Israel’s far right hits ground running, and ripple effects are already being felt

Ultranationalist religious rulers sworn in last week have made explicit what was previously obscured: annexation

Glancing up and staring directly into the camera, the suspect who broke into the centuries-old Jerusalem cemetery appears to spot the CCTV equipment recording his hate crime. Seemingly unfazed, he looks down again, focusing on the task at hand – pushing over a stone cross and smashing it to pieces.

The two young males who vandalised more than 30 Christian graves last weekend showed little concern about hiding their identities while carrying out a religiously motivated attack. They did not cover their faces as they systematically destroyed headstones on a bright Sunday afternoon in the heart of the holy city. Such is the confidence with which the suspects, believed to be teenage Israeli extremists arrested on Friday, now operate.

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Ukraine rejects Putin’s 36-hour ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas

Kyiv says Moscow’s declaration of truce, after Russian president cited appeal from patriarch, is ‘hypocrisy’

Ukraine has rejected an announcement by Vladimir Putin of a 36-hour ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas, saying there will be no truce until Russia removes its invading forces from occupied land.

The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to introduce a temporary ceasefire along the entire line of contact in Ukraine for Orthodox Christmas from midday on Friday to midnight on Saturday.

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Outcry over footage of men smashing cross at Jerusalem cemetery

Vandals’ clothing leads to claims they are Jewish extremists who have desecrated over 30 Christian graves

Security camera footage of men wearing Jewish religious clothing smashing a stone cross in a historic Jerusalem cemetery has prompted claims that Israeli extremists are responsible for the desecration of more than 30 Christian graves.

The vandalism at the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, conducted in broad daylight on Sunday afternoon, has shocked church leaders and led to calls for Israel to crack down on racist far-right settlers.

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Benedict XVI funeral expected to draw big crowds to St Peter’s Square

Tens of thousands gather to see Pope Francis bury his predecessor

An estimated 100,000 Catholics have descended on St Peter’s Square for the funeral of the former pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict died on Saturday, aged 95, almost a decade after becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign. He will become the first former pontiff in the modern history of the Catholic church to be buried by an incumbent pope, Francis, who arrived outside St Peter’s Basilica in a wheelchair on Thursday.

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Benedict XVI: thousands expected to pay respects to former pope

Benedict’s body displayed in chapel of the Vatican monastery and will lie in state at St Peter’s Basilica

Thousands of people are expected to pay their respects to former pope Benedict XVI, who died on Saturday, in the days leading up to his funeral this week.

Benedict’s body was displayed on Sunday in a chapel of the Vatican monastery where he lived, and will lie in state at St Peter’s Basilica from Monday until Thursday. His funeral in St Peter’s Square will be a simple, solemn and sober ceremony in keeping with his wishes, the Vatican said.

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Tributes and reaction as ex-pope Benedict XVI dies aged 95 – as it happened

This live blog has now closed, you can read more about the death of Benedict XVI here

The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, says he is saddened to learn of Benedict XVI’s death.

His visit to UK in 2010 was a “historic moment for both Catholics and non Catholics”, he adds.

Today I join with the church throughout the world, and especially with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and all in the Catholic Church, in mourning the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

In Pope Benedict’s long life and ministry of service to Christ in His Church he saw many profound changes in the church and in the world. He lived through the Nazi regime in Germany and served briefly in the Second World War. As a younger theologian and priest he witnessed first-hand the discussions of the Second Vatican Council. As a professor and then as an Archbishop he lived in a divided Germany but saw too the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of his homeland.

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Fourth member of scandal-hit Japanese cabinet resigns

Reconstruction minister quits amid accusations of election law violations and ties to Unification church

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has ended the year facing fierce political headwinds after his reconstruction minister became the fourth member of his scandal-hit cabinet to resign in two months.

Kenya Akiba announced his resignation on Tuesday after opposition MPs accused him of election law violations and of having ties to the Unification church, a controversial religious group whose connections to the ruling party have sent Kishida’s approval ratings to record lows.

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Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis call for end to war in Ukraine

Pontiff says world suffering from ‘famine of peace’ as Justin Welby praises example of late monarch

The archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis have used their Christmas addresses to call for an end to the war in Ukraine.

During his sermon, Justin Welby also spoke of those suffering “immense anxiety and hardship” during the cost of living crisis and made reference to the “desperate struggles of hospital wards”.

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‘God not on mafia’s side’: mobsters who hijacked religious procession jailed

Thirty-nine people imprisoned for forcing a procession in Sicily to pay homage to crime boss Francesco La Rocca in 2016

A judge in Sicily has handed down jail sentences totalling 80 years to 39 people for diverting a Good Friday religious procession to the house of a mafia family and paying homage to an imprisoned crime boss.

People were carrying a statue of Jesus Christ through the Sicilian village of San Michele Di Ganzaria at Easter in 2016 when a group stopped the cortege, moved it away from the agreed itinerary and forced it to pass in front of the house of the mafia godfather Francesco La Rocca.

