Father Adolfo Nicolas, the new superior general of the Jesuit order of Catholic priests, possesses, besides decades of experience, a good sense of humour. At his first meeting with reporters since his election on Jan 19, the 71-year-old Spaniard spoke about his life, his formation in Asia and what he had been reading about himself in the media.

“I’ve read that I am 50 percent Kolvenbach and 50 percent Arrupe,” he said, referring to his two immediate predecessors, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach and Pedro Arrupe. “However, no one has yet said I’m 10 percent Elvis Presley, although one could say this and it wouldn’t surprise me. But I think this is all false.”

After the laughter died down, the soft-spoken Spaniard became a bit serious: “I am not Kolvenbach and I am not Arrupe. I am made for the reality in which I find myself.”

Even religious media have had a hard time defining him after his election to lead the Roman Catholic Church’s largest clerical order. “I am an unknown,” said Nicolas, who has spent much of his life in Asia. “So this has been like a treasure hunt (for the media). ”

Jesuit superiors general are known as “black popes” because, like the pontiff, they wield worldwide influence and usually keep their position for life — and their simple cassock is black, in contrast to the pope’s white.

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He dismissed media reports that there was a “theological gap” between himself and the Pope. “That is not true,” he said, calling him “a great professor” whose work he had studied while in Japan. “Theology is a dialogue …sometimes there are differences.”

Nicolas spoke much about how Asia had taught him tolerance. “The way of seeing faith in Asia is totally different from the way we see it here. Asia changed me, I hope for the best … Asia can do much to enrich the universal Church.”

“In Japan, I discovered that true religiosity is much deeper, that you must go to the heart of the person, the heart of the question when we speak of God, just as when we speak of ourselves or of human life. This taught me to smile in the face of things that in Spain would have upset me. But human life is like this, people are like this. Imperfection is so natural that one must accept it and not look for people who are perfect … It scandalises the Japanese that we are so strict, intolerant, so unaccepting of diversity.”

Then, at the end of the meeting, his sense of humour returned. He said one of the most interesting places in Asia is the Philippines and noted some similarities between the Filipino and Italian characters. “Like Italians, the Filipinos see traffic laws not as laws but as suggestions.”

A year can seem like an eternity in India, especially for a foreign correspondent discovering how complex the links between religion and politics can be here.

The last time I went from New Delhi to Uttar Pradesh was in January 2007 to cover the Kumbh Mela, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. Around seven million Hindus and thousands of holy “Sadhus” descend on the junction of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers to pray and make offerings.

I stood where the two rivers meet along with thousands of poor Hindus performing their ritual baths. At night, whole families huddled together to keep warm on the river bank. Small paper boats with candles floated precariously down the river.

At the time, this felt like the essence of Hinduism — a relationship with nature and its cycles, its running rivers, the elements of fire and water. New to India then, I don’t remember thinking about caste once in my three-day visit.

The second visit to the state this month was an eye-opener.

A journalist’s early impressions on a trip are often gleaned from the back seat of an airport taxi. Uttar Pradesh is the heart of the Hindu “cow belt” and one of the poorest, most populous and caste-ridden places in India. Yet what we drove through this time looked like a birthday bash for royalty.

The state capital Lucknow was decked out in mile upon mile of blue decorations, light bulbs and banners to celebrate the birthday of the new chief minister — a Dalit (”untouchable”) former teacher known as Mayawati. She has stormed onto the national stage as such a champion of the rights of the poor that she’s known as the “Untouchables Queen.”

Welcome to caste politics in Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati is everywhere in Uttar Pradesh. Statues of her abound thanks to a building spree she launched that employs many Dalits and other lower castes. She has spent lavishly on one of India’s biggest highway projects, creating even more jobs for the poor, and on parks dotted across the country’s most populous state. A huge park in honour of her party’s founder is being built in Lucknow for around $100 million. Hundreds of poor women bricklayers toiled nearby, their children camped out next to them.

Mayawati is a politically astute politician. Many analysts rate her as a middle-of-the-road leader who surrounds herself with well-meaning technocrats. But her rise highlights the importance of caste in northern Indian politics — and what Indian critics of this kind of caste politics call the darker side of Hinduism.

Despite the secular ideals of modern India, whose founders prided themselves on not being a religious state like neighbouring Pakistan, Uttar Pradesh shows that caste politics is alive and kicking in this part of northern India.

