Presiding bishop Olav Fykse Tveit says discrimination and harassment should ‘never have happened’
Against a backdrop of red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway apologised for the discrimination and harm it had inflicted.
“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, said on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”
Continue reading...Habit of rising early for live streams growing rapidly, suggesting Brazil is testing ground for religious influencers
Psychologist Cláudia Rodrigues de Oliveira Barbosa, 54, needs to be at work by 7.40am, but she wakes up at 3.40am – not because she has a lengthy commute, but to watch a “dawn prayer” livestream on YouTube.
She is one of the millions of Brazilians who tune in to the 4am sermons of Catholic friar Gilson da Silva Pupo Azevedo, 38, known as Frei Gilson, who has recently averaged an impressive 2m daily views for each video.
Continue reading...Fire at mosque in Peacehaven on Saturday night left front entrance damaged and a car burnt out
A suspected arson attack on a mosque in an English seaside town is being investigated by police as a hate crime.
The front entrance to the mosque in Peacehaven, East Sussex, was damaged and a car parked outside was entirely burnt out after the incident on Saturday night, which has been condemned by political figures and faith groups.
Continue reading...No 10 announces decision although role will not legally be taken on until January, before an enthronement service
Sarah Mullally has been named as the first female leader of the Church of England as Downing Street announced the 106th archbishop of Canterbury nearly a year on from Justin Welby’s resignation over the handling of a safeguarding scandal.
This is the first time an archbishop of Canterbury has been chosen since the Church of England allowed women to become bishops in 2014.
Continue reading...Serbian nationals also accused by Serbian police of defacing Jewish sites, as French officials investigate foreign interference
Serbian police have arrested 11 people, accusing them of “inciting hatred” in France and Germany, and linking them to acts that include placing pigs’ heads near mosques and defacing Jewish sites.
The arrests came days after French prosecutors said foreign interference was probably to blame for a spate of provocative acts that had targeted Jewish and Muslim sites in France in recent years, as tensions run high over the war in Gaza. French officials have previously said they were investigating Russia’s role in destabilising operations that have stoked social tensions and sown division in France.
Continue reading...The family behind La Luz del Mundo Church allegedly facilitated sexual abuse of children and women for decades
Since its inception nearly 100 years ago, La Luz del Mundo Church has been a family affair even as it spread from Mexico to the US and around the world.
Eusebio “Aaron” Joaquín Gonzalez, who founded the Guadalajara-based Christian church, was succeeded by his son, Samuel Joaquín Flores, upon his death in 1964.
Continue reading...King and Queen Camilla to join pontiff in late October amid jubilee year celebrations, says Buckingham Palace
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will make a state visit to meet Pope Leo XIV for the first time at the Vatican next month, Buckingham Palace has said.
The trip in late October will come about six months after the royal couple visited Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, shortly before his death in April.
Continue reading...Han Hak-ja, aged 82, is detained after Seoul court hearing over claims she told church officials to bribe wife of then president Yoon Suk Yeol
The 82-year-old leader of the Unification Church was arrested in South Korea early Tuesday as investigators probe allegations that the church bribed the wife of jailed former president Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker.
Han Hak-ja, the widow of the church’s South Korean founder, Sun Myung Moon, has denied allegations that she directed church officials to bribe Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, and the lawmaker.
Continue reading...Arun Arora, bishop of Kirkstall, says Christians should not be ‘neutral in the face of violence and injustice’
A Church of England bishop has called on Christians to reclaim the flag and their faith from rightwing activists, saying both were being desecrated by people seeking to divide the nation.
The Right Rev Arun Arora, the bishop of Kirkstall and the C of E’s co-lead on racial justice, made his comments in a sermon days after more than 110,000 people marched through London in a rightwing protest, many carrying crosses.
Continue reading...Former Roman Catholic priest and two dominatrices were evidently recording sexual videos in the church in 2020
A judge in Louisiana has ordered the return of electronics belonging to an ex-Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to obscenity for being caught having sex with two dominatrices atop a church altar while still belonging to the clergy in 2020.
