theguardian: Jonathan Freedland. As an ex-pope, Benedict will no longer enjoy the sovereign immunity available to heads of state. A prosecution is possible – but only in theory. Who would hand him over? Certainly not the Italian authorities. For all that, despite his age and the reverence of the office […]
AFP: Attackers threw petrol bombs at three churches in central Indonesia Thursday, in the latest assault on religious minorities in the world’s biggest Muslim-populated nation. Police in the south of […]
Aljazeera: People and Power: by Simon Ostrovsky and Veronika Dorman: Less than three decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Russian premier to have exchanged public expressions of solidarity and […]
The case of a young woman who was denied treatment by Catholic hospitals after she may have been raped has sparked a debate among German Catholics. At its heart is whether the Church should allow emergency contraceptive pills, or whether such drugs are equivalent to abortion. The German Bishops’ Conference […]
By Reuters Staff The Russian government has asked parliament to amend a bill that would set jail terms for “offending religious feeling” – a measure lawmakers proposed after last year’s […]
By Frank Hornig, Barbara Schmid, Fidelius Schmid and Peter Wensierski SPIEGEL.DE Rape victims are being turned away, and divorced employees are losing their jobs. Catholic hospitals, kindergartens and nursing homes […]
Epigraph: “And remember when Jesus, son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel, surely I am Allah’s Messenger unto you, fulfilling that which is before me of the Torah, and […]
Huff Post: by Charles Negy: One of the things that has always struck me about many Christians in the United States is the disconnect between their faith in Jesus and their personal behavior. One obvious example that rears its ugly head once a year is the whole enterprise of Christmas […]
Telegraph: The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK had failed to protect Nadia Eweida’s freedom to manifest her faith in the workplace. But it rejected a similar […]
Source: NY Times. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington National Cathedral, where the nation gathers to mourn tragedies and celebrate new presidents, will soon begin performing same-sex marriages. Cathedral officials tell The Associated Press the church will be among the first Episcopal congregations to implement a new […]
(RNS) The Harvard Theological Review is postponing publication of a major article on the papyrus fragment in which Jesus seems to refer to his wife, raising further doubts about a […]
Daily Times: CAIRO: The Egyptian army foiled a bid early Monday to attack a Coptic church in the Rafah border town with Gaza as the minority Christian community began celebrating its Christmas, MENA news agency reported. “Army units foiled an attack against the Rafah church at 1am (2300 GMT Sunday) and […]
Huff Post: Dave Pruett. The Church is convinced that there can be no real contradiction between science and faith. … It is certain that science and faith represent two different orders of knowledge, autonomous in their processes, but finally converging upon the discovery of reality in all its aspects… Given […]
Rimsha Masih’s family spent Christmas Day as they have spent the last four months: in hiding, afraid for their lives. In August, the young girl, who is aged between 10 and 14 and suffers from learning difficulties, was arrested and charged with blasphemy after a local cleric falsely accused her of […]
Huff Post: by Rabbi Mihael Berstein: A well known statement by the author and playwright Anton Chekhov maintains that if a gun is hanging on the wall in Act I it must be taken off and fired at some point by the end of the play. In a way, one […]
Festivities mark ‘birth of Christ and birth of state of Palestine’, patriarch tells crowds The Guardian: Deep in the Grotto of the Nativity, where a 14-point silver star set into […]
Washington Post: DAKAR, Senegal — After prayers at the mosque, Ibrahim Lo is off to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Soon he is eyeing the rows of dolls wrapped in […]
The Real Truth about a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year By Ansar Khan ”As to those who are righteous, when a suggestion from Satan assails them, they remember God: […]
Telegraph: The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than any other religious group. And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced […]
The Telegraph: “In the fight for the family, the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question,” the Pope said in […]