Much of this surfaced because the Indian government decided two decades ago to introduce caste quotas into civil service hiring and college admissions. Around one-third of state jobs are now dished out by caste preference.

It pays to have a caste and be proud of it. Academics and reformers may say the essence of Hinduism does not have to be related to caste and that one can coexist without the other. But it’s hard to see that on the ground in India these days.

The rise in caste politics has also been accompanied by the rise of Hindu nationalist political parties that say the prevalence of caste shows India is a religious, not a secular nation. The main Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), just scored important victories in the western state of Gujarat last month and the southern state of Karnataka (its capital is high-tech centre Bangalore) in November.

I spent three days in Uttar Pradesh visiting Dalit villages where poor villagers were beaten up by higher castes for collecting firewood from the wrong forest, and where water supplies are so bad and appeals to officials for help so ineffective that their only hope left is their rain god. I talked to politicians, academics and NGO workers.

All their talk was related to caste. It was a sobering look at the flip side of the modern hi-tech India that so often hits the headlines. For all the talk of a globalising India, Mayawati’s focus on caste may be a sign of things to come. She has talked about running for prime minister in the next elections, in 2009, and some Indian analysts think she could pull it off.

My second trip to U.P. left me wondering what path caste and Indian politics will take. Can Hinduism keep the spirit I saw last year on the banks of the Ganges, where caste seemed secondary, if even only for a few days? Or will caste stay and grow in India’s political fabric, justifying those politicians that say India is religious, not a secular society?

DALLAS - Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson's departure from the Republican presidential race has left the National Right to Life Coalition (NRLC), one of America's leading anti-abortion rights organizations, wthout a candidate that has its seal of approval.

The group endorsed Thompson in November but says no decision has been made about whether to make another endorsement.

"We know what we don't want. But we're not sure if we are going to endorse at this point before the primaries are over," the group's political director Karen Cross told Reuters.

The group's "nay list" is unsurprising all of the major Democratic candidates plus former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose support for abortion rights sets him apart from the rest of the socially conservative Republican field.

Cross said among the Republicans former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Senator John McCain were "all running as pro-life candidates" -- implying that if one of them gets their party's nomination he will almost certainly get the NRLC's backing.

Abortion is a divisive issue in America and those who are most staunchly opposed to it tend to be religious conservatives -- evangelical Protestant and Catholic but also Mormon, Jewish and other faiths.

The Democratic Party's plank backs abortion rights while opposition to them is a key Republican plank -- though many fiscal conservatives within the GOP are uncomfortable with that stance.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Placards left in front of the Supreme Court after a march marking the 35th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision backing abortion rights.)

U.S. evangelicals are more concerned about the slumping economy and cleaning up government than they are about so-called hot button social issues such as abortion, according to a new online poll by Beliefnet, a religious news service.

The survey of 980 self-described "evangelical born again" Christians between Jan. 17-23 also found about 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Republican and about 30 percent as Democratic.

White evangelical Protestants are regarded as a key Republican base which helped secure President George W. Bush two White House terms, partly because issues such as abortion and gay marriage galvanized them to go to the polls. Bush picked up as much as 80 percent of the votes cast by this group.

The Beliefnet poll found that 85 percent of evangelicals ranked the economy and "cleaning up government " as the most important or very important issues. By contrast, about 61 percent gave these rankings to ending abortion and 49 percent to halting gay marriage.

However, the poll was not entirely scientific, it was promoted on Beliefnet's Web site and through its newsletters. Respondents weren't alerted that this was a poll of evangelicals, but Beliefnet culled these responses only from those who said they were "evangelical or born again."

Still, the survey is the latest piece of evidence to suggest that U.S. evangelicals have political concerns which go far beyond divisive cultural issues.

Religion plays a big role in politics in America, where levels of belief and regular worship are far higher than they are in Europe. Evangelicals, who tend to take their religion very seriously, number about 60 million or one fifth of the U.S. population.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Chip East

The Vatican has been stressing for years that Catholic universities should have a distinctively Catholic character and follow Church doctrine. Pope John Paul II spelled this out in a 1990 document called Ex corde Ecclesiae and Vatican officials have used this to discipline universities that stray too far from Church teaching. Traditionally, rebellious theologians were the ones who caught their eye. In recent years, bioethical issues have emerged as a flashpoint. Universities researching in vitro fertilisation or embryonic stem cells — both of which the Church opposes — have been threatened with withdrawal of their Catholic status unless they stop.

