My friend, Roddy Evans, who has died aged 97, was a skilled surgeon and a remarkable man, whose commitment to his worldwide community was highly significant.
A Christian, he was drawn to the Moral Re-Armament movement (MRA, now Initiatives of Change) because it was based on practical Christianity: putting your own life in order first so that you can help others. Roddy lived a simple life and he believed that God would provide for him.
Continue reading...Attitudes to faith said to drive negative perceptions more than ethnicity or nationality
Religion is the “final frontier” of personal prejudice, with attitudes to faith driving negative perceptions more than ethnicity or nationality, a report to be published tomorrow will say.
How We Get Along, a two-year study of diversity by the Woolf Institute, is due to conclude that most people are tolerant of those from different ethnic or national backgrounds, but many have negative attitudes based on religion.
Continue reading...Damning report says church put its reputation above the welfare of abuse victims
The Catholic church “betrayed” its moral purpose by prioritising its reputation over the welfare of children who had been sexually abused by priests, a damning inquiry report has concluded.
In its final review of the church, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) was scathing in its criticism of the leadership of Cardinal Vincent Nichols and says the Vatican’s failure to cooperate with the investigation “passes understanding”.
Continue reading...President-elect of the US says his belief in equality is rooted in his ‘cultural Catholicism’
He carries a rosary in his pocket, one that belonged to his dead son, Beau. On election day last Tuesday, he went to mass, as he does every Sunday.
In his victory speech on Saturday night, he quoted from Ecclesiastes: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”
Continue reading...Mass demonstrations have exposed underlying anger at political and religious interference in people’s everyday lives
For 14 nights they have marched, enraged by a near-total ban on abortion that has stirred a generation to stage the largest mass demonstrations that Poland has seen since Solidarność toppled the communist regime in the 1980s.
Until soaring coronavirus numbers and a looming national lockdown made it almost impossible, up to a million people nightly defied a government ban on protests, taking to the streets from Warsaw to Łódź, Poznań to Wrocław, Gdańsk to Kraków.
Continue reading...Pontiff’s endorsement likely to further enrage his conservative opponents in Catholic church
Pope Francis has given his most explicit support to same-sex civil unions in a move that is likely to further enrage his conservative opponents in the Catholic church.
His comments came in an interview in a documentary film, Francesco, which premiered at the Rome film festival on Wednesday.
Continue reading...People of Praise head Craig Lent made comment in 2018 as Barrett says she would never discriminate over sexual orientation
The Christian community where Amy Coney Barrett has previously served as a female leader – or handmaid – expels members who engage in gay sex, according to a 2018 interview with Craig Lent, the group’s current head.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett hearing: top Republican praises judge for being 'unashamedly pro-life' – live
Continue reading...Carlo Acutis helped spread Catholic teaching online before his death aged 15 in 2006
Pope Francis said the beatification of an Italian computer whiz-kid was a sign to young people that “true happiness comes from putting God first”.
Carlo Acutis, who is on a path to sainthood after being beatified in the Umbrian town of Assisi, helped spread Roman Catholic teaching online before his death from leukaemia aged 15 in 2006. He is the youngest contemporary person to be beatified.
Continue reading...Details of link to Kevin Ranaghan raise fresh questions about supreme court nominee’s involvement with People of Praise
Amy Coney Barrett lived in the home of one of the founders of the People of Praise while she was a law student, raising new questions about the supreme court nominee’s involvement with the secretive Christian faith group that has been criticized for dominating the lives of its members and subjugating women.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett: quick confirmation under threat as three senators infected
Continue reading...Benjamin Thomas pleaded guilty to 40 offences over 30 years, mainly against teenage boys
A former pastor and BBC television presenter has been jailed for 10 years and four months after he admitted abusing boys and men over almost three decades.
Ben Thomas, 44, carried out many of his attacks while his victims were sleeping at Christian camps and conferences, Mold crown court in north Wales heard.
Continue reading...The cardinal is travelling for official Vatican government business, which means he does not need an exemption
Cardinal George Pell did not need to apply for a travel exemption to leave Australia because he is travelling to Rome for official Vatican government business.
The news that Pell was flying from Sydney to Rome on Tuesday generated criticism online with people questioning why the Australian government – which has banned its citizens from leaving the country as a Covid-19 precaution – granted him an exemption.
Continue reading...Black American church leaders have accused Donald Trump of inciting “white terrorism” against people of colour and depicting churchgoers as “thugs” in a presidential election campaign ad.
They are calling for the advertisement’s removal from display and federal protection from any bias or threats it could provoke.
