DES MOINES -- Religion and politics are a common and potent mix in America and while preachers for tax reasons avoid endorsing specific parties and candidates, they can gently steer their flock in a particular direction.

At Cornerstone Family Church, a large evangelical church here, pastor Dan Berry reminded several hundred worshipers on Sunday morning that "next Thursday night is caucus night."

He encouraged his flock to go to caucus regardless of their party affiliation and asked them to push their parties to adopt as part of their platform a state amendment preventing same-sex marriage.

This is a hot button social issue usually embraced by Republicans who in turn rely heavily on evangelical Protestants as a base of support. And in Iowa at the moment, the rising star in evangelical eyes is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

"When you go to caucus I am going to ask you to take a plank for your party platform ... this is a marriage amedment plank," Berry said.

The proposed amendment on the issue, which was distributed in the church, read: "Iowa Marriage Amendment: Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in the State of Iowa..."

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

From a pheasant shoot to prayers before his stump speeches, rising Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's cash-strapped campaign seems to have literally at times been done on a wing and a prayer.

A former Arkansas Governor and ordained Baptist preacher, Huckabee's unexpected surge in the polls has been attributed in large part to his successful wooing of the Republican Party's conservative and influential evangelical base.

That means his campaign events often kick off with prayers -- a common way to start many public affairs in the American heartland, from rodeos to business breakfasts.

On Thursday night close to 1,000 people bowed their heads in prayer before several speakers took to the podium at an event dubbed "We The People" at a hotel in West Des Moines that ended with a Huckabee stump speech.

Last week at a campaign event for Huckabee sponsored by the Iowa Christian Alliance, Huckabee joined the group in prayers before and at the end of his speech.  He also sprinkled several Bible references during his remarks.

The crucial Iowa caucus on Jan. 3 kicks off the presidential nomination process for both the Republicans and the Democrats for the November White House election.

"When you're outspent 20 to one, and that's basically the ratio here, it's a remarkable story. If we come in second even third it's still a remarkable story to be outspent like that," Huckabe said on Thursday night, refering to Republican rival Mitt Romney's financial advantage over him.

But Huckabee has been hitting key Republican ATMs like Texas and Florida this month in his fund-raising efforts. When December's numbers are disclosed, he likely is hoping some of his prayers have been answered.

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

Many of Iowa's religious conservatives still seem to be examining the Republican field of presidential candidates and like a blast of birdshot they may yet scatter their vote among the flock.

Conventional widsom holds that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are battling it out for the soul of the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, starting with the sizeable block of conservative Christians in Iowa which kicks off the nominating process with its Jan. 3 caucuses. 

Huckabee's surge in the polls in Iowa and nationally has been attributed in large part to the former Baptist preacher's success with this group -- but he doesn't have a monoply on its affections.

With all of the candidates except former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani adopting the conservative wing's strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, some remain undecided or have even leaned towards other candidates such as Arizona Senator John McCain.

Lee Booton, a 63-year-old former Baptist minister and Navy Vietnam veteran, said at a McCain rally on Thursday that he supported him because of his exprience and integrity and his consistent record opposing abortion rights.

"The one thing about Huckabee is that he has raised taxes," he said.

Dale Roberts, 58, a retired advertising manager, said at the same rally attended by several dozen mostly middle-aged and elderly Iowans that he backed McCain because he was endorsed by his first presidential choice, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, a conservative Christian who dropped out of the race in October.

"I read Brownback's book (From Power to Purpose) and I became enthralled with him. And he said Sen. McCain had the same traditional values that he did," said Roberts, who described himself as a "non-denominational" conservative Christian. 

But there were still plenty of undecideds, including leading conservatives. 

Steve Scheffler, the president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, said he thought many evangelicals were still pondering the Republican field as they did not want to pick someone who would just pay "lip service" to their causes.

"I have still personally not decided how to cast my own vote," he said.

