, Vatican officials, Vatican publications and cardinals had blamed the scandal on the media, the Masons and anti-Catholic lobbies, among others.

But Benedict didn't directly address it Thursday night. He is due to celebrate a final Mass on Friday before the rally comes to a close.

On Thursday, he responded to preselected questions from five priests and none asked for his thoughts about the scandal. One asked him to speak instead about what he called the "beauty of celibacy," which he said was so often criticized in the secular world.

Continue reading "Benedict defends priestly celibacy" »

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The Russian Orthodox Church called Wednesday for an end to the "monopoly of Darwinism" in Russian schools, saying religious explanations of creation should be taught alongside evolution, Reuters reports.

The British news agency says Russian liberals have vowed to fight efforts to include religious teaching in schools. Russia's dominant church has experienced a revival in recent years, worrying rights groups who say its power is undermining the country's secular constitution.

The report continues:

"The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past," senior Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion said at a lecture in Moscow.

"Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Read the rest of the Reuters story.

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Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich — a recent convert to Catholicism — is in Poland promoting a documentary he co-produced on Pope John Paul II's role in defeating communism, the Associated Press reports.

Gingrich, a Republican, is preaching to the converted: the Polish-born pope is revered, and Poles credit him with inspiring the struggle that eventually helped bring down the Soviet-backed communists in eastern Europe.

Gingrich said Wednesday that his film, "Nine Days that Changed the World," is still needed to remind young Poles, secular historians and people worldwide of John Paul's anti-totalitarian convictions. The film, which will be screened at American universities this fall, is also being translated into Chinese and Spanish in hopes it will inspire people in Cuba and elsewhere, Gingrich said.

"We believe the pope's message of freedom through faith and his principle that no government can get between you and God is a principle that is relevant in every country, for every person around the world," Gingrich said at a news conference in Warsaw attended by the film's director and the other producers, among them his wife, Callista Gingrich.

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Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

The flotilla incident is an unfortunate accident born out of Israel’s need to maintain its naval blockade of Gaza and the activists' objective of breaking Israel’s blockade. Instead of abseiling from helicopters onto the lead ship, which resulted in the loss of innocent lives, Israeli patrol boats could have escorted the flotilla to port.

Hamas’s non-recognition of Israel and demanding the return of Palestinians to a pre-1967 Jerusalem is undiluted rhetoric and must be treated as such. Declaring Hamas as terrorists, naval blockades and tit-for-tat bombings have not yielded any positive results. They have effectively derailed the peace process. Gaza has essentially become an internment camp.
Blockades leave unhappy memories. We should not forget the British blockade of Palestine in 1945 that forced flotillas carrying Jewish immigrants from Europe to turn back.

We must remember that Hamas won the 2006 elections in Palestine. Hamas won 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving the party the right to form the next cabinet under the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah. A reason for their victory was the corruption of the Fatah government.

In today’s unsettled world, beset by recession and America’s economy destroyed by Wall Street robbers and the BP oil spill, it is extremely important for Israel to take the lead in peace efforts. A peaceful Middle East is extremely important for winning America’s war on terror. Terrorist recruiters are celebrating the flotilla incident.

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The Anglican Communion has responded to the consecration of Mary Glasspool, the openly gay Annapolis priest who was became a bishop in Los Angeles last month, by suspending U.S. Episcopalians from serving on ecumenical bodies, the Associated Press reports.

The U.S. church opened a rift in the global communion, and within its own ranks, seven years ago by electing a gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Conservative African Anglicans have taken a lead in opposing moves in the United States and Canada to promote gays and to bless homosexual relationships.

Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, had called for a moratorium on appointing homosexuals to leadership positions. He asked for action against the Episcopal Church after Glasspool, formerly canon to the bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, was made an assistant bishop of Los Angeles.

The Anglican Communion is an association of 44 regional and national member churches, most founded by Church of England missionaries, with more than 80 million members in more than 160 countries.

The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, announced Monday that Episcopalians had been downgraded from members to consultants in formal ecumenical dialogues, annual meetings between Anglicans and clergy in other churches intended to build friendship and better understand one another's traditions and issues of mutual concern such as points of theology and ways of worshipping.

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Afghans have burned an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI out of anger over claims charities preached Christianity in the Muslim country, the Associated Press reports.

U.S.-based Church World Service and Norwegian Church Aid deny spreading Christianity. The government suspended them last week while investigating allegations in an Afghan television report.