Now the question has come up whether a basketball coach at a Catholic university can be in favour of abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Mollie Ziegler at GetReligion has picked up a fascinating story about Saint Louis University’s coach Rick Majerus, who expressed his personal views to a local reporter while attending a Hillary Clinton campaign rally. SLU describes itself as “a Jesuit, Catholic university.” It is not legally controlled by the local Catholic diocese. St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke is one of the most outspoken Catholic prelates in the United States — he said in 2004 he would deny communion to John Kerry because of his pro-abortion views, said the same last year about Rudy Giuliani and has now said it about Majerus. And he says SLU should discipline Majerus.

It’s hard to imagine that Burke will just let this drop because of details such as the lay composition of its board or how the state of Missouri views the university’s status. If this document on Ex corde Ecclesiae by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is any guide, he seems to have a moral responsibility for all Catholic universities in his diocese, whether they officially come under his control or not. What he can do is not clear. The Vatican has ways to exert its influence, especially with the Jesuits. Look at the way it pushed Fr. Tom Reese out of the editor’s chair at America magazine.

Coincidentally, this comes just after the Jesuit order elected a new superior general, Adolfo Nicolas (a Spaniard, like its founder Saint Ignatius). Shortly before the vote, Pope Benedict sent the outgoing superior general a letter recalling the order’s special vow of obedience to the Pope. Vatican Radio said Benedict made a special point of asking “that the Congregation reaffirms, in the spirit of Saint Ignatius, its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine, in particular on the crucial points under attack today from secular culture”.

This is a story to watch.

It would have been a first. The imam of Rome’s mosque was due to visit the city’s synagogue on Wednesday, but unexpectedly called off the meeting on Tuesday, citing unspecified logistical problems. Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni visited the mosque in 2006, so Imam Ala Eldin al Ghobashy would have been returning the compliment. It would have been an important symbolic step forward for inter-religious dialogue, right in the Vatican’s backyard.

Di Segni told journalists there had been “alarming signals from Egypt” indicating opposition to the visit among Islamic scholars there because of Israel’s recent blockade of the Gaza Strip. Italian newspapers said the signals came from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the leading centre of Sunni Islamic learning. Muslim leaders in Rome denied any intervention from abroad and blamed the delay on “excessive interest in the visit”.

Di Segni has said he hopes logistical problems were “the only motives that determined what we hope is a temporary delay”. We reported the reason given by Abdellah Redouane, secretary general of the Islamic Cultural Centre attached to the mosque, because that’s how he explained the decision. We’re trying to find out more, but this kind of story is notoriously difficult to nail down.

Regardless of whether al-Azhar was involved or not, there is a widespread suspicion among Italian journalists that the Middle East conflict has once again been “imported” to Europe. Look at the headlines — “Islamic veto, imam won’t go to synagogue” (Corriere della Sera), “Veto on imam, Roman Jews say it’s serious foreign interference” (La Stampa), “Roman Jews saddened by imam, the stop is serious foreign interference” (La Repubblica).

What do you think? Do some Muslims in Europe let inter-religious tensions elsewhere, such as in the Middle East, get in the way of better relations with other faiths in Europe? Or is this just an impression that headlines like those cited above create?

In the “one picture worth 1,000 words” category, check out Sulastri Osman’s feature on a Singapore festival of body-piercing in honour of the Hindu god Shiva’s youngest son, Lord Murugan. “They believe the piercings will leave no scars and they will feel no pain, .protected from bodily harm by the strict regime of abstinence, piety and vegetarianism they follow for a month before the festival,” she writes.

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Melvin Ho (right), a first-time participant in the Thaipusam festival, said the motivation for the piercing is simple. “I believe in gods,” the 49-year-old man of Chinese origin said, minutes before a friend inserted a meter-long metal skewer through his cheeks.

The man who pierced Ho appeared to feel more pain than he did, grimacing as he pushed the skewer through his friend’s flesh.

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The women with pierced cheeks and men sporting hooks and skewers all over their bare chests and backs carry wooden kavadis, or portable altars, for 4-1/2 kilometers (three miles) to Sri Thendayuthapani Temple where the procession ends.