Christmas greetings of peace on Earth and good will to all — what could be more common during this holiday season? It’s heard so much that it’s practically a cliché. But this familiar tune takes on a new tone when the greetings come from leading Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals. The same group of 138 Muslims that invited Christians to a theological dialogue last October has just sent its Christmas greetings to the Christian world (see the text and our news story). What struck me the most about it is that it was even sent at all.

As a decentralised religion with no single leader or leadership group to speak for it, Islam (1.3 billion faithful around the world) has always been “structurally disadvantaged” in comparison to Christianity. The world’s largest religion (2 billion) has one highly centralised church, Roman Catholicism (1.1 billion), led by a highly visible pope. Other large Christian families like the Orthodox (220 million), Anglicans (77 million) and the many different Protestant denominations all have clearly defined leaders who can speak for the faithful. The absence of such figures in Islam has allowed a wide variety of pretenders to claim to speak in the name of Muslims. To put it in terms of the current season, they couldn’t all send a Christmas card to Pope Benedict or Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew or Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams because they had no forum for getting together to do so. Individual sheikhs, muftis, imams or mosque rectors might send their greetings to a friendly local bishop, vicar, preacher or priest they knew personally, but there wasn’t exactly heavy traffic.

The group of 138 that issued the appeal called A Common Word is changing that. Representing Sunnis, Shi’ites, Sufis and other schools of Islam, they can claim more than anyone else to speak for large numbers of Muslims. Sure, we can’t say how many they represent. Of course, they are a mixed group. Naturally, they don’t all agree on everything. And yes, there may be disputes within the group, maybe defections and additions as it develops. But they are from a broad spectrum of Islam and have organised themselves enough to first send a response to Pope Benedict’s Regensburg lecture (back when they were only 38), then propose a dialogue with the Christian world (which the major churches have accepted) and now send these Christmas greetings. Non-Muslim cynics might scoff that signing a Christmas greeting is not all that difficult. But anyone who knows anything about Islam can see this is a significant new step.

After the publication of the letter in October, the main focus was on what the Vatican would say. Many non-Catholic Christian leaders, Rowan Williams being the first among them, welcomed the dialogue appeal. The Vatican took its time and some officials, especially the man responsible for interreligious relations Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran , expressed doubt that a serious dialogue was even possible. But the Vatican finally answered positively and the path is now open for practical work.

Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad bin Talal, whose Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman is behind the dialogue appeal, recently responded to the Vatican’s acceptance with a letter proposing an initial meeting in February or March. Leading members of the group also plan to meet various Christian leaders at conferences planned over the coming year, so a network of Muslim-Christian discussions should develop. In his letter, of which I have obtained a copy, Prince Ghazi urges the Vatican not to want to make the best the enemy of the good. Dialogue is important, he argues,

“even if it transpires that there are differences between us in the interpretation or comprehension of the text of this letter… These differences themselves are presumably also a matter for discussion between us, and should be an occasion for mutual respect and celebration, and not divisive disputation.

“We, like you, also consider complete theological agreement between Christians and Muslims inherently not possible by definition, but still wish to seek and promote a common stance and cooperation based on what we do agree on.”

His name is Marx, he’s an outspoken German and he criticises capitalism. But he’s not who you might think he is. Reinhard Marx wants German companies to stop giving their top managers hefty salaries and focus on more than profit margins. So far, comparisons with Karl Marx stand up. But then there’s his job. Reinhard Marx has just been named as the new Roman Catholic archbishop of Munich.

The Bavarian capital is Pope Benedict’s old diocese, one that usually earns its archbishop a cardinal’s hat after a few years in office, so Marx is clearly an up-and-coming figure in German Catholicism.

“It is ridiculous that when businesses publish bad figures or sack staff or miss their profit targets a manager can still be given a golden parachute,” Marx, currently the bishop of Trier, says in a German radio interview. Trier is Karl Marx’s birthplace but the two men are not related.

Marx, a strong defender of Catholic social teaching and head of the German Bishops’ Conference “Justitia et Pax” committee on social issues, reckons that businesses should also think about rewarding managers who are loyal and aim to protect jobs.

