The Spanish Catholic Church will deny communion to members of parliament who have voted in favour of a bill to make abortion more readily available, the spokesman of Spain’s Bishops’ Conference said on Friday.

“This is a warning to Catholics, that they can’t vote in favour of this and that they won’t be able to receive communion unless they ask forgiveness,” Rev. Juan Antonio Martinez Camino told a news conference in Madrid. “They are in an objective state of sin.”

The government-sponsored bill, which passed the first of a series of votes in parliament on Thursday, will allow abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy and, in cases of extreme foetal deformity, at any time in the pregnancy. The bill will also allow girls to obtain abortions from the age of 16 without parental consent, a clause that has generated dissent even within the governing Socialist Party.

In the United States, Congressman Patrick Kennedy has said his bishop has slapped a communion ban on him for his support for abortion rights.

Read our full story from Madrid here. See also Reuters in Spanish –Votar a favor del aborto es pecado, según los obispos.

(Photo: Rev. Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, 18 June 2009/Sergio Pérez)

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(Photo: Haj pilgrims stone pillars symbolising the devil in Mena outside Mecca, 27 Nov 2009/Caren Firouz)

Around two million Muslim pilgrims stoned pillars symbolising the devil in a narrow valley in Saudi Arabia on Friday at what has traditionally been the most dangerous stage of the haj pilgrimage. The pillars stand at Mena, where Muslims believe the devil appeared to the Prophet Abraham.

The Jamarat Bridge in the valley of Mena outside the holy city of Mecca, where pilgrims stone the walls three times over three to four days, has been the scene of a number of stampedes, including one which killed 362 in 2006. But Saudi Arabia has erected a massive four-level building with several platforms for throwing stones to ease congestion and prevent stampedes at the Jamarat stoning areas.

(Photo: Haj pilgrims walk from camp to Jamarat to throw stones at pillars in Mena 27 Nov 2009/Caren Firouz)

Throngs of predominantly white-clad pilgrims filled the road that leads them to and from the Jamarat Bridge. Some stopped to buy fried chicken nuggets while groups from different countries formed human chains with their fellow countrymen to move more quickly through the crowds.

“Fighting evil temptations is a daily chore for every Muslim,” said Mohammad Haq Shahinaz from Pakistan, holding hands with his wife as they struggled to push ahead in the crowded road to the Jamarat bridge.  “But by stoning these concrete pillars here we indicate that we only worship Allah and we will not follow Satan’s path.”

Fathi Ahmed Mohammed from Egypt  Egyptian threw seven stones at the pillar, calling out “Allahu akbar” after each throw. “We thanked Allah for His grace and … prayed for the unity of Muslims to glorify Islam and help us prevail over the infidels and the Jews,” he said.

Mohamed al-Yami, a Saudi from southern Najran province, pushed his way among the crowds after he finished the ritual.  “I have a sheep to slaughter,” he said, referring to the sacrifice for Eid al-Adha (feast of sacrifice).

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(Photo: Poster to vote ”yes” to minaret ban in a Swiss meadow, 13 Nov 2009/Dario Bianchi)

A threatening image dominates Switzerland’s streets in the form of a dark woman dressed in a Muslim niqab veil, looming over a Swiss flag covered with missile-like minarets with a call to vote “yes” in a referendum on Sunday to ban minarets on mosques here. The posters clearly seek to tap into the concerns of the country’s traditionally Christian majority about increased immigration from Muslim countries.

“I find the nature of these posters very provocative against the Islamic world. The presentation and the way the minarets are presented like rockets is unbelievable. Also the colours — with all the black — look very threatening,” says 34-year-old air traffic controller Judith Baumer.  “I assume that it’s supposed to trigger strong emotions or fear in the population.”

The poster, described by the Swiss race commission as demonising Muslims and provoking religious tensions, has been banned in some cities but seems omnipresent in others.

(Photo: Vote “yes” posters in Zurich’s main train station, 26 Oct 2009/Arnd Wiegmann)

Polls suggest the referendum could be close-run. With only a slim majority of Swiss questioned expressing opposition or a tendency to oppose a ban, turnout and currently undecided voters could yet sway the vote towards behind the “‘yes” campaign.

“It’s fine to build minarets in a Muslim country, not in Switzerland. I’m strictly against that,” says unemployed electrical fitter Rolf Waechtler.  “People from abroad are ok with me, but I’m in favour of them putting minarets directly there: abroad.”

