Italian couple’s footage against backdrop of Myanmar’s ‘holy land’ provokes outrage
Outrage is growing in Myanmar after the emergence of a 12-minute pornographic video shot in Bagan, the country’s best-known tourist spot and Unesco heritage site featuring thousands of revered Buddhist pagodas.
The video was posted on PornHub by users who described themselves as a 23-year-old Italian couple.
Continue reading...Schoolgirl Mila received death threats after posting anti-religious diatribe on Instagram
Emmanuel Macron has waded into a row over a schoolgirl whose attack on Islam has divided France, insisting that blasphemy is “no crime”.
The French president defended the teenager, named only as Mila, who received death threats and was forced out of her school after filming an anti-religious diatribe on social media.
Continue reading...Celibacy issue dividing church as it seeks to address shortage of clerics in remote areas
Pope Francis has decided against opening up the Roman Catholic priesthood to married men – a move that will please traditionalists but dismay those who argue that easing the celibacy rule would tackle a shortage of clerics.
Instead, an “apostolic exhortation” from the pontiff has focused on environmental damage after bishops from the Amazon highlighted the destruction of the region’s rainforests and exploitation of Indigenous people at a Vatican summit last year.
Continue reading...It started as an online prank, but Jediism now claims more UK adherents than Scientology. But is it a religion, a philosophy – or just a joke?
In the middle of a field in South Carolina, Alethea Thompson closed her eyes and attempted to sense her way forward. Thompson, now 35, had spent years trying to find a spiritual home and had decided to try something new. This exercise was meant to teach her to “to trust in your ability to sense things and know that you’re not going to fall, you’re not going to get hurt,” she says. And was part of her training to become a Jedi.
After 12 years with the Force Academy, an online community that provides educational courses on Jediism, Thompson is today a Jedi master. She explains that the Force Academy and most Jedi organisations don’t prescribe strict rituals: there are no requirements on diet or clothing and no mass-style services. Jedis do, however, follow a code of ethics that centres on resisting negative emotions and promoting peace. They also believe in the Force – the ubiquitous energy field described in the Star Wars movies – and mindfulness is central to their belief system. “The foundation of who we are is meditation,” says Thompson. “I will meditate for about 30 minutes, but it’s not always the same kind of meditation. So, I don’t sit there all the time and just hum. Meditation comes in many forms and that’s what I try to teach in the community.”
Continue reading...Thousands of couples – many in face masks – wed in a mass Unification Church ceremony on Friday despite concerns over the spread of the coronavirus
Continue reading...Trump has handed his ultra-loyal evangelical base policy victories and in return they turn a blind eye to his scandals
Joanne Craig, a lifelong evangelical Republican and resident of Sioux City, Iowa, couldn’t be more satisfied with the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Donning a large, blue “Christians for Trump” button on a blue pantsuit, the 80-year-old Craig emerged from the Country Celebrations Event Center in this small Iowa city satisfied to have heard Mike Pence and a cadre of Baptist pastors coo about the president’s policy victories.
Continue reading...Bibi, freed last year and now in Canada, will release her autobiography on Wednesday
Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy, has released two photographs taken in exile, as she prepares for the launch of her autobiography on Wednesday.
The former farm labourer, whose case became one of the most high-profile human rights campaigns in the world, was freed last year and flew to Canada, where she was reunited with her family. They are all believed to be living under assumed identities, at a secret location, as they still receive death threats from extremists.
Continue reading...My mother, Esther Brunstein, was a survivor of the Łódź ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She spoke at the official opening of the Holocaust galleries in the Imperial War Museum, and at the first Holocaust Memorial Day in this country in Westminster Hall, London.
She died three years ago. She spoke and wrote extensively and beautifully about her experiences, but I wish to pay tribute to her with this anecdote.
Continue reading...Mark Coleridge says move to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional will fail to make children safer
A move to compel Queensland priests to report child sexual abuse offences disclosed during confessions would fail to make children safer, Brisbane’s Catholic archbishop has said.
Mark Coleridge has opposed a state government plan to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional as an excuse, defence or privilege.
Continue reading...Move could jeopardise potential plan by Pope Francis to change rules in Amazon
The former pope Benedict XVI has spoken out against allowing married men to become priests, in a move that could jeopardise a potential plan by Pope Francis to change the centuries-old requirement in areas of the Amazon.
Benedict, who implied upon his resignation in 2013 that he would not interfere with the work of his successor, has defended clerical celibacy in an explosive book written with the outspoken conservative cardinal Robert Sarah.