Pursuing profits is not always good business practice, he says: “When maximizing profits is the central goal for directors, meaning making 15, 20, 30, 40 percent returns, then it’s a risky path.”

A debate over corporate pay has been bubbling in Germany over the past few weeks, characterised by front page pictures of the beaming chief executive of Porsche, who reports say earned 60 million euros ($88 million) this year heading the sports car firm.

Even Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for businesses to be more open about publishing what top executives earn.

So what exactly were more than two million Muslim pilgrims doing on the plain of Arafat outside Mecca on the afternoon of December 18, also known as the 9th of Dhul Hijja? I was there too, among them, so I should know, shouldn’t I? I must have seen many thousands of them close up on the haj this year, looked into their faces and tried to guess what they were thinking.

The conventional wisdom is that they were praying, at least the ones who were staying still and not engaged in the more mundane tasks of life, such as setting up tents, fetching water for their families, or waiting to get a free breakfast from the charity container truck. Activities of that kind accounted for quite a proportion of the total, especially people walking, walking by the tens of thousands, walking to explore, walking to find better places to sit, walking to find lost friends and relatives or just walking because it was a change from sitting, where they might be buffeted by the feet and bags of passing pedestrians, or asphyxiated by the exhaust of giant buses, or troubled by the accumulating piles of rubbish as people threw down orange peel, biscuit wrappers, milk cartons and discarded flipflops. Of those who were sitting, quite a number were chatting with their friends and neighbours and, judging by the snippets of conversation I overheard, much of the talk was of the basic logistics of surviving the day. How far is it to Mohamed’s tent? Which lavatories do you think are the best? How much are the bananas?

Now there were some people praying, or at least going through the motions of praying. Maybe their eyes were closed or their hands were cupped in that distinctive manner, or their lips were moving silently, or they were rocking rhythmically from side to side. If you found someone with the time to talk, they would invariably tell you that they had prayed and that this was one of their reasons for being there. I might add that they were talking about personal prayers, to Muslims something quite distinct from the formal prayers which they say five times a day at set times. In the formal prayers you can’t slip in one for your sick grandmother. That’s a separate operation, with distinct rules. Most of the pilgrims spent at least five hours on the plain, about the minimum to qualify as a certified haji. But interestingly, prayer on the plain is not obligatory. The best explanation I heard came from a Sudanese carpenter who had performed the pilgrimage many times. He said that prayer on the plain on that particular day was especially effective, so it was wise to take advantage of the opportunity. That seems to be a view close to the traditional consensus.

I bring all this up because it illustrates the problems facing a journalist trying to say what is going on in the minds of others, especially in the minds of millions of people. There’s a natural tendency to go for the easy option – ‘millions of people spent the afternoon in prayer’. That gives a very misleading impression of people on their knees, silent, for hours on end. There’s also a tendency for someone brought up in Europe, as I was, to impose the norms of their culture onto others.

But the haj is unlike anything I am aware of that would be familiar to Europeans or Americans. It is essentially an elaborate performance, a series of acts and spoken words spread over many days which, taken together, fulfill a religious obligation. If the pilgrim omits one of the acts, his pilgrimage is incomplete and God might not accept it as valid. Enthusiasm in the evangelical sense is not part of the package. I did see some people who were highly emotional – the men who wept when they touched the Kaaba, for example. But there were many others – frustratingly many, from the point of view of a journalist seeking colourful language – who seemed to have a rather humdrum dutiful approach to their hajj. The most common answer to the question ‘Why are you making the pilgrimage?’ was ‘Because it is a religious duty’. Few said anything emotional, mystical or inspirational. Asked what the highlight or the ‘best part’ had been, many mentioned logistical aspects, such as the new crowd control measures, which made it easier to move around.

I came to the conclusion that people performed the pilgrimage for a whole variety of reasons, including of course belief in its obligatory nature and because they are want to worship God ‘from close up’. But there are clearly other reasons too – peer pressure and to acquire social prestige are two of the most obvious. A surprisingly large number were already multiple hajis, many coming for their fourth, fifth, even 20th time, although they know that once in a lifetime is enough. What is that was so compelling that they felt the need to come back time and again? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I come back from the haj convinced more than ever that journalists must think twice before they jump to conclusions about what people are thinking, and even before they take at face value what people say they are thinking.