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Pope Francis orders Parthenon marbles held by Vatican be returned to Greece

Three 2,500-year-old pieces will be ‘donated’ to Greece’s Archbishop Ieronymos II amid wider conversation about future of Parthenon marbles held by Britain

Pope Francis has decided to return to Greece three 2,500-year-old pieces of the Parthenon that have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for two centuries.

The Vatican said in a brief statement that the pope was giving them to Archbishop Ieronymos II, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church and Greece’s spiritual leader, as a “donation” and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth”.

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Anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone defrocked by Vatican

Pavone had been investigated for placing an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it online

The Vatican has defrocked the anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.

A letter to US bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken and that there was no chance for an appeal.

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Frank Houston continued to lead sermons after being stripped of credentials for child sexual abuse, court hears

Maitland church pastor Robert Cotton said he would never have allowed Frank Houston to preach again if he knew he was a paedophile

Paedophile pastor Frank Houston continued leading church sermons until weeks before his death, despite being stripped of his credentials to minister after his son learned that he sexually abused children, a New South Wales court has heard.

Hillsong founder Brian Houston took away his father’s credentials in late 1999 after Frank Houston admitted he had abused children, the court has heard.

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God and guns: the strict religious upbringing of the Wieambilla shooters

Self-described ‘free evangelical’ Ronald Train, who created his own church based on literal reading of scripture, says sons ‘lost their way’ before Queensland shooting

People who knew Ronald Train during his days living in Toowoomba joked that “no church would accept him, so he had to make his own”.

Train believed – and would later write in a book – that Freemasons “give their allegiance to Lucifer” and were “a cancer”. The constitution of his Christian Independent Fellowship (started after his physical church in Toowoomba closed and he moved interstate) says appointing women to leadership positions “will never be entertained”.

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Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting swastika inside Star of David

Elon Musk intervenes after rapper posted image hours after airing antisemitic views in Alex Jones interview

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has been suspended from Twitter after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a star of David, less than two weeks after he returned to the platform.

The suspension took place hours after Ye praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in an interview on Infowars, a show hosted by the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

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Census says 39% of Muslims live in most deprived areas of England and Wales

Campaigners urge policymakers to act on ‘cycle of poverty’ entrapping generations of British muslims

Campaigners have urged policymakers to act on the “cycle of poverty” entrapping generations of British Muslims, as the latest census shows that 39% of Muslims are now living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales.

The proportion of people who identify as Muslim has risen by 1.2 million in 10 years, bringing the Muslim population to 3.9 million in 2021, the census shows. Overall, Muslims now make up 6.5% of the population in England and Wales, up from 4.9% in 2011.

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OneLove armband sends ‘very divisive message’, says Qatar official

Head of World Cup organising committee says he sees rainbow armband as protest against Islamic values

The head of Qatar’s World Cup organising committee has accused teams who wanted to wear the OneLove armband at the World Cup of sending a “very divisive message” to the Islamic and Arab world.

Hassan al-Thawadi’s comments came as the UK sports minister Stuart Andrew said he would wear the rainbow-coloured armband at the England v Wales match on Tuesday.

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Major funds exposed to companies allegedly engaged in Uyghur repression in China

Report finds stock indexes provided by MSCI include companies using forced labour or constructing surveillance state in Xinjiang

Many of the world’s largest asset managers and state pension funds are passively investing in companies that have allegedly engaged in the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China, according to a new report.

The report, by UK-based group Hong Kong Watch and the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, found that three major stock indexes provided by MSCI include at least 13 companies that have allegedly used forced labour or been involved in the construction of the surveillance state in China’s Xinjiang region.

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Nun who wowed The Voice of Italy becomes waitress in Spain

Cristina Scuccia, who stunned judges in 2014 contest, explains decision to leave nunhood on talkshow

A nun who became a singing sensation after winning Italy’s version of The Voice has stunned TV viewers again after announcing that she has kicked the habit and is now a waitress in Spain.

Sister Cristina Scuccia, from Sicily, shocked judges, including the late Raffaella Carrà, during her blind audition for the show in 2014, giving a rapturous performance of the Alicia Keys’ hit song No One. After realising the incredible voice belonged to a nun, Carrà, who died last year, said: “I couldn’t speak for several minutes.”

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Rights group calls for Samuel Alito to be investigated after claims of leaked 2014 ruling

Anti-abortion activist said supreme court justice revealed the landmark ruling on contraception and religious rights weeks earlier

A civil rights group issued a call Saturday for US supreme court justice Samuel Alito to be investigated over allegations that the judge leaked a 2014 landmark ruling involving contraception and religious rights at a private dinner with wealthy political donors.

The claim was contained in a New York Times article in which minister Rob Schenck, an anti-abortion activist, said he was told of the decision weeks before it was announced and had used the information to prepare a public relations push.

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Female clergy face ‘institutionalised discrimination’, campaigners claim

Church of England is ‘still discriminating against women’ 30 years after allowing them to become priests

Thirty years after the Church of England took the historic step of allowing women to become priests, equality campaigners say female clergy still face “institutionalised discrimination”.

Fewer than one in three paid clergy are female, according to 2020 data – the most recent published – although the same source showed more women (55%) than men had begun training for the priesthood.

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