Hungarian-born Zsolt Balla speaks of his ‘historic responsibility’ to serve Jewish soldiers
The German army has installed its first rabbi as a religious counsellor in 100 years, in a symbol of the renewal of Jewish life decades after the Holocaust.
Priests and pastors are already providing religious services to the estimated 94,000 Christians in the military.
Continue reading...Young players excluded from matches because of their religious dress find a way to play on and encourage other hijab-wearing women into the sport
Founé Diawara was 15 years old when she was first told she could not wear her hijab in a football match.
It was an important game. She had recently got into the team of a club in Meaux, the town north-east of Paris where she grew up, and they were playing a local rival. Diawara had been wearing her hijab during training, but as she was about to walk on to the pitch, the referee said she must remove it if she wanted to play.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia
Continue reading...US bishops vote to stop pro-choice Catholics receiving eucharist
Roman Catholic bishops in the US have voted to press ahead with moves that could result in Joe Biden being banned from receiving communion because of his stance on abortion, and that risks increasing tensions in a divided church.
After three days of online debate, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted by three to one to draft new guidance on the eucharist. The unexpected strength of support for the move among the bishops was a rebuff to the Vatican, which had signalled its opposition.
Continue reading...Pope Francis gives ‘venerable’ status to post-war French statesman and supporter of European unity
Robert Schuman, a French statesman who was an early advocate for the bloc that evolved into the European Union, has moved ahead on the Catholic church’s path toward possible sainthood.
The Vatican said Pope Francis on Saturday approved a decree declaring the “heroic virtues″ of Schuman, a former prime minister and finance minister after the second world war. In 1950, as foreign minister, he developed a plan to promote European economic unity in hopes of furthering peace.
Continue reading...Rights groups say Mustafa bin Hashim bin Isa al-Darwish was a minor when alleged offences committed
Saudi Arabia has executed a young man who was convicted on charges stemming from his participation in an anti-government rebellion by minority Shia Muslims. A leading rights group said his trial was “deeply flawed”.
It was unclear whether Mustafa bin Hashim bin Isa al-Darwish, 26, was executed for crimes committed as a minor, according to Amnesty International. The rights group said he was detained in 2015 for alleged participation in riots between 2011 and 2012.
Continue reading...Thousands of Southern Baptists are gathering to elect their next president amid deep divides over addressing systemic racism and sexual misconduct
Thousands of Southern Baptists from across the US are heading to Tennessee this week to vote for their next president, a choice laced with tension that could push America’s largest evangelical Christian denomination even further to the right and potentially spark an exodus of Black pastors and congregations.
Each of the three leading candidates for president presents a unique vision for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and will help guide the Protestant denomination through the thorny issues it currently faces – declining membership, deep divisions over acknowledging the existence of systemic racism and fresh accusations of mishandling sexual abuse allegations.
Continue reading...Annual pilgrimage will be restricted to 60,000 vaccinated adults from within the kingdom
Saudi Arabia has announced that this year’s hajj pilgrimage will be limited to 60,000 vaccinated people from within the kingdom because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The kingdom ran a reduced pilgrimage last year, but still allowed a small number of people to take part in the annual event.
Continue reading...US bishops to debate whether the president should be denied communion over his pro-choice stance
At some point this weekend, Joe Biden will take his place in a line of people approaching the altar of a Catholic church to receive communion.
The US president, a devout Catholic whose speeches regularly include biblical references and who carries a rosary that belonged to his late son, attends Mass every weekend – in Washington, his home town of Wilmington in Delaware, or wherever he happens to be traveling. If the traditional Sunday morning Eucharist service is not possible because of his schedule, he will receive the sacrament on Saturday evening as permitted by the Roman Catholic church.
Continue reading...Analysis: members of religious group declared extremist in 2017 have faced arrests, surveillance and prison
The decision by a Moscow court to declare Alexei Navalny’s nationwide political organisation as “extremist” adds the group to a list associated with terrorist organisations such as al-Qaida and Islamic State.