Continue reading...The International Festival of Porto-Novo is the capital’s annual celebration of Benin’s cultural diversity. The theme of this year’s festival is Ogoun, one of the spiritual entities of the voodoo religion
Continue reading...Rio judge’s ruling follows complaint that the ‘honour of millions of Catholics’ was hurt by The First Temptation of Christ
A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Netflix to stop showing a Christmas special that some called blasphemous for depicting Jesus as a gay man and which prompted a bomb attack on the satirists behind the programme.
The ruling by a Rio de Janeiro judge, Benedicto Abicair, responded to a petition by a Brazilian Catholic organisation that argued the “honour of millions of Catholics” was hurt by the airing of The First Temptation of Christ. The special was produced by the Rio-based film company Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters was targeted in the Christmas Eve attack.
Continue reading...Once a campus fundamentalist who hid his sexuality, today Bagia Arif Saputra helps others find harmony in Indonesia’s capital
When Bagia Arif Saputra was growing up in a university town near Jakarta, becoming a jihadist seemed a natural choice for young men like him, who were steeped in the teachings of Islamic fundamentalism. Less easy was reconciling this identity with his sexuality.
“I was living a double life,” says Saputra. “I would go to the campus mosque, try to focus on my prayers … and find myself checking out a guy and thinking, ‘Nice ass’. And then immediately, ‘Astaghfirullah [God forgive me]!’ So then I would have to redo my prayers. It was a vicious cycle.”
Continue reading...Opposition links violence to Narendra Modi’s BJP party and tensions over citizenship law
Students have protested in cities across India after a masked mob stormed a high-profile university in Delhi and attacked students and teachers with weapons including sledgehammers, iron rods and bricks, injuring more than 30.
Opposition parties and injured students blamed Sunday night’s violence on a student organisation linked to the prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which has increasingly targeted the institution.
Continue reading...Demonstration was organised by umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organisations
More than 100,000 protesters have taken part in a peaceful march in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, chanting slogans against Narendra Modi’s new citizenship law.
The protest, labelled the Million March, was organised by an umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organisations. More than 40% of Hyderabad’s estimated population of nearly 7 million people are Muslims.
Continue reading...Friday’s rally recognized Trump’s need to retain the loyalty of the evangelical voting bloc that propelled him to victory in 2016
They came to pray with their president, though in truth many came just to worship him. Donald Trump’s Friday launch of his so-called “coalition of evangelicals”, an attempt to shore up the support of the religious right ahead of November’s election, had the feel of any other campaign rally, except this time with gospel music.
An estimated 7,000 “supporters of faith” packed the King Jesus international ministry megachurch in Miami to hear the word of the president, and decided that it was good. The Maga hat-wearing faithful cheered Trump’s comments on issues calculated to resonate with his churchgoing audience, including abortion, freedoms of speech and religion, and what he claimed was a “crusade” from Democrats against religious tolerance.
Continue reading...Pontiff admits ‘sometime even I lose patience’, referring to incident with pilgrim at Vatican
Pope Francis has apologised after slapping a woman’s hand as he greeted pilgrims at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve.
Francis lost his cool when the woman abruptly grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her just after he reached out to greet a child during a visit to the Vatican’s nativity scene on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...Recent, high-profile defections have left the president and his campaign spooked about losing a key component of his base
The US president going to church on Christmas Eve should not have attracted much attention. But it was the specific church Donald Trump chose to attend on Tuesday that raised eyebrows.
Instead of attending his usual service at the liberal church in Palm Beach, Florida, where he married his third wife, Trump instead went to a conservative Baptist-affiliated church in West Palm Beach.
Continue reading...Minibuses that run on Friday evenings and Saturdays buck state’s religious restrictions
Tel Aviv is one of Israel’s most dynamic cities, but the latest local craze could appear fairly humdrum to outsiders – a bus service that runs at weekends.
Packed 19-seat minibuses fill up fast with passengers, who excitedly gossip about the new routes. People patiently queue at bus stops, knowing they might have to wait for two or three buses to pass before there is a space. Still, they are upbeat. “It’s a pleasure,” said Ben Uzan, a 30-year-old electronic engineer. “It’s a blessed initiative.”
Continue reading...Atheist inmates at Maghaberry prison can now get pastoral care from humanist carers
Non-religious pastors have been allowed for the first time to run a secular “chaplaincy service” for atheist prisoners inside a top-security jail holding some of the most dangerous paramilitary prisoners in Europe.
Prisoners who do not believe in God inside Maghaberry jail in Northern Ireland can now speak with humanist carers.
Continue reading...