There wasn’t much information in the official communique after Pope Benedict and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams met at the Vatican on Saturday. The terse text mentioned “cordial discussions” about challenges facing Christians, the need to cooperate and their intention to continue bilateral theological dialogue. The only reference to the issue of the day, Benedict’s offer to take alienated Anglicans into the Catholic Church, was mentioned in passing as “recent events affecting relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.” Hmm, pretty thin pickings….
The Pravda-like opaqueness of the communique (read it here) prompted me to zoom in on the photographs we got from the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano for any other clues there. Let’s see if they help as we go along. The “pope’s paper” (here in PDF) published the communique at the bottom of its front page, below two articles on the pope’s meeting with artists and one on Iran’s nuclear program. An interesting hint at the Vatican’s priorities that day.

Given this thin statement, our news story led off: “The archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict agreed the need for closer ties between their churches on Saturday, in their first meeting since last month’s surprise Vatican offer to disaffected Anglicans.” Read the whole story here.

Williams later spoke to the BBC (starting at 33:19) and Vatican Radio. He told the BBC that the meeting “went as well as I could have hoped, really.” He said he expressed Anglican concerns at the way the pope’s offer — officially called an “apostolic constitution” — was handled and the two then looked ahead to future ecumenical discussions.

On Vatican Radio, he said at the start of the interview: “Clearly, many Anglicans, myself included, felt that he put us in an awkward position for a time. Not the content so much as some of the messages that were given out. So I needed to share with the pope some of those concerns and I think those were expressed and heard in a very friendly spirit.” The pope’s main message to him, Williams said, was “that the constitution did not express any change in the Vatican’s attitude towards the Anglican Communion as such.”

“The presentation of the constitution as a kind of dawn raid on the Anglican Communion misunderstands the process that happened and the actual nature of the constitution. People become Roman Catholics because they want to become Roman Catholics, because their consciences are formed in a certain way and they believe this is the will of God for them. I wish them every blessing in that. But I don’t think it’s a question of the Roman Catholic Church, as it were, trying to attract by advertising or by special offers. I don’t see that as the purpose at all. In that sense, I don’t particularly worry about it.”

Williams said they didn’t talk about the ordination of women bishops, the issue that has prompted some orthodox Anglicans to consider “swimming the Tiber”. This is all the more curious because he delivered a provocative speech on Thursday at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in which he stood up for women’s ordination and asked whether the Vatican should consider it the roadblock to greater unity that it does.  Our news story on it said:

“Roman Catholics should look beyond the divisive issue of ordaining women to see how much they share with the world’s Anglicans and work toward greater Christian unity, the head of the Anglican Communion said on Thursday. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, whose own Church is split over female priests and bishops, said the Vatican’s ban on ordaining women was not as solidly grounded theologically as the core Christian doctrines the two denominations agree on.

Williams said decades of Catholic-Anglican dialogue had achieved wide consensus on core Christian teachings and left only lesser issues of church organisation and authority open. “The question … is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally Church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain … Do the arguments advanced about the ‘essence’ of male and female vocations and capacities stand on the same level as a theology derived more directly from scripture and (our) common theological heritage?”

The speech is quite interesting for its theological reflections on the nature of ecumenical dialogue. Read the whole text here.

Williams said he gave Benedict a copy of the speech but they did not discuss it. Although the Vatican photos show him gazing with appreciation at the gift of a golden pectoral cross from the pope, none of the nine shots that we ran show Benedict thumbing through — or even holding — the text of the archbishop’s challenge to Rome’s all-male clergy.

They ended up with the standard pose, the one photographers call the “grip-and-grin” shot. Apart from not  showing the pope holding the Williams text, I’m not sure we’ve learned much more from these pictures. Or have I missed something?

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(Photo: Archbishop Vincent Nichols, 21 May 2009/Kevin Coombs)

Those disaffected Anglicans in England and Wales who think they can take up Pope Benedict's offer and switch to Rome with a "pick and choose" attitude should think again, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols has said.

Many Anglicans unhappy with women's ordination and gay clergy cannot just convert to Roman Catholicism as a way out, but must accept Catholic doctrine  wholeheartedly, he said.

"Nothing is envisaged in this provision that the Pope has put in place is a kind of minimalist approach to picking bits of the Catholic faith that I like and then seeing myself as it were contained as a quasi-Catholic, not a real Catholic, under the umbrella of this constitution," he said, referring to a "buffet approach" to the faith that some Catholics dismiss as "cafeteria Catholicism."

It is still unclear how many Anglicans will convert, but the invitation, in the form of what's called an Apostolic Constitution, has opened up old wounds between the Vatican and Lambeth Palace.

