FaithWorld

(A Swiss Guard stands as he waits for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI before a meeting with the diplomatic corps at the Vatican January 9, 2012. REUTERS/Pier Paolo Cito)

The ubiquitous term “spread” – a staple of financial news bulletins and one of the main measures of investor sentiment – has now penetrated even the elevated lexicon of the papacy.

In his speech to diplomats from around the world, Pope Benedict chastised those who only think of a “spread” in financial terms. He said there should be a simultaneous concern for a social “spread” – the gap between the rich and poor.

“If the differential index between financial taxes represents a source of concern, the increasing differences between those few who grow ever richer and the many who grow hopelessly poorer, should be a cause for dismay,” the pope told the diplomats in his speech at the Vatican on Monday.

“In a word, it is a question of refusing to be resigned to a ‘spread’ in social well-being, while at the same time fighting one in the financial sector,” he said.

(School children listen to a speech by a Christian leader during a protest rally in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata August 29, 2008 after Hindu mobs ransacked a church and clashed with Christian villagers in the eastern state of Orissa. REUTERS/Jayanta Shaw)

About 100 million Christians are persecuted around the world, with conditions worsening for them most rapidly in Syria and Ethiopia, according to an annual report by a group supporting oppressed Christians worldwide.

Open Doors, a non-denominational Christian group, listed North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan as the three toughest countries for Christians last year. They topped the 50-country ranking for 2011 as well.

(Grand Mufti of Egypt Sheikh Ali Gomaa at the opening ceremony of the 15th General Conference of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman September 27, 2010. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed)

The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Ali Gomaa is the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

By Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa

The beginning of a new year presents us with an opportunity to engage in serious introspection and take account of ourselves and the communities in which we live. This is a particularly pressing need within the context of contemporary Egypt, which continues to pass through a sensitive period of transition. The events of the past year, indeed of the past two years, underscore the absolute necessity of maintaining national unity in our beloved land. Acrimonious political debates must not detract us from this overriding imperative.

(A woman looks at books inside an exhibition hall during the 29th annual meeting of French Muslims organized by The Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) at Le Bourget, near Paris April 7, 2012. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes)

French Muslims have begun joining a mostly Catholic-led movement against same-sex marriage, widening opposition to the reform that the Socialist-led government is set to write into the law by June.

Fifty Muslim activists issued an open letter on Monday urging fellow Muslims to join a major Paris protest against the law on Sunday. That followed a similar appeal last Saturday by the influential Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF).

(Francois Hollande (L) and Vincent Peillon (R), then in opposition but now France’s president and education minister, at a meeting with teachers during last year’s election campaign in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, a Paris suburb, on March 6, 2012. REUTERS/Patrick Kovarik)

France’s President Francois Hollande has weighed this weekend into the war of words between his government and the Catholic Church over holding discussions in schools on the planned legalisation of same-sex marriage.

He defended Education Minister Vincent Peillon on Saturday for urging Catholic schools, which teach about one-fifth of all pupils in France, to stay neutral in the debate.

(Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, visits the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem’s Old City November 12, 2012. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox church and a long-term ally of President Vladimir Putin, on Sunday urged the Kremlin to be moderate in new legislation seeking stricter punishment for religious offences.

The pro-Kremlin United Russia party proposed the law introducing prison terms for religious offences after a protest against Putin’s increasingly close ties with the Church by punk band Pussy Riot in Moscow’s main cathedral last year.

(Italian outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti looks on as Pope Benedict XVI arrives to lead the Epiphany mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican January 6, 2013. REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Pope Benedict said on Sunday that Roman Catholic leaders must have the courage to stand up to attacks by “intolerant agnosticism” prevalent in many countries.

The pope and the Church have come under increased attack because of their opposition to homosexual marriage and women priests. The pope has repeatedly denounced what he says are attempts to push religion out of public debate.

(Iraqi Sunni Muslims wave national flags and chant slogans during an anti-government demonstration in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad,January 4, 2013. REUTERS/Ali al-Mashhadani)

Street protests in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland pose a new challenge to Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as shock waves from the Sunni-led insurgency in nearby Syria strain his country’s fragile political balance.

Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of Sunnis have staged demonstrations, and in Anbar province they have blocked a highway to Syria in a show of anger against Maliki, whom they accuse of marginalising their community and monopolising power.

(Bishop of Norwich Graham James makes a statement after the vote for women bishops failed during the Synod at Church House in London November 20, 2012. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)

The Church of England has lifted a ban on gay male clergy who live with their partners from becoming bishops on condition they pledge to stay celibate, threatening to reignite an issue that splits the 80-million-strong globanglican community.

The issue of homosexuality has driven a rift between Western and African Anglicans since a Canadian diocese approved blessings for same-sex couples in 2002 and U.S. Anglicans in the Episcopal Church appointed an openly gay man as a bishop in 2003.

After the attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001, the evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell took some time to tell his fellow Americans that homosexuals (along with abortionists, feminists and pagans) were at least in part to blame. “I point my finger in their face,” he said, “and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Later, in a “did I say that?” moment, he apologized.

It was a low moment, but not an unusual one. Falwell is in the hate-filled corner of the religious spectrum. But even those religious leaders at the mild and inclusive end must, more in sorrow than in anger, generally tell gay men and women that as much as they respect them, they can’t officiate at their marriages. That’s a bridge over too-troubled waters.

This past Christmas time has been an active one for those in the Catholic Church concerned that legislation in both France and the UK to permit gay marriage will hollow out their faith. In a pre-Christmas address to fellow Vatican officials, Benedict XVI called for all faiths to come together against a practice that would cancel out the “authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint for human existence.”