Supreme court says site where mosque was torn down in 1992 should become Hindu temple
The Indian supreme court has ruled that India’s most hotly contested piece of religious land rightfully belongs to Hindus, and has granted permission for a temple to be built on the site in Ayodhya.
The five supreme court judges based their unanimous and historic judgment on Hindus’ claim that the site is the birthplace of the god Ram.
Continue reading...Supreme court due to decide fate of Ayodhya, where mosque was torn down by Hindu hardliners in 1992
India’s supreme court is expected to make a historic ruling on Saturday over the highly disputed religious site of Ayodhya, which is claimed by Hindus and Muslims.
The site has been one of the country’s most controversial religious grounds since the Babri mosque, which had been standing since the 16th century, was reduced to rubble by Hindu fundamentalists during a 1992 riot in which more than 2,000 people died.
Continue reading...The deaths of nine women and children has thrust into focus a small religious community and their long history in a remote corner of northern Mexico
Amid the scrubby foothills of Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountains, they farmed pomegranates and pistachios, raised large families and preached a fundamentalist Mormon faith.
Related: Child survivors of massacred family spent 10 hours hiding in Mexican hills
Continue reading...With Mexican soldiers standing guard, a mother and two sons were carried to the grave in hand-hewn pine coffins on Thursday at the first funeral for the victims of a drug cartel ambush that left nine Mexican American women and children dead.
Clad in shirtsleeves, suits or modest dresses, about 500 mourners embraced in grief under white tents erected in La Mora, a hamlet of about 300 people who consider themselves Mormon but are not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some wept, and some sang hymns.
Continue reading...Crowds of dissenters in central Baghdad want Iranian influence banished from Iraqi politics
The biggest protest movement in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein has pressed its demand for the removal of the elected government, staring down an embattled political elite and the widespread influence of Iran.
Friday’s rallies of tens of thousands came a day after supporters of Iraq’s embattled leader, Adil Abdul Mahdi, believed they had won the backing of one of two powerful figures that threatened his premiership, a development that appeared to stabilise his position on Thursday.
Continue reading...Anti-government grassroots movement says it wants to foster feeling of national unity
Tens of thousands of protesters in Lebanon have attempted to form a human chain running across the entire country to symbolise newfound national unity.
Demonstrators planned to join hands from Tripoli to Tyre, a 170km (105-mile) chain running through the capital, Beirut, as part of an unprecedented cross-sectarian mobilisation.
Continue reading...Incident at end of Francis’s Amazon synod blamed on conservatives and ‘racists’
Pope Francis has apologised to Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a church close to the Vatican and tossed them into the River Tiber in a show of conservative opposition to the first Latin American pope.
Speaking as “the bishop of Rome”, Francis dismissed allegations that the wooden statues of naked pregnant women were pagan symbols and said they had been placed in the church “without any intention of idolatry”.
Continue reading...Bishop of Liverpool says he regrets that Archbishop Glenn Davies ‘seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them’
A senior Church of England bishop has expressed regret at comments by the Archbishop of Sydney that supporters of marriage equality should leave the Anglican church.
Reflecting sharp divisions within the global Anglican communion over LGBT+ issues, the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, said: “I regret that the archbishop [of Sydney] seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them within the wider Anglican family.”
Continue reading...Reading branch of US chain to close after protests over stance on same-sex relationships
A US fast food chain is to close its first branch in the UK after protests and boycott calls by LGBT campaigners.
Chick-fil-A faced demands to “cluck off” when the fried chicken outlet opened in a shopping mall in Reading this month.
Continue reading...The blunt words of Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies come at a critical moment for Australian churches and demands for religious freedom
For a man renowned for his civility, the language was blunt. During his annual speech to the Anglican Church’s Sydney synod, Archbishop Glenn Davies told supporters of same-sex marriage to “please leave us”.
“My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our church, they should start a new church or join a church more aligned to their views,” he said. “But do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of scripture.”
Continue reading...Melbourne synod’s vote comes days after Sydney archbishop said Anglicans who back same-sex marriage should leave church
Melbourne’s Anglican church has formally voted to record its “sorrow” over a regional Victorian diocese’s decision to bless same-sex marriages.