Nicolas Sarkozy likes to talk about religion in public life, even though many French don’t think it has any role there. He never misses the opportunity to tell religious leaders how important faith is as a moral guide for modern societies. Every now and then, he goes public with it in a provocative way. He could not have been more provocative than he was on Thursday when he met Pope Benedict XVI and was inducted as the honorary canon of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran (a centuries-old tradition for French heads of state). He delivered a long speech praising faith’s role in public life and urging believers in general and Catholics in particular to play a more active role in French public debates.

“There has probably never been a French president who defended his country’s Catholic heritage so vigorously,” the French Catholic daily La Croix wrote approvingly.

We’ve covered the visit and done a story on the reactions in France (which continued to roll in after our story ran). One typical reaction was Le Monde’s front-page cartoon showing Sarkozy dressed as a bishop while George Bush, who has a cross and a U.S. flag with crosses instead of stars), tells Pope Benedict “I think this guy’s stealing my job.” The French almost instinctively contrast their reticence about bringing religion into politics to the way U.S. politicians display and debate their faith in public.

But just as Sarko l’americain — as his critics call him — is not really all that American in his policies, he is not all that American in his “Godtalk” either. He discusses the role of religion in public life in a broad sociological and political manner, as one of several possible stabilising elements in modern societies swept up in rapid change. It’s clear in his approach to Islam, for example, that he mostly wants moderate imams to help calm the poor suburbs by giving Muslim youths there a sense of purpose and direction in their lives. The details are not as important as the result. He wants results (which also strikes the French as very American).

Sarkozy rarely gets specific about religion, though. It’s not about this or that reading of Scripture, not about rejecting evolution or wondering whether someone is Christian or Muslim or Jewish enough to be acceptable. It’s certainly not about divine inspiration for any policy. His is a more philosophical approach. “A person who believes is a person who hopes. The republic has an interest in having many men and women who hope,” he said in his speech.

The president is also reluctant to speak about his personal views. While he says he is a Catholic “by tradition and in my heart” (as he told Vatican Radio), he is twice divorced, rarely attends Mass and has drawn criticism from Catholic bishops for cracking down on immigration and liberalising Sunday shopping laws. But that didn’t stop him from attending Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger’s funeral in Notre Dame or going to the bishops’ conference reception to congratulate the current archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois, on being named a cardinal.

Still, Sarkozy is the most faith-friendly president to come along in France in a long time, so religious leaders aren’t complaining . But they are waiting to see if he puts his rhetoric into action.

The Catholic League is angered at Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's scheduled appearance this Sunday at the Cornerstone "mega-church" of fiery preacher John Hagee in San Antonio.

Hagee is better known for his staunch support of Israel and his reading of Middle East events as unfolding Biblical prophecy. But the New York-based Catholic League, which is America's largest Catholic civil rights group, says the hefty pastor is also viciously anti-Catholic.

"He's one of the biggest anti-Catholic bigots in the U.S.  and he commands a huge audience. Hagee has reached out to the Jewish community quite well but he does o almost always by bashing the Catholic Church," the League's president Bill Donohue told Reuters.

"So I have no idea why someone like Huckabee or anyone running for president would associate himself with somelike like Hagee," he said. 

The Catholic League says Hagee has, among other things, compared the Catholic Church to Hitler in its persecution of the Jews.

In response, Hagee reiterated in a brief statement that "We are not now nor have we ever been anti-Catholic."

The stakes for Huckabee, himself a Baptist minister, could be high as the evangelical base that he is trying to woo in the Republican Party has over the past two decades found much common political ground -- theological differences aside -- with Catholics on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

The two groups have come a long way since John F. Kennedy felt compelled to address his Catholic faith in 1960 in a speech to Southern Baptists in Houston, assuring them among other things that he would not take policy direction from the Pope.

But there are still evangelical pockets in the American south where historical animosities toward the Catholic Church and Vatican remain.