Marching alongside Ho, his friend carried a ceremonial milk pot, while an estimated crowd of 50,000 families, friends and onlookers prayed and chanted.

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The procession ends with devotees making offerings and pouring pots of milk over a statue of the merciful Murugan, one of hundreds of gods who populate the colorful Hindu pantheon.

Body-piercing is not restricted to Hindus. Chinese Buddhists practice it too.

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Not too far north of the Singapore festival, on the Thai resort island of Phuket, the annual vegetarian festival has the same kind of procession with skewers. This must be the result of a mix of traditions. One of the devotees at last year’s festival is shown at left. Note the dazed look in his eyes.

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Covering the Phuket festival in 1987, I couldn’t believe how they could do it. “The skewers drew little or no blood and the dazed men and women appeared to be in no pain,” my feature said. “At the end of the procession, after friends gingerly removed the skewers, the devotees fell into convulsions and then fainted. When ‘the gods’ left their bodies, they got up and walked away.”

When the head of the Catholic bishops’ conference in most countries speaks, he expects the specialist Church media to report on him and considers himself lucky if he makes it into the religion pages of the mainstream press. When the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) speaks, Italian media sit up and listen.

So when Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (left) delivered his opening address to a regular meeting of the CEI’s permanent council last Monday, his speech (here in Italian) was all over the television and radio that night and in all mainstream newspapers the next morning.

Bagnasco, following up on recent economic surveys, opinion polls and media stories, said Italy was effectively in a state of malaise, if not outright decline. He said Italy appeared like a “frayed” country and at times seemed as torn apart as “confetti.” He cited a recent report by the social research organisation Censis that said Italy was suffering from “deep inertia” and seemed “incapable of building a common future”. A “dangerous lack of confidence” was widespread, he said.

Newspapers used the word “attack” to describe Bagnasco’s ctiticism of Italy’s current social and political situation. Most linked it to the fact that Pope Benedict had to scrap a visit to Rome’s La Sapienza University last week because of planned protests.
When the Vatican cancelled the visit, it said the reason was because the respectful climate it wanted at the university no longer existed. The interior ministry said security was not a problem, but Bagnasco said the visit was cancelled after “suggestions by Italian authorities”. The prime minister’s office denied that this was the case.

Last Sunday, a huge crowd, many of them students, turned out in St Peter’s Square to show their support for the Pope.

Bagnasco can speak more freely about the Italian political and social situation than Pope Benedict, but it is understood that he is reflecting the Vatican’s position. Italy’s powerful Catholic Church, with the backing of the Vatican, has been at odds with the the centre-left government over a number of issues, including a major clash last year over plans to give non-married heterosexual and homosexual couples more rights.

Ironically, a day after Bagnasco delivered his speech, Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s government itself started unravelling. Clemente Mastella, the justice minister who leads a small Catholic party, withdrew its support for the coalition. Mastella had earlier resigned as minister after he and wife became caught up in a corruption scandal in southern Italy. He says his family has done nothing wrong.

Mastella said one of straws that broke the camel’s back for him was his frustration, as a Catholic and a citizen, that the Pope could not even deliver an address at the main university in the Italian capital.

At the time of writing, the Italian government, a coalition that ranges from Catholics to hard-line communists, has asked for two confidence votes in parliament, on Wednesday and Thursday. If Prodi’s government does collapse and if the centre-right opposition led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi eventually returns to power in one form or another, one man who probably won’t be crying is Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.

Just because an issue has disappeared from the headlines doesn’t mean nothing’s happening with it. The “Common Word” appeal by 138 Muslim scholars for a dialogue with Christianity kept us busy late last year. It looked like the issue would rest until a Muslim delegation goes to visit the Vatican around March. But more comments keep coming up that add to the debate.