The nod of approval given by the Wangaratta diocese in August has angered the Melbourne church’s governing body.
Continue reading...With a dire shortage of land for graves, the holy city is reviving an ancient custom of underground burial – with lift access, LED lighting and golf buggies
Cool air from deep inside the mountain lightly wafts through cavernous arched tunnels. Along the walls of the subterranean passages, rows of human-sized chambers have been dug into the rock. It is unmistakably a catacomb.
Yet this mass tomb is not a relic of the Roman empire. It was made with huge electric diggers, and the walls are lined with concrete. People will enter by lift, and those with limited mobility will be able to use a golf buggy to traverse the necropolis.
Continue reading...Thousands trek to Sorte Mountain each year to perform fiery rituals in tribute to the goddess
Continue reading...Prince Charles described Victorian theologian as a ‘fearless defender of the truth’
Prince Charles described John Henry Newman as a “fearless defender of the truth” after the British cardinal became a saint in front of an estimated 20,000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square.
Newman, also a theologian, scholar and poet, was regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Victorian age and is the first Briton to be made a saint since 1976, when John Ogilvie was canonised by Pope Paul VI.
Continue reading...ACL director Martyn Iles says businesses should have greater powers to hire and fire, but denies Christians have a ‘special vendetta’ against LGBT people
The Australian Christian Lobby has backed calls for religious businesses such as aged care providers to gain more powers of hiring and firing employees who do not conform to religious teachings.
In a debate at the National Press Club on Wednesday the ACL director Martyn Iles backed calls from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference for greater powers to fire employees who don’t conform to a “Christian sexual ethic” but claimed Christians don’t have a “special vendetta” against the LGBT community.
Continue reading...I’m walking through the security cordon that leads into Kadhimiyah, one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites. I’m in a queue, along with dozens of pilgrims who have come from all over the world to pay their respects to the shrine of Imam Kadhim. At the gate, a female security guard pats me down and looks into my handbag, a reminder that the story I’m reporting on here isn’t going to be easy.
As I walk around the market stalls surrounding the shrine, I notice the many “marriage offices” dotted around the mosque, which are licensed to perform Sharia marriages. I’d received tips that some clerics here were performing short-term mutaa [pleasure] marriages, a practice – illegal under Iraqi law – whereby a men can pay for a temporary wife, with the officiating cleric receiving a cut.
Continue reading...The rightwing Law and Justice party may be authoritarian and anti-LGBT, but its welfare programmes have transformed the lives of low-income Poles
– Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of the Law and Justice party, 7 September
Continue reading...As a scandal-ridden presidency lurches towards impeachment, Ben Howe offers valuable insight into how it came to this
In his new book, Ben Howe attempts to explain something that should never have occurred: why most white evangelicals voting in 2016 chose Donald Trump.
Many observers thought Trump could not win because evangelical Christians could not support someone whose life (and tweeting) was so at odds with their beliefs and practices. Indeed, Trump failed to win a majority of evangelicals in any Super Tuesday primary.
Continue reading...Bishops sign joint letter lambasting ‘unacceptable’ language, and calling for respect of others’ opinions
The tone of the Brexit debate has become unacceptable, the Church of England’s bishops have warned, as the prime minister faced intense criticism over his provocative rhetoric.
The bishops released a joint statement on Friday, calling on people both inside and outside parliament to treat each other with greater respect. They spoke after a host of MPs complained of receiving threats and Boris Johnson’s senior aide suggested that only carrying out Brexit would calm the tensions.
Continue reading...Lawmakers voted to scrap restrictions on abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in a win for reproductive rights advocates
Women’s rights activists in Mexico are celebrating after the southern state of Oaxaca decriminalised abortion in a move that activists hope signals broader reforms to ensure reproductive rights in what is still a conservative and deeply Catholic country.
Lawmakers voted 24-10 on Wednesday to scrap restrictions on abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, despite vocal opposition from the Catholic Church. Opponents – including priests and the religious – screamed “killers!” at the lawmakers as the vote occurred, while women in the green handkerchiefs of the pro-choice movement chanted, “Yes we can!”
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