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

If you’re going on the haj pilgrimage, be fit and bring a sturdy pair of sandals. As with any pilgrimage, walking long distances is hard to avoid. The alternative is to sit in endless traffic jams inhaling diesel fumes. I didn’t walk as much as the real pilgrims did on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, but when I fell asleep at 7 a.m. in a resthouse, I had been walking since 1.30 a.m.

The journey began at sunset on Tuesday, the peak of the pilgrimage. Pilgrims have to spend the afternoon in a confined area on the Plain of Arafat. ‘Being there’ is what counts. Clerics say private prayers said during this period are particularly effective . Some people slept in tents or just walked around, in as much as that was possible amid more than two million people, the heat and the rapidly accumulating rubbish.

As the sun went down, pilgrims dressed in loose white cloth pressed against the western limits of the confined area. Once it disappeared behind the rocky hills, they surged forward towards Mecca, like a liquid boiling over. We journalists took cars this time. As we approached Muzdalifa, the first station on the way back to Mecca, I could see that people had trekked into the rocky hills and were settling down to sleep a few hours in the rough. Our car took us to another guesthouse, where we had dinner, the usual boiled sheep and rice that Saudis seem to live on. Apart from breakfast, it’s the only dish we’ve eaten since our journey began on Monday.

In Muzdalifa we had to collect pebbles to throw at the stone pillars further towards Mecca the next day. Opinion was divided on how many we needed. One person said just seven, but the Ministry of Haj web site clearly said 70. “Seventy was just a typo for seven,” one of my companions said. I took his advice and picked seven, but by the time we left, opinion in the group had shifted to 49 plus some spares. So I made it 70 after all.

After midnight, I hitched a ride with Saudis from a religious television station called Tafaani, roughly translatable as ‘total dedication (to God)’. They left me at another resthouse where I found my windowless dormitory room. By this stage, stains from spilt tea and smudges from squeezing between buses at Arafat had soiled large sections of my once white clothes. I hadn’t shaved for days because I wasn’t sure it was permitted. But I had to complete certain procedures before I could change clothes and shave. The first was to walk 280 steps down the hill to throw my seven stones at the Big Jamara, one of three ‘pillars’ — now walls — in a ceremony symbolising defiance of the devil. It was like a giant underground car park, with vast pillars and walkways of bare grey concrete devised to channel millions of people a day through without them crushing each other to death. The stoning took at most 20 seconds.

Around the corner, some people had started cutting their hair or shaving their heads. Serious men have the shave, but I was not about to let some stranger with a rusty razor start cutting into my scalp. Hacking away with my own nail scissors in semi-darkness without a mirror, I took off at least half of it all round. Several people came up and asked me to cut their hair, and I gladly agreed. One old man had so little hair anyway that it was a challenge finding any to cut.

Back up the 280 steps, I looked in the mirror and made some adjustments to the parts which were noticeable longer. Then I consulted the nearest Saudi on what to do next. Return to the Kaaba in Mecca, reperform the rites there and buy a sacrifice voucher, he said. I set off into the night, walking for half an hour until a broad pedestrian walkway appeared to the right. I joined the pilgrims taking it, confident we were all headed in the right direction.

Another half hour and we entered a vast concrete tunnel, ventilated by powerful and noisy fans set in the ceiling. The tunnel, one mile long and sloping steeply downwards, ends in the underground precincts of the Mecca sanctuary. Coming up the stairs, there was the overpowering marble mosque, brightly lit at 3 a.m. and full of people. The inner courtyard at ground level was too crowded for me to tackle so I went up to the first floor. Since circling the Kaaba there is much longer, I went for bare minimum option, three circumbulations instead of the preferred seven. The walk was hazardous. Crazed young Saudis zipped people in wheelchairs round the circuit, coming up behind me and hissing for me to move out of the way. After the three circuits, I had to go say two prayers facing the Station of Abraham. Then off for the sa’y ritual, again three times instead of seven.