More than 1,000 people marched Tuesday in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, demanding organizations that proselytized in Afghanistan be banned.

The crowd roared approval as protesters doused the effigy of the pope in kerosene and lit it.

They shouted: "Death to America! Long Live Islam!"

Aid workers say the allegations increase the threat to staff already at risk for insurgent attack.

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Groups that have long demanded that women be ordained Roman Catholic priests took advantage of the Vatican's crisis over clerical sex abuse to press their cause Tuesday, demanding the Vatican open discussions on letting women join the priesthood, the Associated Press reports.

Representatives of a half-dozen Catholic reform groups marched on St. Peter's Square on the eve of a three-day rally marking the end of the church's yearlong celebration of the priest. Vatican officials have said the during the rally Pope Benedict XVI may apologize for the decades of rapes and molestation that children suffered at the hands of priests.

The umbrella group Women's Ordination Conference said the Vatican shouldn't be celebrating the priesthood while "turning a blind eye when men in its ranks destroy the lives of children and families."

"While the hierarchy spends their time covering up scandals and throwing major celebrations for themselves, Catholic women are working for justice and making a positive difference in the world," said Erin Saiz Hanna, the Women's Ordination Conference executive director.

She spoke at a news conference before a dozen members of the reform groups marched to the Vatican in a bid to hand out flyers to tourists, priests and other passers-by. Police stopped them when they reached the square and asked them to leave, which they did.

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Greek Cypriot leaders made a blistering attack on Turkey for its occupation of northern Cyprus as Pope Benedict XVI began a pilgrimage to the divided island Friday bringing a message of peace to the region, the Associated Press reports.

Addressing Benedict, the head of Cyprus' Orthodox Church, Archbishop Chrysostomos II said that "Turkey has barbarously invaded and conquered by force of arms 37 percent of our homeland."

Chrysostomos said that Turkey "continues to carry out its obscure plans which include the annexation of the land now under military occupation, and then a conquest of the whole of Cyprus."

His comments came as Benedict began a sensitive three-day day visit to Cyprus, an island divided between ethnic Turks and Greeks and viewed by the Vatican as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East.

Chrysostomos also said the Turks "ruthlessly sacked" Christian artworks, saying they were seeking to make Greek and Christian culture disappear from the north. He urged the pope's help to ensure protection of the sacred Christian monuments and in the struggle against the Turks.

The pope did not respond to the archbishop's remarks. Instead, in his comments from an archaeological site where St. Paul is said to have preached in the 1st century and to have been whipped by Roman soldiers, Benedict spoke of the cooperation between Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Earlier, the pope also declined to blame Turkey for the killing of Catholic bishop in Turkey on the eve of the trip to Cyprus.

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A Roman Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southern Turkey on Thursday, a day before he was scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the pope, the Associated Press reports.

Luigi Padovese, the pope's apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun. Dogan news agency video footage of the scene showed the bishop lying dead in front of a building.

Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz, the governor for the province of Hatay, said police immediately caught the suspected killer.

He said the man, identified only as Murat A., was Padovese's driver for the last four and a half years and was mentally unstable.

"The initial investigation shows that the incident is not politically motivated," Lekesiz said. "We have learned that the suspect had psychological problems and was receiving treatment."

Padovese, who is the equivalent of the bishop for the Anatolia region, was scheduled to leave for Cyprus on Friday to meet with the pope, who is visiting the island, and fellow bishops from around the region for preparations before the church's synod of bishops on the Middle East. The Synod is scheduled for October.

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Categories: Catholicism, International, People
        

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

Amid the many difficulties faced by anyone writing about the events in the Middle East of the past few days is what to call those aboard the Gaza flotilla. Many news outlets have referred to these “passengers” as “pro-Palestinian activists.” In its plainest sense, the term denotes someone advocating a political or social cause by means of deliberate “action.” But in common parlance the term connotes a particular type of action -- namely, non-violent action. (We do not refer to the 9/11 terrorists as “activists,” though they certainly were taking deliberate action to advocate a political cause.)

For those aboard five of the six boats, this name makes some sense. According to reports from both sides, the passengers on these boats did not offer violent resistance to the Israeli armed servicemen who boarded their ships. Their ships were commandeered and sent to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where the humanitarian goods on board were unloaded and prepared for shipment to Gaza. The activists were processed to ensure they did not present a terror risk, and released.