The anti-minarets initiative was organised mainly by members the right-wing Federal Democratic Union (EDU) and Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which won the largest share of the vote at the last election on rising anti-foreigner sentiment in Switzerland spurred by increased immigration.

Under Swiss law citizens have the right to force referendums on any issue provided they collect enough signatures in support of their initiative.  But the Swiss government and other parties — including the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP), which broke away from the SVP in 2008 — oppose a ban, warning it would violate the country’s constitution and stir religious tension.

(Photo: “Yes” posters in German, French and Italian at SVP meeting in Geneva, 3 Oct 2009/Valentin Flauraud)

The Swiss vote is just the latest example of mistrust between Muslim and Christian communities that has created tensions and fuelled support for far-right groups in other European countries as well.

It is all the more surprising because Switzerland’s Muslims, who make up around 4 percent of the 7.6 million-strong population and are mainly of European origin, are a low-profile minority. There are also just four minarets in the entire country.

Three attacks on one of these few mosques with minarets, in Geneva, this month could indicate the ban is already having an effect on race relations in the country.

The initiative has been slammed at home and abroad and a ban would damage Switzerland’s reputation as a neutral country that upholds freedoms of worship, speech and expression. It could lead to the radicalisation of some members of a Muslim community generally regarded as well integrated into Swiss society.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee and Amnesty International say a ban would contravene Switzerland’s international obligations to uphold human rights.

(Photo: Poster to vote “no” to the minaret ban by Geneva interfaith group, 21 Nov 2009/Denis Balibouse)

And the Swiss think tank economiesuisse warns it would damage business at a time when the country’s private banks, hit hard by the relaxation of Swiss bank secrecy, are stepping up attempts to attract more business from Muslim clients around the world with new Islamic banking products.

On Sunday, the world will see whether Switzerland’s voters use their model of direct democracy to defend the country’s long-cherished values of tolerance and freedom or instead choose to isolate their country’s biggest religious minority.

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Jesus Christ may have visited an English town now renowned for a raucous modern-day music festival to meet ancient druids, a new film argues.  “And Did Those Feet” explores the theory that Jesus accompanied Joseph of Arimathea on a visit to the area around the southern English town of Glastonbury.

(Photo: At the end of Glastonbury Festival 2009, 29 June 2009/Luke MacGregor)

The Glastonbury Festival held on a farm near the town draws some of the 21st century’s biggest music stars such as Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Neil Young and U2 to the world’s largest open air music and arts festival.

Church of Scotland Minister and researcher for the film Gordon Strachan argues that Jesus may have come to Britain to further his education because the area was a stronghold of the ancient druids, then associated with ancient wisdom.

“There’s no reason why Jesus shouldn’t have come,” Strachan told Reuters. “Glastonbury was very important in the ancient times, the tradition goes back to pre-Christian times …  He probably came by boat with the traders. He had plenty of time and nobody knows what he did before he was 30.”

Read the whole story here.

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A year ago, after the three-day siege of Mumbai ended and people took to the streets with candles and banners, a group of young Muslim men, carrying a hand-written poster, walked quietly with the surging crowds.

Seeing them, people began to clap spontaneously, applauding their assertion that Islam was a religion of peace, and not terrorism.

Since then, people in Mumbai, which has witnessed some of the worst communal riots in the country in the past, have come together in their grief, crossing barriers erected by politicians in the name of religion.

Some have accused the media of not highlighting enough, the fact that the militants asked their hostages what religion and then killed non-Muslims.

Others have speculated that the few thousands of Jews left in India would leave the country because six Jews were killed in the attack on Chabad House.

But in Mumbai today, just days after the explosive report on the Babri Masjid demolition was made public, there is a sense of community and togetherness. A big difference from 1992, when riots between Hindus and Muslims that followed the demolition killed hundreds.

And so today, multi-faith prayer services are being held everywhere in the city and there are countless stories of inter-faith friendships that blossomed in the days after the attacks.

And so the nine bodies of Islamist militants killed last November still lie in a hospital morgue because Muslim clerics in the city have refused to bury them.

And so Muslim bakers in Byculla in Mumbai still bake the traditional bread for the Jewish Sabbath.
And so Muslims celebrating Eid on Nov. 28 will gather in the compound of the Jewish synagogue in Byculla for their prayers.