However, the judge also told authorities to erase all data from the devices and storage media as a precaution against videos taken of the tryst from becoming public.
Continue reading...Lawsuit has most direct allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Aymond, who denies them, in court filing to date
A lawsuit newly filed against the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans and its top two officials alleges the city’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond, personally covered up child sexual abuse by priests and deacons – and asks a judge to reject a guarantee on his future retirement benefits as punishment.
The archdiocese responded by saying the allegations brought by the plaintiff, Argent Institutional Trust Co, are baseless.
Continue reading...Manager of zipline facility detained for alleged religious discrimination after group of eight- to 18-year-olds turned away
The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children were refused access.
The children, aged eight to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the Tyrovol zipline adventure park in Porté-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenees mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor’s office said.
Continue reading...Law temporarily blocked after group sought preliminary injunction, saying it violated first amendment protections
Texas cannot require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, a judge said on Wednesday in a temporary ruling against the state’s new requirement, making it the third such state law to be blocked by a court.
A group of Dallas-area families and faith leaders sought a preliminary injunction against the law, which goes into effect on 1 September. They say the requirement violates the first amendment’s protections for the separation of church and state and the right to free religious exercise.
Continue reading...Conservative People’s party in Jumilla votes to stop civic centres and gyms being used for activities ‘alien to our identity’
A local authority in south-east Spain has banned Muslims from using public facilities such as civic centres and gyms to celebrate the religious festivals Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha.
The ban in Jumilla, in Murcia, is a first in Spain. It was introduced by the conservative People’s party (PP) and passed with the abstention of the far-right Vox party and the opposition of local leftwing parties.
Continue reading...Pontiff presides over culmination of ‘Catholic Woodstock’ that drew young people from 146 countries
Pope Leo XIV presided over a mass in Rome for more than a million young people on Sunday, the culmination of a pilgrimage that has drawn Catholics from across the world.
“Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less,” the pope told the crowd.
Continue reading...Oil lamp fragments point to presence of previously unknown Jewish population in Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo
Seventeen centuries after they last burned, a handful of broken oil lamps could shed light on a small and long-vanished Jewish community that lived in southern Spain in the late Roman era as the old gods were being snuffed out by Christianity.
Archaeologists excavating the Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo, whose ruins lie near the present-day Andalucían town of Linares, have uncovered evidence of an apparent Jewish presence there in the late fourth or early fifth century AD.
Continue reading...Vatican invites 1,000 social media missionaries to digital jubilee conference
Mixing prayer and gospel with poetry, art and bodybuilding, the rising stars in the influencer world are not just those flaunting fashion and travel but also Roman Catholic priests spreading the word of God.
Pope Francis latched on to the trend and, just months before his death in April, made the mission of evangelising on social media a priority for the church.
Continue reading...British Muslim Trust expected to begin monitoring incidents from early autumn, government says
The UK government has appointed a new partner to monitor anti-Muslim hatred, months after its relationship with the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama ended.
The British Muslim Trust (BMT) – a new organisation – is expected to begin receiving reports and monitoring incidents from early autumn, after being “selected as the recipient of the government’s new combatting hate against Muslims fund”, a statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said on Monday.
Continue reading...Israel grants access after ‘stray’ tank round kills three people and wounds Catholic priest
Israel has granted two senior Christian leaders rare access to Gaza after an Israeli strike on the Palestinian territory’s only Roman Catholic church killed three people.
Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, led a delegation on Friday to the Holy Family Church, whose shelling the day before triggered international condemnation.
Continue reading...Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod assisted dying means assuming ‘authority over death that belongs to God alone’
Members of the Church of England should work to “withstand and even turn back” the forces of public opinion “that risk making … assisted dying a reality in our national life”, the archbishop of York has said.
Speaking to the church’s General Synod on Friday, Stephen Cottrell said permitting assisted dying would change “forever the contract between doctor and patient, pressurising the vulnerable and assuming an authority over death that belongs to God alone”.
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