This, I submit, is exactly what John Lewis would have done if he had planned the mission.

Most readers will remember that John Lewis, currently a Democratic congressman from Georgia, was among the “Freedom Riders” who through their fearless activism brought down legal segregation in the Southern states. Though he was arrested and beaten on multiple occasions, he held unswervingly both to his political goal and to his nonviolent principles. For good reason President Obama gave him a signed picture from his Inauguration declaring, “Because of you, John.”

Now, I do not know anything about Congressman Lewis’ position on the State of Israel beyond the fact that he co-sponsored a resolution congratulating Israel on its 60th anniversary (along with over half of his House colleagues, including Roscoe Bartlett, Albert Wynn and some 264 others in between). His few public statements on the Middle East have stressed the need for peace in the region, and urged all parties involved to seek nonviolent resolutions of their differences. I had the privilege of taking a class on the civil rights movement in college with Julian Bond, whom Lewis defeated in a 1986 Democratic primary to win that House seat; Bond had a number of things to say about Lewis but I don’t recall that any of them involved Israel. So I could be wrong about this, and I will gladly clarify if the Congressman or his staff say so.

The point of the Freedom Rides, as with all nonviolent action in the civil rights era, was to demonstrate the injustice of Jim Crow laws by firmly, respectfully and nonviolently breaking them, then suffering the consequences. The idea was that by receiving unjust punishment for breaking unjust laws, they would shame the nation into upholding the civil rights of all its citizens.

Many trace this strategy to the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus says that if someone tries to sue you for the shirt off your back you should give him your pants, too (Matt. 5:40, my (broad) translation) – standing there naked, the interpretation goes, will demonstrate how outrageously you are being treated and shame your persecutor (or a just judge) into ensuring that the basics of human survival aren’t wrested from you in a parody of justice.

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Categories: International, Islam, Jason Poling, Judaism, People, Politics
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac, a poet and a political analyst. He left his native Pakistan in 1972 and has been living in the United States since 1980.

The brutal murder of eighty Ahmadi Muslims in two mosques in Lahore last week by the Taliban confirms the contamination of the Indian-Pakistani subcontinent’s non-violent Sufi Islam, practiced for more than a thousand years, with the Saudi brand of Islam imported during the war against the soviets.

Madrassas financed by Saudi/Iranian money teach an ideology of Islam that mistakenly assumes anyone and everyone not agreeing with them is an infidel deserving of extermination. The Taliban have embraced this ideology and are supported by the Islamic parties in Pakistan.

Muslim clerics must be reminded that a person’s religion is determined by God, and as good Muslims they must submit to the will of God.

In the early days of Islam only a few rich individuals had the written volumes of the Quran, and these individuals along with their clerics had a monopoly over interpreting the Quran. An advisement was transformed into complete prohibition to control human behavior in a mostly illiterate population. Interpretations concerning women and minorities were also misinterpreted to control 50 percent of any population.

Islamic laws were introduced in Pakistan in December 1984 by a military dictatorship through a fake referendum. The time has come for Pakistan’s government to introduce a bill guaranteeing complete freedom of religion while at the same time repealing Islamic laws that clearly violate the rights of women and minorities.

Madrassas and religious establishments are safe houses for would-be terrorists and must be inspected to remove criminals hiding behind the veil of religion.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (66)
        

Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists, the Associated Press reports.

The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the strip. Turkey, which unofficially supported the flotilla, has led the criticism, calling the Israeli raid a "bloody massacre."

Amid the increasing tensions, the Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike in Gaza on Tuesday, and an Islamic militant group said three of its members were killed after firing rockets into southern Israel. Israeli authorities say the rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries.

Two militants infiltrating into Israel from Gaza were killed in a separate incident Tuesday, the military said.

The pro-Palestinian flotilla had been headed to Gaza with tens of thousands of tons of aid that Israel bans from Gaza. After days of warnings, Israel intercepted the flotilla under the cover of darkness early Monday, setting off a violent melee that left nine activists dead and dozens of people, including seven soldiers, wounded. Most of the dead were believed to be Turks.

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Italy's bishops' conference provided the first ever statistics of clerical sex abuse in the country Tuesday, saying there had been about 100 cases over the past 10 years that warranted church trials or other canonical procedures, the Associated Press reports.

