Category Archives: Religion

‘Meloni’s response left me stunned’: the Italian priest taking on the mafia

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Maurizio Patriciello has had police protection since a bombing near his church in Caivano, Naples, but he vows to keep fighting crime

Father Maurizio Patriciello is running late. “I’m waiting for my bodyguards,” he says by text message.

He is neither a celebrity nor a politician but a parish priest in Caivano, a desolate, crime-ridden town on the outskirts of Naples. He has been living under police protection ever since a bomb, accompanied by the message “get out of our way”, exploded by the gate of his church.

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Shia LaBeouf mulls plan to become deacon after Catholic confirmation

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Actor, 37, received sacrament on New Year’s Eve and Capuchin friar Alexander Rodriguez says he wishes to be a deacon ‘in the future’

The Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf is seeking to becoming a Catholic deacon after receiving the sacrament of confirmation on New Year’s Eve.

A California-based chapter of the Capuchin Franciscans, a Catholic religious order, shared the news in a Facebook post on Tuesday alongside photos of the 37-year-old actor smiling next to several of the organization’s members.

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Vatican: same-sex couples ruling is not endorsement of homosexuality

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New practice does not endorse homosexuality but is not heretical, Catholic church says amid opposition from some bishops

The Vatican has stressed that allowing priests to bless same-sex couples is not an endorsement of homosexuality, but neither is it blasphemous, after some Catholic bishops reacted negatively to the measure announced last month.

Pope Francis approved a ruling in December allowing priests to bless unmarried and same-sex couples so long as the blessing was performed without any type of ritualisation and did not give the impression of the church’s approval of the relationship.

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Italian priest struck off for calling Francis an ‘anti-pope usurper’

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Priest in Tuscany compares Francis unfavourably with Pope Benedict in New Year’s Eve address shared online

An Italian priest has been struck off after calling Pope Francis an “anti-pope usurper” in his New Year’s Eve homily.

Father Ramon Guidetti’s speech to the congregation at St Ranieri church in Guasticce, a hamlet in the Tuscan province of Livorno, was a tribute marking the first anniversary of the death of Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI.

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Academic paper based on Uyghur genetic data retracted over ethical concerns

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Exclusive: Study published in 2019 used blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Xinjiang capital

Concerns have been raised that academic publishers may not be doing enough to vet the ethical standards of research they publish, after a paper based on genetic data from China’s Uyghur population was retracted and questions were raised about several others including one that is currently published by Oxford University Press.

In June, Elsevier, a Dutch academic publisher, retracted an article entitled “Analysis of Uyghur and Kazakh populations using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel” that had been published in 2019.

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‘Sorrow and silence’ in Bethlehem as Christmas festivities are cancelled

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The streets are usually thronged with tourists and pilgrims but this year the town is mourning the dead of the Gaza war

In the days leading up to Christmas, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said that one particular Bible verse kept running through his mind.

“When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem she gave birth to the Lord in a manger because ‘there was no room for them’,” he told about 5,000 people during the Christmas Eve midnight mass service in the Palestinian town where Christians believe Jesus was born.

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Indian Christians find comfort and joy in church communities across Britain

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And churches used to dwindling congregations are delighted to see numbers boosted by worshippers of all ages

Father Happy Jacob has a reason to be cheerful. When he started St Thomas’s Indian Orthodox Church in Liverpool in 2002, his congregation numbered about 60 families, and stayed at that level for almost two decades.

Then, a few years ago, things began to change. “We have seen a massive increase in families coming to the church,” says Jacob, 48. At his last count, there were 110 families, with worshippers including NHS workers, international students and about 100 school-age children.

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House speaker’s Christian nationalist ties spark first amendment fears

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Mike Johnson’s links to key leaders prompts alarm he might try to erode elements of constitution on separation of church and state

Links between the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and key Christian nationalist leaders have sparked fears the devout Louisiana congressman might seek to erode elements of the first amendment, which protects key US civil liberties including freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Long before th eevangelical conservative Johnson became speaker, he had forged close ties with Christian nationalists like David Barton, whose writings claiming the country’s founders intended to create a Christian nation have been widely debunked by religion scholars.

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National Trust archaeologists find medieval ‘gift token’ in Norfolk

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Coin-like lead piece found near Oxburgh Hall thought to have been doled out by ‘boy bishop’ during Christmas period

They are the last resort for the most challenging of recipients, such as moody teenagers or the eccentric uncle you see once a year – but gift tokens also came in handy at Christmas in medieval times.

National Trust archaeologists have discovered a token dating from between 1470 and 1560 that was probably given by the church to poor people to be exchanged for food.

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Cardinal condemns ‘cold–blooded’ killing of two women in Gaza church

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Vincent Nichols says shooting of mother and daughter did nothing to further Israel’s right to defend itself

The shooting of a mother and daughter allegedly by an Israeli military sniper in a church compound in Gaza City was a “cold–blooded killing”, the most senior Catholic cleric in England has said.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, said the shooting did “nothing to further Israel’s right to defend itself”.

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US archbishop secretly backed bid to free priest convicted of raping child

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‘I join you in the prayer to guide those regarding your appeal,’ Gregory Aymond of New Orleans wrote to priest given life sentence

As he reached the end of his 41-year life, Kevin Portier had endured child rape at the hands of a southern Louisiana Catholic priest for whom he had served as an altar boy; a highly publicized trial that sent the clergyman to prison for the rest of his days; and the trauma associated with those experiences.