By this time it was about 5 a.m. and I was ready to go home. Mistakenly taking the road to the right of a mysterious fortress-like complex towering above the Grand Mosque sanctuary, I trudged along for some time before seeing it veered off into the hills. On my way back down to the sanctuary, I saw the complex belonged to the Royal Guard and could probably hold a garrison of thousands, ready for deployment in case of trouble.

Hiking the four or five miles back to Mina, I thought about the traditional sheep sacrifice at the end of the rituals. For ethical and environmental reasons, I don’t approve of bringing live sheep in ships from New Zealand, slaughtering them in Mecca and then sending the frozen meat to people in Bangladesh. Using land to raise sheep is not the way to help feed the poor, carrying them on ships is unnecessary cruelty and people around these parts eat far too much red meat anyway. In the time of the Prophet Mohammad, sacrificing a sheep was a special occasion, not a daily occurrence, and the sheep were locally reared in a way that was ecologically sustainable. I’ll take my chances on God accepting a modern substitute, a donation the equivalent of 390 Saudi riyals ($104) — the price of a sheep — to a charity that really helps the poor. And that is a solemn vow.

During World War Two, Pope Pius XII was (1) a saintly man, (2) Hitler’s Pope or (3) neither of the above. This question continues to weigh on Catholic-Jewish relations despite all the progress made since the Second Vatican Council. It would be easy to assume that Catholics answer (1) and Jews (2), but the debate is far more complex than that. There are Catholics who say Pius didn’t do enough to help the Jews and Jews who defend him as doing everything he could under the circumstances.

The issue keeps smouldering because the Catholic Church is considering Pius for possible beatification and sainthood. The U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League has urged the Church to suspend the procedure until the Vatican declassifies all its wartime archives. The Vatican opened its archives up to 1939 — the end of the papacy of Pope Pius XI — in 2005, but it is still processing the files from Pope Pius XII’s papacy (1939-1958). In the meantime, the controversy has produced a steady stream of books on Pius XII and the Holocaust, only some of which are thumbnailed below.

Pope Benedict XVI has now slowed down the procedure by asking for a further review of the Pius XII dossier, which is 3,500 pages long. Andrea Tornielli, Vatican correspondent of the Italian daily Il Giornale, has reported that Benedict has also decided to set up a committee to review the issue and is concerned about the possible reaction if the Vatican beatified Pius XII too soon. Tornielli, whose fourth book about Pius XII was published in May, says the pontiff was not a callous anti-Semite as some critics portray him.

“This is a black legend that refuses to die. Pius XII has become a lightning rod for all the presumed responsibilities of the Catholic Church in that period,” Tornielli told our Vatican correspondent Philip Pullella. “It is impossible to have a calm historical debate about Pius because he has been branded ‘the Nazi Pope’ and this is a clear distortion of history.”

Father Peter Gumbel, the Jesuit who heads the Church probe int Pius’s qualification for sainthood, said that the department responsible for saints believed the late pope met the requirements for beatification, the first step towards sainthood. It has documented this in a 3,500-page dossier for his “cause,” the Vatican term for the procedure to declare someone a saint.

“In an important cause like this, the Supreme Pontiff wants to think and wants to see things. He is a man of study,” Gumpel told Pullella. He said he had no official word that Pope Benedict had set up a special committee to review the dossier once again, but he thought the Vatican was right to be cautious, especially given the fact that Jewish community leaders and historians were themselves split over Pius XII and his role.

“The pope wants excellent relations with Israel and with the Jewish community and wants to see if any legitimate problem could arise. .. It will have to be seen from a diplomatic point of view if any reasonable, legitimate objections are arise. I’m certain this is not the case but it is a precaution so the pope can always say this has been examined from every possible angle and he can say ‘I’m sorry, study the matter and you will see that these objections are not true.”

“I personally remain convinced of the merits of this cause. It’s simply a question of time for this decree to be signed.”

Are you convinced that Pius XII was a saintly man? Or Hitler’s Pope? Or do you think this issue has become so polarised that it is difficult, if not impossible, to come to an agreed version of what he did and did not do?