On the Muslim side, more scholars continue to sign the appeal, bringing the total up to 221 so far. More statements of support have come in from Christians as well. Three Christian responses stood out this month and highlight some potentially difficult points to discuss:

Fr. Daniel Madigan S.J., a leading Catholic expert on Islam not heard until now on the appeal, has published “some initial reflections” in a new online journal called Thinking Faith. A few excerpts:

…A Common Word forms part of a larger project, focused in Jordan, to develop an authoritative consensus on what it means to be Muslim in our time. … In media terms, such reasoned and scholarly voices may be no match for the sabre-rattling diatribes that make for good television, but they deserve to be taken seriously and given the widest possible diffusion…

… the letter does open itself to a reductionist reading-one that Christians might want to examine more closely-when it says in part III, “Thus the Unity of God, love of Him and love of the neighbour form a common ground upon which Islam and Christianity (and Judaism) are founded.” There has been a slide from the unexceptionable affirmation earlier in the paragraph that the obligation to love God and one’s neighbour is a common element in the sacred texts of our traditions, to the more questionable claim that the dual commandment of love is the foundation of all three…

…Christians are assured in Part III that Muslims “are not against them and that Islam is not against them.” Then come the conditions (stipulated in Q 60:8): “so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.” … The letter’s reassurance that Islam and Muslims are not against Christians entails a fairly major conditional clause. This is surely an important focus for our continuing dialogue with the group of 138 and other Muslims…

Another Catholic expert on Islam, Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., seems to get more critical about A Common Word the more he reads it. His latest analysis, called “Benedict XVI’s improbable dialogue with 138 Muslim scholars,” examines statements made since his initial positive reaction to the news of the appeal. Some excerpts:

…between February and March, personalities of the Vatican curia and of the Islamic world will meet in Rome to establish the procedures and subject matter of this dialogue. But it’s possible that all this work will go right down the drain. It seems to me, in fact, that the Muslim personalities who are in contact with the pope want to dodge fundamental and concrete questions, like human rights, reciprocity, violence, etc, to ensconce themselves in an improbable theological dialogue “on the soul and God”…

…(Prince Ghazi ibn Talal) reaffirms his commitment to collaboration on the theological and spiritual level. And there is an ambiguity here: Islam, more than Christianity, blends the theological with the political, and even with the military. And here they claim to speak only of the theological. …But honestly, this distinction cannot be made: the human and social consequences of theological positions cannot be avoided…

…In the modern state, the common foundation is expressed with the universal declaration of human rights, of freedom of religion, etc . . . In dialogue between Christians and Muslims, too, these must be taken as the basis of dialogue; otherwise we will achieve nothing. In the past, many Muslim theologians have rejected the universal declaration of human rights, and have drafted an “Islamic” declaration, accusing the “universal” one of being only “Western”. But this denies that there can be universality, and therefore denies that we can have common principles. This is the foundation of the conflict between the Islamic world and the West, or the rest of the world…

…the letter of Prince Ghazi seems to say, instead, that human rights are not important, and are only a political question. Only theological dialogue is of interest. But what good does it do to talk about the one God, if I do not recognise that man has an absolute dignity in the image of God? That freedom of conscience is sacred, that the believer has no more rights than the non-believer, that man has no more rights than woman, etc?…

…It must be affirmed that man comes before religion: respecting man comes before respect for religion. This is the Christian approach…

On the Protestant side, R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has criticised U.S. Christian leaders for welcoming A Common Word with a full-page ad in the New York Times that asked for forgiveness for the Crusades. Some other evangelical leaders have also criticised the ad.

Mohler says about the letter:

…I think it is confusing. Now, I want to be very clear: We should have nothing against a conversation. But I don’t think this is the way to get into the conversation. I didn’t sign the letter because I don’t understand how you apologize for the Crusades. I am sure that all kinds of sin went on with the Crusades on both sides. But I am not going to apologize for the Crusades because I am very thankful that the Muslim effort to reach a conquest of Europe was unsuccessful…

…We [Christians] understand God to be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We understand God to be a Trinity of three co-eternal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we understand that Islam’s first statement about God is that He is one and that He has no Son. So, you can’t talk about the same god… The disagreement over Jesus Christ is no small thing…

As for more detailed Muslim reactions, Fr. Samir says: “I have seen just a few articles in Arabic, in the Arab and Islamic newspapers. None of these analysed the content of the letter of the 138.”

Is there any discussion going on in the Arabic-language press or elsewhere in the Muslim world? Can anyone point us towards a serious discussion of the issues there?

Most people in Muslim and Western countries believe divisions between them are worsening and each side believes the other disrespects their culture, according to a poll released on Monday.

The Gallup poll, published in a report on Muslim-Western relations for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this week, reflects “an alarmingly low level of optimism regarding dialogue between Islam and the West“, WEF chairman Klaus Schwab said.

Click for the full report and our news story on it. Once you’ve read it, let us know if you think it rings true or misses the point.