Reuters – Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput stripped five priests of their duties and apologized to their victims on Friday following an investigation into a pedophilia scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic archdiocese. The sanctions come as the archdiocese nears the end of its investigation into 27 priests who were put on leave when a January 2011 grand jury report raised questions about their possible involvement in abusing children. Read Article
Guardian – When Alex Aan picked up a copy of Karen Armstrong’s Holy War from his local library in west Sumatra in 2005, he had little inkling of his own religious battle to come. But after posting “God doesn’t exist” on Facebook, the soft-spoken civil servant, 30, faces up to 11 years in jail for what is considered blasphemy in Indonesia. His case has stoked a debate in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, whose 240 million citizens are technically guaranteed freedom of religion but protected by law only if they believe in one of six credos: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Those who question any of those face five years in prison for “insulting a major religion”, plus an additional six years if they use the internet to spread such “blasphemy” to others. Read Article
ScienceDaily — The slaughter of animals for commercial meat supply without stunning them first should at the very least be curbed, if not banned, concludes a former president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA) in an opinion piece in this week’s Veterinary Record. There has been a steady rise in the number of animals killed in this way over the past decade, the available data suggest. UK and EU legislation allow for the slitting of animals’ throats without prior stunning to enable Muslims and Jews to meet the dietary requirements of their faiths, but with the caveat that it must not cause “unnecessary suffering.” But it does, says Professor Bill Reilly, pointing to the findings of both the former Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) and the EU funded Dialrel Project, which encouraged dialogue among 11 countries on issues of religious slaughter. Read Article
Washington Post — Europe’s most controversial politician lives in a government safe house fitted with a panic room and guarded round the clock. A self-avowed foe of Islam who compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, he travels by bulletproof car and rarely talks with journalists. But when Geert Wilders … brought down the Dutch government last week in an extraordinary show of force by Europe’s resurgent far right, it wasn’t over his high-profile rhetorical war on Islam. Instead, the clash was over his emphasis on another belief that he and his Freedom Party now see as almost equally dangerous: an integrated Europe. Read article
In January this year the Secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced that it would be mandating all U.S. employers to include free birth control methods (including serialization) as part of their employees’ health care plans. However, as guest writer Madeline Johnson shows, this move has created a storm of controversy, and brought into the spotlight the whole question of the separation of church and state in the US constitution. CLICK HERE TO READ
With close to 7 billion people across the world believing in one of the four main religions, the topic is not to be treated lightly. It has unquestionably been the root cause of many wars, and is arguably behind many more than history gives credence. In more recent years, religion has butted heads with the scientific revolution, but it remains one of the greatest motivators of human action. For a comprehensive view of world news about Religion read our archive of 752 articles CLICK HERE
PhysOrg.com – A new report on the international surveys, “Belief About God Across Time and Countries,” was issued by the General Social Survey of the social science research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. It is based on a comprehensive, international study of belief in God and includes information from the International Social Survey Program, a consortium of the world’s leading opinion survey organizations. Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey, wrote the report. The data came from 30 countries in which surveys about belief in God have been taken at least twice, in some cases, since 1991. Researchers asked questions to determine people’s range of beliefs, from atheism to strong belief in God; their changing beliefs over their lifetime; and their attitude toward the notion that God is concerned with individuals. Read Article
Breitbart – both the United States and India moved swiftly to recognize his successor, former vice president Mohammed Waheed Hassan, without taking the trouble to find out what had really happened, he says.