And so at the Chabad House memorial service, Muslim neighbours will be present.
Because when lives have been taken, religion should not matter.

The haj is supposed to be a spiritual highlight in a Muslim’s life, but everyday issues can sometimes intrude. In between prayers and visits to various sites, pilgrims often discuss all kinds of current issues. Among Algerians and Egyptians on the haj here this year, the buzz is about the public row sparked by a soccer game to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. Algeria won that match 1-0.

(Photo: Haj pilgrims at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, 24 Nov 2009/Caren Firouz)

The football rivalry has caused considerable bad blood between the two countries. Egypt has recalled its ambassador from Algiers after the play-off, accusing Algerian fans of post-match thuggery at the game’s venue in Khartoum. Egypt had earlier complained when Algerian fans trashed the Algiers headquarters of Egypt-based Orascom Telecom’s Djezzy mobile subsidiary. Before that, Algeria was irked after Egyptian fans pelted the Algerian team’s bus with stones and some fans were hurt in scuffles on game-day in the first round of the qualifier in Cairo.

“We are brothers … This should have never happened and I blame the media in the two countries for instigating ill feelings among the most foolish of us,” said Khaled Salam Abdallah from Cairo.

Mohamed Lab’haj, an Algerian pilgrim, agreed.  “We are more than brothers … The real criminals are the Arab governments. They play with us like they do with a ball … If football had much use in it, they would not have kicked the ball with their feet,” he said.

The haj, a duty for every able Muslim, emphasises the unity of all Muslims. This year’s pilgrimage has offered the first big encounter between Algerian and Egyptian masses since the football showdown. Some 2 million Muslims have come to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Abdulwahhab Alyousha, an Algerian pilgrim, said he was outraged that such a spat erupted between two countries that shared a significant part of their modern history.  “Egyptians helped our Algerian revolution. I don’t think this dispute will mar bilateral relationships for good,” he said, referring to the movement which led to Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.

(Photo: Egyptian protesters at Algerian embassy in Cairo, 19 Nov 2009/Asmaa Waguih)

Some refused to talk about the issue. “Soccer is a matter of earthly life, we are here to work for our afterlife,” Egyptian pilgrim Adel Abdul-Shafi said.

Saudi Arabia warned earlier this month against any attempt to politicise the pilgrimage, saying they would threaten the safety of worshipers.  In 1987, a rally by pilgrims against Israel and the United States led to clashes with Saudi security forces in which 402 people, mostly Iranians, died.

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A government-backed inquiry has accused several of India’s top opposition politicians of having a role in the destruction of an ancient mosque in 1992 that triggered some of the country’s worst religious riots.

(Photo: Muslim at New Delhi protest, 6 Dec 2005/B Mathur)

The report has sparked political protests from opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which finds itself in even more trouble as it struggles to emerge from internal feuding after an election defeat in May.

Hindu mobs demolished the 16-century Babri Mosque in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, claiming it stood on the birthplace of their god-king Rama. Riots between Hindus and Muslims left hundreds dead across India.

The report, 17 years in the making, says some of India’s best known BJP politicians — including former Prime Minister Aal Behari Vajpayee and current opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani — did little to stop the destruction despite knowing of plans to demolish it.

(Photo: Lal Krishna Advani, 29 April 2009/Jayanta Shaw)

Here is our news story on the report and a Q&A explaining the background.

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At least 15,000 buffalo and “countless” goats and birds were sacrificed in a temple in southern Nepal on Wednesday in a ritual billed as the single biggest animal slaughter on earth.

Hindus in Nepal routinely offer animals for sacrifice to appease deities, especially power goddesses, for good luck and prosperity. But the festival held every five years at the Gadhimai temple in southern Nepal was condemned this year by animal rights activists, including French actress Brigitte Bardot, who called for an end to the centuries-old ritual of slaughtering animals.

“We had more than 15,000 buffalo sacrificed Tuesday. But the number of goats and birds, including roosters and pigeons, sacrificed Wednesday is countless,” Shiva Chandra Prasad Kushawaha, chief of the festival’s organizing committee said.

Read the whole story here.

(Photo: Mass sacrifice of buffaloes at Bara District, 24 Nov 2009/Shruti Shrestha)

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(Photo: Protest against clergy sex abuse at the Catholic cathedral in Sydney, 18 July 2008/Tim Wimborne)

The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Elizabeth E. Evans is an American freelance journalist living in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania who writes about religion.