It has also crystallised divisions within the Church of England, the Anglican mother church.

A debate is raging over whether the Pope's offer was an act of undisguised poaching, tapping into discontent among some Anglicans. or whether it was an act of generosity, responding to calls of help.

It has also raised questions about the approach adopted by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, towards the offer - details of which he did not know until two weeks before the announcement. Some say he has been too soft, while others say he has been judicious.

A meeting between the pope and the archbishop this weekend was said to be short but courteous - though the BBC pointed out the pope spent more time with artists visiting the Sistine Chapel than he did with Williams.

(Photo: Archbishop Williams and Pope Benedict, 21 Nov 2009/Osservatore Romano)

One thing that is clear is Nichols' call for complete devotion to the Roman Catholic Church.

"I clearly want to say unambiguously that anybody who seriously wants to perhaps take up the initiative that Pope Benedict has put in place needs to do it out of a conviction that this is the context in which they desire, long to live their Christian discipleship," he said.

"It therefore must be a positive desire in their heart, and one that centres around not questions of the ordination of women to the episcopate, not questions of sexual ethics, but must centre around an understanding of the role of the office of the Bishop of Rome...in the ongoing life of a Christian.

"So a person must be embracing of that concrete aspect of Catholic life which is the authority of the Holy See in the person if they are hoping to make this journey with integrity."

Williams seemed to say the same thing when, in an interview with Vatican Radio, he stressed that Anglicans who switch to Rome should do it because they genuinely want to become Roman Catholics, not out of protest against something in Anglicanism. "People become Roman Catholics because they want to become Roman Catholics, because their consciences are formed in a certain way and they believe this is the will of God for them. I wish them every blessing in that," he said.

Archbishop Nichols's comments came as he announced that a commission of Catholic bishops and advisers had been set up to consider in detail the next steps with regards the Apostolic Constitution. It will liaise with the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and offer advice to diocesan bishops.

It will be interesting to see whether his comments influence the number of Anglicans wanting to switch.

Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often “illusory and deceitful.”

“Beauty … can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God,” he told the artists meeting beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo. “Too often … the beauty thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful … it imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy.”

The Vatican said it invited some 500 artists to the event, regardless of religious, political or stylistic allegiances. More than 250 accepted, mostly from Italy, including singer Andrea Bocelli and award-winning film composer Ennio Morricone. Amongst the other guests were Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, the American actor who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the Mozart film, Amadeus, in 1985.

Read the whole story here and the full text of the pope’s address here.

(Photos: Pope Benedict meets artists in Sistine Chapel, 21 Nov 2009/Osservatore Romano)

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Analysts say the Chicago case demonstrates the global reach of the militant group and its ability to plot attacks in India and around the world. The court documents submitted by U.S. authorities also allege that Lashkar-e-Taiba had suggested that attacks on India be given priority over the planned attack in Denmark, highlighting the threat still posed by the group one year after Mumbai.

As discussed in this factbox, analysts cite several reasons for Pakistan's reluctance to dismantle Lashkar-e-Taiba. These include its role in Kashmir and in India-Pakistan rivalry, and popular support for the humanitarian work of its Jamaat ud-Dawa sister organisation. They also cite an unwillingness to create a new enemy right now when Pakistan is already fighting the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan and facing a wave of reprisal attacks in its cities. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the only Pakistani militant group which is not believed to have been involved in attacking targets within Pakistan itself.

None of that makes the group any less dangerous. But while researching the subject, I also found myself asking questions about the nature of the group and the kind of support it has -- beyond its alleged state backing. This is not to condone violence. But by failing to look at this support, particularly for Jamaat ud-Dawa's  humanitarian work, are we perhaps missing at least part of the point?

The religious ideology of the Markaz ud-Dawa wal Irshad which gave birth to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat ud-Dawa is Ahl-e-Hadith, a Salafist school of thought which seeks a return to what it sees as the "purer" practices of the early Muslims. This ideology originally sprang from a rejection of the corruption of religion by political power and of the syncretism which had thrived in South Asia through a blending of Hinduism and Islam, and which also underpinned the popularity of the Sufi tradition.

Whatever you think of this ideology, it does bear a remarkable resemblance to the thinking behind the Protestant Reformation in Europe which rejected the power and the myths of the Catholic Church and sought what it saw as a return to the original views of the followers of Jesus, best exemplified by its then heretical efforts to translate the Bible from Latin into languages that ordinary people could understand.

The Protestant Reformation led to centuries of wars, pogroms and cruelty from which Europe only properly emerged after World War Two. It also contributed to a philosophy of clean living, hard work and individualism which some argue laid the foundations for capitalism and with it, the rising power and wealth of the west.