Continue reading...They are beacons of western civilisation. But, says an explosive new book, the designs of Europe’s greatest buildings were plundered from the Islamic world – twin towers, rose windows, vaulted ceilings and all
As Notre-Dame cathedral was engulfed by flames last year, thousands bewailed the loss of this great beacon of western civilisation. The ultimate symbol of French cultural identity, the very heart of the nation, was going up in smoke. But Middle East expert Diana Darke was having different thoughts. She knew that the origins of this majestic gothic pile lay not in the pure annals of European Christian history, as many have always assumed, but in the mountainous deserts of Syria, in a village just west of Aleppo to be precise.
“Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from Syria’s Qalb Lozeh fifth-century church,” Darke tweeted on the morning of 16 April, as the dust was still settling in Paris. “Crusaders brought the ‘twin tower flanking the rose window’ concept back to Europe in the 12th century.”
Continue reading...Former Labour minister Ruth Kelly is among the women who will oversee Vatican finances and address its cashflow problems
Pope Francis has appointed six women to oversee the Vatican’s finances including Ruth Kelly, the former Labour minister, in the most senior roles ever given to women within the Catholic church’s leadership.
The appointments mark the most significant step by Francis to fulfil his promise of placing women in top positions. Until now, the 15-member Council for the Economy was all male. By statute, the council must include eight bishops – who are always men – and seven laypeople.
Continue reading...Turkish president recites Qur’an at monument as Greece declares day of mourning
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has led worshippers in the first prayers in Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia since his controversial declaration that the monument, which over the centuries has served as a cathedral, mosque and museum, would be turned back into a Muslim house of worship.
The Turkish leader and an entourage of senior ministers arrived for the service in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district on Friday afternoon, kneeling on new turquoise carpets while sail-like curtains covered the original Byzantine mosaics of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
Continue reading...Pontiff says his ‘thoughts go to Istanbul’ after decision to convert Byzantine-era monument
Pope Francis has said he was “very distressed” over Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
“My thoughts go to Istanbul. I’m thinking about Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed,” the pontiff said in the Vatican’s first reaction to a decision that has drawn international criticism.
Continue reading...Status of Unesco-listed 1,500-year-old building has been hotly debated for decades
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has formally converted Istanbul’s crowning architectural jewel, the Hagia Sophia, from a museum into a mosque – a politically charged decision that has drawn international criticism but delighted his conservative base.
Turkey’s highest administrative court, the council of state, paved the way for the move after it ruled unanimously on Friday to annul a 1934 cabinet decree that stripped the 1,500-year-old building of its religious status.
Continue reading...I wonder what happened in my local church, behind locked doors, for all these months
Football, pubs and churches are all now available to us again. While I love all three, they also, respectively, cause me stress, temptation and guilt. I did not go to mass at the weekend because, as with pubs, I thought it might be a bit of a melee. I imagined feisty parishioners clamouring at the door being spoken to severely by sunglassed, earpieced bouncers. No, I left it until Tuesday to allow calm to prevail. My church’s website advised me places were limited to 48. Pre-booking online was advised but the IT for that was still in development, so I decided to take my chances for the 11.30 kick-off.
I get my fruit and veg from a stall opposite the church. I always chat to the Brentford fan who works there – an enormous, and enormously nice man. Brentford were playing that evening – a match of great importance to supporters of my team, West Brom, who are rivals for promotion. My man was nowhere to be seen.
“He never works matchdays,” his mate said. “Too nervous.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said.
I told him to pass on a message that I was on my way to church to pray that Brentford lost.
There was no queue outside the church. A masked usher led me in, to the free-standing, no-touch hand-rub dispenser. Where once I would splash myself with holy water, I waved my hands in front of the machine, but gel came there none. Someone suggested I tried kneeling, but before I did so a splurge emerged. Rubbing my hands, partly in anticipation, I was led to my pew. It felt great to be back.
This new track sees Kanye at his very best, corralling his anger with masterful focus into an apocalyptic vision of America
America, divided along racial and political lines and led by its own Herod, faces an invisible plague and a public reckoning against its history of violence. It’s against this Biblical backdrop that Kanye West imagines the next apocalyptic event, in one of his most focused and arresting tracks for years.
Wash Us in the Blood sees the rapper call for a blood rain to deliver black America from evil. We’re at the point, perhaps, where normal water won’t wash; an emergency where we need something stronger. That sense of alarm is amplified by the two-note siren motif, a flattened-out version of the feedback sound on The Life of Pablo’s Feedback or Yeezus’s Send It Up, another of his warnings that puts the listener on alert. It gets your blood up.
Continue reading...‘They call you and tell you the place and the date’ – but there are risks, with about 20 praying elderly women busted in one police raid
The invitations arrive via text message or social media. “They ask you for a kind of password to let you in,” said Jesús Preciado, whose father has attended the secretive gatherings in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
Diego Martínez, whose mother has attended the backstairs events, said they were off-limits to anyone not in the know. “It’s invitation-only,” he said. “They call you and tell you the place and the date.”
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