By Elizabeth E. Evans

Two large scale American studies of clergy gone off the rails raise a host of troubling and baffling questions, not solely about clergy sexual misconduct, but about how and why parishioners either tolerate or ignore signals that something is wrong. One sad but perhaps inescapable conclusion from them is that it may be time to start taking a more skeptical look at those who exercise power in our congregations.

This fall, Baylor University’s School of Social Work released the results of a national study of clergy sexual misconduct with adults. Roughly three percent of adult women who attend religious services at least once a month have been the target of inappropriate sexual behavior by pastors, researchers found . That’s a startling number. But even more eye-popping were the number of congregants — eight percent — who knew about clergy sexual misconduct in their faith community.

(Photo: Diana Garland/Baylor)

The respect Americans institutions give to the separation of church and state makes misconduct seem like a private matter, Baylor Social Work School Dean Diana Garland told me in a telephone interview. But the power faith communities give to their clergy makes it a public one.

Clergy sexual misconduct doesn’t solely damage its primary victims, she commented.  It also hurts spouses, children - and congregants. In such a situation, “congregations split“ she said. “Some congregants come to the defense of leaders, assuming that the woman caused leaders to fall.”

The reason parishioners may ignore signals that a clergyperson is misbehaving cut to the heart of that relationship. “We ignore the warning signs…because we haven’t had a cognitive category to deal with it,” said Garland. “It’s not just an affair; it’s an abuse of power.”

Other factors? Parishioners tend to participate in a congregational culture of “niceness.” Communication used to be very public, but it is now a lot easier to correspond or talk in private, creating situations that can build intimacy until sexual boundaries are crossed.  Clergy don’t always have oversight from judicatory or congregational leaders.  And clergy often function in multiple roles as spiritual leader, counselor and friend.

(Photo: Protesters against Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston, 13 May 2002/Jim Bourg)

“Most pastors are not equipped to do counseling,” she said. “The role of a leader who exhorts and challenges people is very different from that of a psychotherapist who meets in a contractual way to resolve a life crisis.”

Lastly, and perhaps most tragically, congregants expect that their faith community is truly a sanctuary, a safe place in which they can let down their guard. That trust has been violated again and again. “Maybe we need to recognize the humanity of our religious leaders, taking it, as well as their calling, seriously,” said Garland.

Garland would like to see denominations adopt model ethical codes that lay leaders in congregations could adopt for their own use.  Giving parishioners language to identify misbehavior as “misconduct” rather than a consensual affair would be a step forward. Bible studies focused on the concept of power use and abuse in church and society might be helpful, the Baylor report suggests.  Researchers also suggest a way out of the church-state dilemma by proposing model legislation (which currently only exists in two states) defining sexual contact with congregants as illegal, not just immoral.

Perhaps it’s time to put aside the assumption that our religious leaders can function as role models because they are, by definition, closer to God. It is possible that, under these circumstances, the best remedy may be a very secular on, increased oversight by higher-ups and vigilance on the part of congregants.

(Photo: Cardinal Bernard Law after resigning as Boston’s Catholic archbishop amid charges of  hushing up sexual abuse of children by his priests, 16 Dec 2002/Brian Snyder)

American Catholic bishops recently got an update on an ongoing study of decades of sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice study has come up with some provocative findings.   Politicsdaily.com columnist David Gibson quoted researcher Margaret Smith: “We have not found that the problem [the sexual abuse of minors] is particular to the church,” Smith told the bishops. “We have found it to be similar to the problem in society.”

Researchers also suggested that eventually efforts to impose boundaries and deal with abusive clergy paid off, which is a sign of hope in a rather bleak landscape. Bishops became more enlightened on the subject and adopted a much tougher policy. Seminarians were screened more effectively.  And parishioners and society in general became more aware of the terrible effect of sexual abuse on children.

The John Jay research also suggests that most of the offenders were not clinical pedophiles, but also exhibited a variety of other unhealthy behaviors.

Is it possible that there is something in the culture of congregations that allows such abuse to begin and to continue?  Garland and her team have provided a way to begin asking that and other questions.

(Photo: Defrocked Catholic priest Paul Shanley in Boston court, 15 Feb 2005/Charles Krupa)

In the meantime, maybe parishioners need to take off their stained-glass lenses when they step into a place of worship, holding their leaders accountable to the same standards applied in secular organizations.