So my first question is whether we understand properly these similarities between such reformist traditions in Islam and Christianity, both in their time seen as hardline, fundamentalist and dangerous?  And are we drawing the right lessons from this?

Secondly, one of the reasons for the popular support for Jamaat ud-Dawa is its extensive humanitarian work in education, healthcare and disaster relief.  This is not unique to Pakistan or Islam - before the development of universal free education in many countries, most people were educated in schools originally set up by charities and religious organisations.

Providing help to the poor is common to most if not all religious organisations.  In disaster relief, the Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was amongst the first on the spot following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake in India, just as Jamaat ud-Dawa cadres rushed to help the victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir

Again, are we paying enough attention to the similarities between the ways in which different religious organisations help the poor and drawing the right lessons? There are inherent dangers in this help -- as seen in the activities of some Christian missionaries in the British empire, in the global network of support for Jamaat ud-Dawa that counter-terrorism experts fear can be exploited by Lashkar-e-Taiba, and in the popular backing for the RSS after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001 that may have strengthened it in its alleged role in the communal violence in the state a year later.

There are no obvious answers to these questions. But if those posting comments here could set aside the many bitter feuds which divide nations and indeed the exploitation of religion for political gain that has been a feature of every continent, how would you start addressing them?

Please try to restrict your comments to those you would be willing to make if everyone was physically present in the same room, rather than in an internet forum.

(Photos: Mumbai skyline; earthquake-hit road near Muzzafarabad in Pakistani Kashmir; a girl rescued from the Gujarat earthquake)

“Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past . . . The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey.”

(Photo: Herman Van Pompuy, 19 Nov 2009/Sebastien Pirlet)

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, said something quite similar In an interview with Le Figaro, also in 2004: “Turkey always represented another continent throughout history, in permanent contrast with Europe,” he said, and joining it to Europe would be a mistake. Europe is united by its “culture which gives it a common identity. The roots which formed … this continent are those of Christianity.”

Both these comments were made in the context of a debate about mentioning Europe’s Christian heritage in the EU constitution planned at the time. Some countries, most notably France, opposed any explicit mention of the traditional majority faith on the continent. The Vatican’s reaction was: “The Holy See cannot but express its distress over the opposition of some governments to the explicit recognition of the Christian roots of Europe. It is a question of disregard of the historical evidence and of the Christian identity of European peoples.”

Van Rompuy, a Christian Democrat, is a believeing Catholic who has no problem saying so in public. He attended a Jesuit high school in Brussels and the Catholic University Leuven. Back in 1985, he wrote a book entitled Het christendom. Een moderne gedachte (Christendom, a modern idea), which is now out of print.

(Photo: Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), 10 April 2004/Max Rossi)

Van Rompuy’s personal blog (mostly in Dutch and French, some English) has a whole section on religion and several commentaries, articles and speeches posted on the blog deal with religous and philosophical issues such as  the Dalai Lama and Pope Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate or a discussion about love with the agnostic French thinker Luc Ferry.

This has prompted several European bloggers and commenters to slam him as having “no sensitivity whatever to Europe’s newer cultural diversity” or being “a Vatican puppet.” One blogger asked if the EU now had “a devout Roman Catholic leading a secular European Empire?”

Are we heading for another debate about Europe’s Christian roots? Or is it one thing, as his aides argue, to express views when one is an opposition politician and another when one holds a high office?

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The  Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) set out the guidelines in September in an attempt to bring greater clarity to the thorny issue of prosecution, inviting comments during a consultation period.

Suicide is still against the law in Britain, but the high-profile case of multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, from Bradford, northern England, who has sought clarification on whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her go abroad to die, has been an impetus for the guidelines. 

They set out a range of factors influencing whether a person would face prosecution or not. In favour of prosecution would be if there were a financial motive involved, pressure put on the individual into committing suicide and if the person wanting to die was suffering from mental illness.

Factors against prosecution would include whether the suspect was motivated wholly by compassion and was a spouse, partner, close relative or personal friend.

But the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said the guidance did not protect the vulnerable such as the disabled, the terminally ill and those prone to carrying out repeated suicide attempts in the form of a shout of help.

They also said it should not assume spouses and partners will always be supportive. "Indeed, crimes of violence are very commonly carried out by someone known to the victim not infrequently within the same family," they said.

While acknowledging the DPP had a difficult job, they said the word "assisting" should be reconsidered in preference for "aiding and abetting", which reflected the law.

They warned against a culture shift in which "assisted suicide" becomes partly "decriminalised" or that the DPP authorises "exceptions to the law".

"This could in turn lead to a much wider range of cases of assisted suicide, even including the facilitation of suicide within the United Kingdom by medical professionals," they said.