Monsignor Mariano Crociata, the No. 2 official in the Italian bishops' conference, gave the estimate during a press conference on the sidelines of the bishops' general assembly, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies reported.

He declined to say how many of the cases resulted in condemnation or defrocking of the priest, or how many were reported to police. While saying the church officials cooperated with police, he insisted that Italian law doesn't require bishops to report suspected abuse.

Some lawyers for victims say bishops are required to report abuse since they are public officials. Vatican norms say bishops should follow civil laws in reporting abuse.

Crociata's comments came a day after the head of the bishops' conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, opened the bishops' annual meeting by asking families to trust the Catholic Church despite the scandal, insisting that it had never intended to underestimate the problem.

The meeting came as more cases are coming to light in the Vatican's backyard: On Tuesday, the ANSA news agency reported that a 73-year-old priest well known in Milan's gay community had been arrested on charges he had sex with a 13-year-old boy, who is now 16. A day earlier, a priest in Savona went on trial for alleged sexual violence against a 12-year-old girl, ANSA said.

And last week, a Rome bishop testified in the case of another accused priest, the Rev. Ruggero Conti, that he knew about rumors of abuse two years before Conti was arrested yet didn't alert police or the Vatican or proceed with any canonical trial against him.

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The Roman Catholic Church's culture of discretion and focus on "sin and forgiveness rather than crime and punishment" were among ingrained factors that ultimately led to the child sex abuse scandal and cover-up surrounding the church today, a pre-eminent Australian bishop said Monday.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge, whose archdiocese is based in the national capital of Canberra, took the unusual step of writing an open letter attempting to explain the culture that led the church to turn a blind eye to priests accused of molesting children, the Associated Press reports.

Factors include a determination to protect the church's reputation, a culture of discretion, "institutionalized immaturity" of priests fostered by seminary training, and an outlook of "sin and forgiveness rather than crime and punishment," Coleridge wrote.

Clerical celibacy was not itself a factor but it "has its perils," he wrote. "The discipline of celibacy may also have been attractive to men in whom there were paedophile tendencies which may not have been explicitly recognised by the men themselves when they entered the seminary."

Coleridge said as a young priest in the 1970s, he regarded pedophilia cases as "tragic and isolated." Coleridge's view shifted when he was called to serve at the Vatican as chaplain to Pope John Paul II during a five-year period that ended in 2002. While there, Coleridge came to regard child abuse in the church as "cultural."

"There is no one factor that makes abuse of the young by Catholic clergy in some sense cultural," Coleridge wrote. "It seems to me a rather complex combination of factors which I do not claim to understand fully."

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Police in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki say they have arrested a Swiss national and a Greek Orthodox deacon for trafficking in what they said were holy relics, the Associated Press reports.

The Swiss man was arrested Sunday afternoon at Thessaloniki airport when he declared that he was carrying saints' remains. Police seized 197 bone fragments and 3 skulls, sprayed with fragrance and carrying stickers labeling them with names of well-known saints. The deacon who had given the Swiss man the supposed relics was arrested early Monday.

"This is an unprecedented case. ... We are investigating the provenance of these relics," Nikos Dimitriadis, head of Thessaloniki police's Financial Crimes division, said.

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Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal called for the liberation of some of the island's 200 political prisoners on Thursday after a rare sit-down with President Raul Castro, and said he thought his encounter with the Cuban leader was a "magnificent start" to serious dialogue, the Associated Press reports.

"The church is interested in an alleviation of the situation (of the political prisoners) — the liberation of some of them, for example," Cardinal Jaime Ortega said, a day after he and another church leader, Archbishop Dionisio Garcia, held a four-hour discussion with Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution, the seat of Cuba's government.

The church has called previously for freedom for the island's prisoners of conscience, but doing so right after such a high profile meeting was unusual.

Ortega said in a news conference that he had also brought up the government's decision to bar the dissident Ladies in White from holding weekly marches. The group — comprised of the wives and mothers of jailed political prisoners — were stopped from protesting for three straight weekends in April and pro-government counter-protesters were brought in to shout abuse at them.

The standoff ended after Ortega's mediation, when the government agreed to allow the quiet protests to resume in return for assurances the women would not expand their activities.

The cardinal made clear that no deal on any prisoner releases or easing of measures against the opposition had been struck.

"We are not talking about any commitments. We are talking about conversations with the government, conversations that had a magnificent start yesterday (Wednesday) and that ought to continue in the near future," Ortega said.

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