But for a guide to how Russia could treat Navalny’s supporters, a better example is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a non-violent religious group that has felt the full extent of Russia’s law on extremism.
Continue reading...Widespread internment, torture and rights abuses have been claimed by former detainees as Beijing continues a policy of denial
Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a “dystopian hellscape” for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.
The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.
Continue reading...Annual Russian pilgrimage in honour of icon of St Nicholas discovered, as legend has it, in the 14th century
Analysis: upholding of genocide conviction for 1995 atrocities is a victorious end to a process few thought would succeed
When Ratko Mladić’s life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity was confirmed, marking the end of the road for the Bosnian Serb general 10 years after his capture, Munira Subašić was in The Hague courtroom to watch.
In July 1995, Subašić was outside a UN compound, a disused battery factory near Srebrenica, appealing for protection from Dutch peacekeepers along with thousands of other terrified Bosnian Muslims.
Continue reading...Pontiff fails to issue direct apology for church’s role in residential schools where children were abused
Pope Francis has said he was pained by the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former Catholic school for indigenous students in Canada and called for respect of the rights and cultures of native peoples, but stopped short of the direct apology some Canadians had demanded.
Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican during his weekly blessing, Francis urged Canadian political and Catholic religious leaders to “cooperate with determination” to shed light on the finding and to seek reconciliation and healing.
Continue reading...Nine experts call for ‘full-fledged investigations’ after discovery of remains of 215 Indigenous children at former residential school
UN human rights experts have urged the Canadian government and the Vatican to hold swift and thorough investigations into the discovery of unmarked graves at a former residential school in British Columbia.
The unmarked graves of up to 215 Indigenous children were discovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential Schools last week, using ground-penetrating radar.
Continue reading...Reinhard Marx tells pope he wants to share responsibility for church’s failure to deal with abuse by clergy
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of Germany’s most senior Catholics, has offered his resignation to the pope over the “catastrophe” of sexual abuse by clerics and other church members.
Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising and a prominent liberal, said in a letter to Pope Francis that he wanted to share responsibility for the abuse that had taken place over decades and the failure of the church to deal with it.
Continue reading...The director’s debut feature draws on his experiences of loss and identity confusion, with a memorable role for Joanna Scanlon as a fictionalised version of his white English Muslim-convert mother
Mary, the central character of Aleem Khan’s debut film After Love, is a white English woman who met her Pakistani husband as a teenager on the London housing estate where they both lived. After they got married, they moved to the Kent coast. Mary converted to Islam, started to wear traditional dress, learned how to cook curries from scratch and to speak Punjabi.
It does not take an enormous amount of detective work to understand from where Khan drew inspiration: his mother is a white English woman who met her Pakistani husband as a teenager on the London housing estate where they both lived. After they got married, they moved to the Kent coast; she converted to Islam, started to wear traditional dress, learnt how to cook curries from scratch and to speak Punjabi.
Continue reading...Orthodox Jewish men give their wives a ‘get’ as the couple is divorcing, which seals the divorce according to religious law
On Route 59 in Monsey, New York, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in upstate New York, there is a large billboard that says in big block letters: “Dovid Wasserman. Give your wife a get!”
A “get” is a document Orthodox Jewish men give their wives as the couple is divorcing; it seals the divorce according to religious law, meaning that the husband decides if and when the divorce is final. Without it, the woman cannot move on with her life.
Continue reading...The pair were convicted in 2014 after sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad
A Pakistani court has ordered the release of a Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy, lawyers said, weeks after the European parliament blasted the country over the case.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar were jailed in 2013 and convicted of sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad – even though both are illiterate.
Continue reading...Social media rants by 16-year-old named Mila fuelled debate about right to offend people’s religious beliefs
Thirteen people have gone on trial in France charged with online harassment, including death threats, against a teenage girl who was placed under police protection after posting anti-Islam rants on social media.
The girl, named only as Mila, was forced to change schools over her expletive-laden videos, and the episode fuelled a debate about the right to offend people’s religious beliefs.
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