A similar line was adopted by the Church of England, which separately issued its response on the same day.

"The Church of England believes that every suicide is a tragedy and that a caring society ought to ensure that anyone considering suicide is able to have ready access to life-affirming and life-enhancing support, counselling and medical and nursing care," it said in a statement.

"It is essential that assisted suicide is never deemed to be acceptable or commendable. Aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring a suicide remains a crime and we are assured that the DPP's guidelines are not intended to or designed to compromise this."

(Photo: Russian Orthodox church in Moscow, 1 July 2009/Sergei Karpukhin)

A masked gunman entered a Moscow church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday.  The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country’s growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.

The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General’s office said.

Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations. “I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims),” Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. “As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims.”

“Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it,” he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (here in Russian). “Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God’s kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments,” he added.

Read the whole story here. See also Interfax Religion … RIA Novosti (with picture) …

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Until now.

Last week, the Shabbat Strife took a surprising turn with some ultra-Orthodox taking aim at the world's biggest electronic chip maker for keeping their new Jerusalem plant open on the Jewish day of rest. Though the building is located in an industrial park on the outskirts of the city, it is nearby a religious neighborhood that strictly observes the Sabbath laws.

Intel's new electronic chip plant was inaugurated on Nov. 15, and the company said it would operate on Saturdays in accordance with its business needs and Israeli law. This announcement drew hundreds of angry ultra-Orthodox Jews who gathered outside the building. Some threw rocks at police trying to disperse the crowd.

Since last week's outburst, representatives of the ultra-Orthodox community, with mediation from religious parliament member Uri Maklev, have been trying to reach an agreement with Intel. An aide to Maklev said a likely solution to the quarrel would be to keep the plant open on Saturdays, but allow only non-Jews to work.

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a leading Jewish sage, is expected to okay the deal. But Israeli radio is already reporting that not all of the ultra-Orthodox will be satisfied.

The web portal run by the ultra-Orthodox reported (Hebrew) that Rabbi Elyashiv authorised sending a special envoy to the United States to meet with "the man in charge" - Craig Barrett, Intel's chairman. An aide to Maklev said the legislator was unaware any envoys were being dispatched to negotiate with the company.

The protests pit the ultra-Orthodox community against a multi-billion dollar manufacturer and Israel's largest exporter. So far, it seems unlikely that Intel's business in Israel will be affected. But if the disagreement escalates further, jeopardising Intel's operations, there is a chance that the government, which has so far avoided getting involved such issues, may step in.

Click below to watch footage of the protests in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem on November 14, 2009:

PHOTO: Ultra-Orthodox Jews take part in a protest against the operation of an Intel plant on the Jewish Sabbath in Jerusalem November 14, 2009. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

The results of the poll, released on Thursday, show that just 3 percent of healthcare opponents cited abortion funding as their main reason for opposing congressional healthcare proposals.

The biggest reasons, cited by 27 percent of respondents to an open-ended question about their opposition, were that the overhaul would be too expensive and lead to higher deficits and taxes. Another 27 percent said they did not want government involvement in healthcare.

The nationwide poll of more than 1,000 Americans was conducted from Nov. 12 to 15.

The poll's publication comes as the U.S. Senate prepares to begin debate on its version of a healthcare bill that does not include language approved earlier this month by the House that would strengthen the existing prohibition on using federal funds for abortion.

Many analysts say the abortion issue -- which has been fanned by conservative evangelicals associated with the Republican Party and Catholic clergy whose flock lean to the Democratic Party -- threatens to unravel Obama's top domestic priority.

But the Pew poll highlights its apparently minor role in stirring opposition to the healthcare push which aims, among other things, to expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack health insurance.

Has this hornet's nest been opened by a vocal but very small minority of the U.S. public, which would appear to have more pressing concerns when it comes to healthcare?

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Anti-abortion activist wears mirrored sunglasses and a piece of tape over his mouth in Washington, June 1, 2009)

The nationwide survey, conducted among over 1,000 Americans, found 52 percent were “very concerned” about the possible rise of Islamic extremism in the United States compared to 46 percent in April of 2007.

It also found that 49 percent were very concerned about the “rise of Islamic extremism around the world” compared to 48 percent in April of 2007.

The survey was conducted Nov. 12-15, a week after 13 people were killed in a shooting at the Fort Hood Army post. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States to immigrant parents, has been charged with  murder in the case. U.S. intelligence agencies have said he tried to contact Islamists with suspected al Qaeda ties.

(Photo: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the the suspect in  the mass shooting at the U.S. Army post in Fort Hood, Texas. REUTERS/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences/Handout)