But one of Portier’s harshest ordeals came within his final two years alive. Representatives of the church that he had been raised to believe in approached him at his home, at his job and at a relative’s funeral to ask him to lend his support to efforts to secure an early release for his rapist, Robert Melancon.

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Satanic Temple condemns vandalism of its statue by Christian military veteran

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Michael Cassidy arrested over tearing down of satanic altar – symbol of humanism and anti-authoritarianism – at Iowa capitol

The leader of an organization whose satanic altar at Iowa’s state capitol was torn down by a Christian military veteran Thursday has dismissed the vandalism as “a real act of cowardice”.

“There’s a certain point at which we need some adults in the room to tell people what … liberal, democratic values are; what they’re value is; why we uphold them; what they’re good for; and they need to stand up for these values or we are going to further degenerate in our polarism towards autocracy,” the co-founder of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, told CNN’s NewsNight on Thursday.

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Pope Francis reveals he will not be buried in Vatican

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Pontiff tells Mexican broadcaster he will break with tradition and simplify papal funeral

Pope Francis has said he has “already prepared” his tomb in a Rome basilica in a further sign of the pontiff’s quest to break from longstanding Vatican tradition.

Francis, who turns 87 on 17 December, told the Mexican broadcaster N+ that he would be laid to rest in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in the Esquilino neighbourhood in Rome, where he goes to pray before and after trips overseas.

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‘The mood is subdued’: Hanukkah is marked by mourning for Jews across UK

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For the Jewish community in York, as elsewhere, fears and distress over the war in Gaza haunt this year’s festival of light

On Thursday evening, the small progressive Jewish community in York will gather at Jewbury, the city’s medieval Jewish cemetery, to light memorial candles and say prayers for 150 people who died in a 12th-century pogrom at Clifford’s Tower.

The flames will then be used to light the eighth and final candle on menorahs, or special candelabra, brought to the ceremony by members of the community, marking the end of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of light that began last Thursday.

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Government offices in EU can ban wearing of religious symbols, court rules

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Decision made in case of Muslim employee in Belgium states that restrictions must be applied equally

Government offices across the EU can ban employees from wearing religious symbols, such as Islamic headscarves, in the interest of neutrality, the EU’s top court has ruled, though it stressed that such restrictions must be applied equally to all employees and fit within the legal context of each member state.

The decision, published by the court of justice of the European Union on Tuesday, said such bans were permissible in order to enforce an “entirely neutral administrative environment”.

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Pope revokes privileges of conservative US cardinal critical of church’s reform

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In second radical action in a month, pontiff hits back at retired prelate Raymond Burke, one of his most vocal critics

Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures.

Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the church, said one of the participants at the 20 November meeting. The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the contents of the encounter.

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Australian Christian group fights claim it was linked to leader of Kenya starvation massacre doomsday cult

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Kenyan parliamentary committee report finds Paul Mackenzie, held responsible for more than 400 deaths, was ‘influenced’ by Australians Dave and Cherry McKay, which they vehemently deny

A Christian doomsday cult responsible for the deaths of more than 400 people from starvation and beatings in Kenya was influenced by an Australian religious group, a parliamentary committee report in the east African nation has found.

The report into the Shakahola massacre, tabled in the Kenyan Senate on 19 October, found that the accused leader of the group, Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, “was influenced by Dave Mackay and Sherry Mackay [Dave and Cherry McKay] from Australia who are founders of a cult movement known as the Voice in the Desert”.

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Coldplay concert to go ahead in Malaysia amid opposition from conservative Muslims

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‘Kill switch’ to cut power in case of an ‘unwanted incident’ was discussed, but the band’s support of Palestine has endeared them to prime minister

A Coldplay concert is going ahead in Malaysia on Wednesday despite opposition from conservative Muslims in the country, but the band could face a “kill switch” that cuts off the show if they seriously offend cultural sensibilities.

Following outcry over a same-sex kiss between members of the 1975 at a Kuala Lumpur concert in July, earlier this month deputy communications and digital minister Teo Nie Ching introduced a ruling that concert organisers must have “a kill switch that will cut off electricity during any performance if there is any unwanted incident”.

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US Catholic priest who avoided charges marries teen he fled to Italy with

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Alexander Crow, 30, married 18-year-old high school graduate on Friday, according to license filed in Mobile county, Alabama

A Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who was investigated by law enforcement after fleeing to Europe with a recent high school graduate he met through his ministry legally married after he returned to the US with her, a document provided to the Guardian showed.

According to a marriage license filed in Mobile county, Alabama, Alexander Crow, 30, married the 18-year-old former McGill-Toolen Catholic high school student on Friday.

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China closing hundreds of mosques in northern regions, rights group says

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HRW says other mosques altered, for example through removal of minarets, as part of sinicisation campaign

Chinese authorities have closed or altered hundreds of mosques in the northern regions of Ningxia and Gansu, homes to the highest Muslim populations in China after Xinjiang, as part of broader efforts to “sinicise” China’s religious minorities, according to a report.

Researchers at Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Chinese government was significantly reducing the number of mosques in Ningxia autonomous region and Gansu province.

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