FaithWorld

(Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of Germany’s bishop’s conference gives a media statement before the German bishop’s annual meeting in Trier, February 18, 2013. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay)

The Roman Catholic Church in Germany said on Thursday it would permit certain types of “morning-after pill” for raped women, after two hospitals provoked an outcry for refusing to treat a rape victim.

The German Bishops’ Conference said church-run hospitals would now ensure proper medical, psychological and emotional care for rape victims – including administering pills that prevent pregnancy without inducing an abortion.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch said a four-day meeting of German bishops in the western town of Trier had “confirmed that women who have been victims of rape will get the proper human, medical, psychological and pastoral care”.

“That can include medication with a ‘morning-after pill’ as long as this has a prophylactic and not an abortive effect,” he said in a statement. “Medical and pharmaceutical methods that induce the death of an embryo may still not be used.”

(Muslims attend Friday prayers at Al Azhar mosque in Cairo December 7, 2012. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Ali Gomaa will soon step down from the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt that he has held since 2003.

By Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa

It has been said by many that Egypt is going through difficult and trying times. Today, however, I would like to share with you my true feelings of optimism and hope for our country and our people.

(Latvian passport picture of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, 1933)

A disputed collection of Jewish writings will remain in Russia because returning it to a New York-based group would set a precedent paving the way for more such claims dating back to Soviet times, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

Dispute over the Jewish books and documents claimed by the Chabad-Lubavitch group adds to tensions between Moscow and Washington, which have seen ties deteriorate over human rights and security issues since Putin’s return to the Kremlin in May.

“The Schneerson Collection belongs to Russia,” Putin said in a grand new Jewish museum in Moscow, in referring to texts held in Russian libraries and archives, some of them confiscated by the Soviet Union from Nazi forces during World War Two.

(The Vatican emblem is seen inside  Vatican Citye February 20, 2013. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi )

Pope Benedict may change rules governing the conclave that will secretly elect his successor, a move that could move up the global meeting of cardinals who are already in touch about who could best lead Catholics through a period of crisis.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

The grand mufti whose words against music ended the short career of an all-girl teenage pop band in Kashmir last month made me wonder: is music really un-Islamic? He said that if women indulge in indecent, immoral acts such as singing, it would be a step toward their destruction. Is it really that simple in Islam? Of course it isn't.

On one hand, you find words in the Qur'an such as "Zoor" – an Arabic word used for "falsehood" and musical expressions; "Laghv" – vain words and actions, useless entertainment;  "Ghina" – prolonged sonic vibration, with pitch changes to such an extent that it might as well be "singing", and of course, it's sinful. According to another interpretation, singing, reciting poetry and playing instruments is allowed on occasions such as weddings and other festivals. Then there is debate going on all the while.

Music is also said to affect the body in a negative way – increasing blood pressure, impeding digestion, releasing adrenaline. All this could excite men's lust and desire, and destroy their brotherhood and make them angry. If women do it, they should do it only around other women. And then there are videos like this, which clearly demonstrate another point of view.

Warsaw, Poland

By Kacper Pempel

When Pope Benedict XVI announced last week that he was stepping down, the mood in my country, Poland, was overwhelming. This is one of the most devoutly Catholic countries in Europe, which still proudly identifies itself as the birthplace of Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II. On the day of the announcement my colleagues went to the church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. The worshipers coming out of the church were in a state of shock. "It’s so sad. It’s such a shame. But what can we do? I can’t believe it,” said one woman as she left the Holy Cross church in the Polish capital, who gave her name as Maria. “I am very sorry because I really like the Pope. He is continuing the teachings of our Pope (John Paul II).” Janusz, another worshiper, said: “I don’t think it’s true. In my opinion it would not be a good solution. It would definitely be a huge pity for Poles and Catholics.”

I spent the last few months traveling around Poland taking photographs of Polish people demonstrating their Catholic faith: going on pilgrimages, attending mass, children having religious lessons in schools. I photographed the statue of Jesus in Swiebodzin, near the Polish-German border, which stands 33 meters tall. I visited a huge church built since the fall of Communism in farmland in Lichen, in central Poland. As I drove towards the church, its gold-colored dome, 98 meters high, looked incongruous surrounded by cows grazing in a pasture.

The building was so vast that it dwarfed the worshipers and the village around it. I went to another new church in the Warsaw suburb of Wilanow. Filled with young, middle-class families, it stands in stark contrast to the image many people have of Catholicism in Poland, a religion for the old and the poor.

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily of Thomson Reuters)

Even if faith didn't bring you all the way to Allahabad's Kumbh Mela to wash away your sins, a visit to the largest religious congregation on earth can be overwhelming and surprisingly rejuvenating.

But faith does move millions...

Devotees walk for miles to reach the mela complex from the Allahabad railway station, believing that a dip at the sangam (confluence of holy rivers) would drown a lifetime of sins.

(Joelle Casteix, victim of sexual abuse by a priest and member of U.S.-based support group Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), attaches pictures to a wall before of a news conference in downtown Rome June 8, 2010. REUTERS/Tony Gentile )

A U.N. committee has accused U.S. legal authorities of failing to fully pursue cases of child sex abuse in religious groups, an issue especially troubling the Roman Catholic Church.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child wrote this month that it was “deeply concerned” to find widespread sexual abuse by clerics and staff of religious institutions and “a lack of measures … to properly investigate cases and prosecute them”.

(People grieve beside the coffins of their relatives, victims of Saturday’s bomb attack in a Shi’ite Muslim area, during their funeral ceremony in the Pakistani city of Quetta February 17, 2013. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed )

Pakistani Shi’ites called on the military on Sunday to take control of the city of Quetta after a bombing by Sunni militants killed 85 people, and threatened to stage a long march to the capital if their demands were not met.

Pakistani leaders have done little to contain hardline Sunni Muslim groups which have stepped up a campaign of bombings and assassinations of minority Shi’ites in a bid to destabilize the nuclear-armed country and install a Sunni theocracy.

(People are gathered in St Peter’s Square as Pope Benedict XVI leads his Sunday Angelus prayer at the Vatican February 17, 2013. REUTERS/Tony Gentile )

After Pope Benedict’s papacy of almost eight years, the cardinals who will elect the next Catholic pontiff are more European, more conservative and more “Roman” than the conclave that chose him in 2005.

Benedict has handpicked more than half the men who will elect his successor. The rest were chosen by the late Pope John Paul, a Pole with whom the German pope shared a determination to reassert a more orthodox Catholicism in the new millennium.