There will be times, hopefully rare, when they don’t like what they see and have to figure out what they are going to do about it. But their place of worship will be a much healthier and safer place, if laypeople stop operating with blind faith that Father (or Mother, Rabbi or Imam) always knows best.

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I was caught by surprise recently when a Western diplomat told me that Serb students were in majority in the Catholic high school in Banja Luka,  a town that had become predominantly Serb after persecution of other ethnic groups during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Banja Luka is the largest town of the Serb Republic, which along with the Muslim-Croat federation makes up postwar Bosnia .

(Photo: A Catholic school in Sarajevo, 25 Nov 2009/Danilo Krstanovic)

Then I learned that Bosnian Muslims account for 80 percent of students in the Catholic school in the western town of Bihac, where Muslims are in majority. It turned out that the situation is similar in all seven Catholic centres opened across Bosnia during and after the war. These schools paradoxically became rare multi-ethnic oases in the country where public schools are largely dominated by a majority ethnic group.

This got me wondering why the Catholic Church wanted to open school in Banja Luka, for example, the town in which only seven percent of 44,000 Croat Catholics that had lived  before the war remained to live today.  The result is a feature that just ran on our newswire. That tells the story, but let me tell you a bit more about the background.

“I am a Banja Luka native, my family had lived here for over 300 years and I regard myself obliged towards this town and towards Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Banja Luka Bishop Franjo Komarica, a driving force behind the opening of the Catholic school in the Serb-dominated town. “I don’t have the right to feel less worthy for being what I am - a Croat by ethnicity and a Catholic by religion,” said Komarica, who had stayed in Banja Luka throughout the war and fought for the return of Croats in the town.

“Our goal is to bring people closer again, to bring back mutual respect and remove unnecessary barriers imposed onto us by politicians,” he said.

(Photo: Bishop Franjo Komarica, 25 Dec 2007/Ranko Cukovic)

The education system in Bosnia has been in chaos since the once multi-ethnic country split along ethnic lines into two autonomous regions. The Muslim-Croat federation, the larger half of Bosnia, is itself divided between Muslims and Croats, while the Serb Republic has become largely mono-ethnic after the wartime policy of mass killings and persecution of other ethnic groups from its territory.

Consequently, largely mono-ethnic public schools have become the places of discrimination for minority groups in many ways. An Orthodox Serb or Catholic Croat pupil in a Sarajevo public school must take days off  during Islamic religious holidays even though Bosnia is officially secular country. In the same way, Muslims and Croats must take holidays during Serb Orthodox holidays. The students who don’t take the optional religious classes (usually from minority groups or atheist families) are forced to sit outside the classroom, waiting for the next class. Some kids opt to take classes of a religion they don’t belong to in order to be accepted by a majority group.

Some sociologists say the difference between Catholic and public schools in Bosnia shows a simple difference between private and public schools. “Private schools can operate better because they are more flexible,” said Dino Abazovic, who teaches sociology of religion at the Sarajevo University School of Political Science and who explained the expansion of the Catholic schools network by their long tradition in the region.

(Photo: Santa Claus at a Sarajevo Catholic school, 5 Dec 1996/ Danilo Krstanovic)

Ivica Mrso, the dean of the Catholic School Centre in Sarajevo, said that schools that opened in the 1990s despite the war and destruction have remained open and popular in spite of ongoing ethnic and religious splits. “The main reason that we survived here is that we did not allow any political interference in our schools,” Mrso said, adding this decision cost them dearly in financial terms. “It would have been much easier to run the school only for Croat kids,” he said. There was a bitter tone in his voice when he explained that while many parents appreciated the school’s openess, ever more people, particularly Croat and Muslim nationalists, were opposed to the idea of bringing children of different religions and nationalities together.

To illustrate how silly it was to judge children’s nationality or religion by the school they attend, he gave an example of a student who ate a sandwich in the Catholic school’s yard during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. A group of hooligans who were Muslims attacked him for eating during Ramadan, assuming he was a Catholic who was not showing respect for the customs of the majority population. “What they did not know was that his name was Haris,” Mrso said, stressing the typical Bosnian Muslim name.

Most Bosnian Muslims were secular before the war but the majority of them turned to religion afterwards. In today’s Bosnia, atheist Muslims have come under pressure just as secular Croats, Serbs and people in and from mixed marriages.

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