“We did so much to make the Maldives more liberal,” he said. “To suddenly see the United States, so quickly — they could have held onto their horses for a few minutes and just asked me — so quickly to have recognized the status quo, that was very sad and shocking.” Read article
NYtimes – The High Election Commission struck down 10 candidates in all, including the three who have generated the most passion in this polarized nation: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief. A little more than a month before the vote begins, the ruling raised new doubts about the credibility of the election, which is supposed to inaugurate a new democracy after decades of authoritarian rule. Read article
Reuters – Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday voted to legalize abortions of severely brain-damaged fetuses, loosening the law in the world’s biggest Catholic country and a region where the spread of evangelical denominations in recent decades has maintained fierce opposition to abortion rights. With only two of the 10 judges voting against lifting the ban, the decision marks a small but historic shift in abortion law in Latin America’s biggest country. Read Article
Reuters – Kuwaiti lawmakers voted in favour of a legal amendment on Thursday which could make insulting God and the Prophet Mohammad punishable by death, after a case of suspected blasphemy on Twitter caused an uproar in the Gulf Arab state. Members of Parliament must vote on the proposal again in a second session and it would need the approval of the country’s ruler before becoming law. Read Article
Before your gorge yourself on yet another chocolate rabbit or egg this morning it is probably best to take a minute’s break to understand the historical reasons as to why you are honouring the female moon goddess so. To find out why CLICK HERE
AFP – White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt’s presidential election. The meeting on Tuesday with low-level National Security Council staff was part of a series of US efforts to broaden engagement with new and emerging political parties following Egypt’s revolution last year, a US official said. Read article
BBC – The move appears be a response to last month’s attacks by Mohamed Merah, an Islamist gunman who killed seven people around the city of Toulouse. The interior ministry said two men had been sent back to their home countries of Algeria and Mali, while another three face expulsion orders. On Friday, police arrested 19 suspected Islamist militants in dawn raids. Read article
NYTimes – The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power. Read article
AP – It was barely 4 a.m. when 19-year-old Rinkal Kumari disappeared from her home in a small village in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. When her parents awoke they found only her slippers and a scarf outside the door. Read Article
Nature – The Vatican has abruptly cancelled a controversial stem-cell conference that was set to be attended by the Pope next month. The Third International Congress on Responsible Stem Cell Research, scheduled for 25–28 April, was to focus on clinical applications of adult and reprogrammed stem cells. But a number of the invited speakers, including Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco, and keynote speaker George Daley, a stem-cell scientist at Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, are involved in research using human embryonic stem cells, which the Catholic Church considers unethical. The previous two congresses had also included scientists who worked on such cells, without generating much controversy. Read Article
BBC – The leader of the Middle East’s largest Christian minority was reported to suffer from cancer that had spread to several organs. Coptic Christians make up 10% of Egypt’s population of 80 million. After attacks on Coptic Christians in recent years, Pope Shenouda urged officials to do more to address the community’s concerns. Read Article
BBC – Cuban police have arrested dozens of opposition activists, a week ahead of a visit by Pope Benedict XVI. Most of those detained are members of the protest group Ladies in White, who are demanding the release of political prisoners. Many were stopped as they staged their silent weekly protest march along an avenue in the capital, Havana. The group says the country’s Communist authorities have increased pressure on them in recent days. Read Article
BBC – The 72-year-old has no party affiliation, but has gained a reputation as an eloquent speaker not afraid to address controversial issues. He will replace Christian Wulff, who resigned last month in a scandal over financial favours. Chancellor Angela Merkel had supported Mr Wulff, her ally, against Mr Gauck when they ran against each other for the largely ceremonial role of president in 2010. Read article
Washington Post – Perhaps the locals should have anticipated sparks on a town council stocked not only with a practicing pagan, a staunch atheist and an agnostic former stripper but also two evangelical Christians and a Methodist church organist. But few could have predicted that one small town’s fight over the abolition of Christian prayers at public meetings would escalate into Britain’s own culture wars. Read Article
Telegraph – In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross. It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work. Read Article
Reuters – Banks are foreclosing on America’s churches in record numbers as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data. The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance. Read Article
Washington Post – New York City’s Police Department is facing mounting criticism of its secret surveillance of Muslims across the Northeast, with ACLU chapters and numerous other groups demanding an investigation and New Jersey’s governor accusing the NYPD of arrogantly acting as if “their jurisdiction is the world.” Read Article
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