FaithWorld

(The Maltese Capital Valletta, 11 April 2007/Rolf Krahl)

European lawmakers are challenging Malta’s nominee for the EU’s top health job because of his contempt for homosexuals and opposition to abortion, after his predecessor quit over an investigation linking him to bribery.

European Greens, Liberals and Socialists, who have spoken out against Tonio Borg, Malta’s foreign minister and a devout Catholic, make up half of the parliament. The Conservatives, who are more likely to back him, have just under half of the legislature, with independents making up the rest.

“The question is really to what extent he is willing to openly and publicly disassociate himself from his previous statements,” said Franziska Brantner, a Green member of the European Parliament.

The controversy threatens to further embarrass the European Commission after Malta’s previous commissioner John Dalli resigned last month in a tobacco lobbying scandal. It also casts doubt on selection procedures at the EU executive which places officials in unelected posts that shape regulation across Europe at a time when many Europeans question the Commission’s democratic legitimacy.

Borg’s personal views matter because the EU health commissioner oversees sensitive policy on issues such as access to healthcare, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and stem cell research, lawmakers and rights groups say.

The Bishop of Durham, and the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, smiles during a news conference at Lambeth Palace in London November 9, 2012.  REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Rowan Williams once said the next Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the fractious Anglican wing of world Christianity, needs “the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros”.

He overlooked the calm and patient negotiating skills that probably helped his successor Justin Welby clinch the job.

(Church of Mother of God before Týn in Prague, 2007/Zairon)

The Czech parliament on Thursday approved an ambitious plan to return billions of dollars worth of church property that was confiscated by the communists in a vote that represented a victory for Prime Minister Petr Necas.

The law envisages handing churches land, property, and financial compensation worth about $7 billion over a period of 30 years. Under the plan, the churches would become independent from the state and gradually stop getting government financing.

The agreement should unlock about 6 percent of the country’s forests and fields that once belonged to mostly Christian churches but which have been tied up pending a resolution of the restitution question.

(Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, walks through Westminster in London November 8, 2012.  REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett)

A former oil executive and critic of corporate excess is expected to be named on Friday as the next Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans.

Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, is widely tipped in British media to succeed Rowan Williams, capping a meteoric rise up the Church of England hierarchy since quitting the business world and being ordained in 1992.

(French Archbishop of Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, July 17, 2012. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer)

France’s top Catholic prelate criticized the Socialist government on Thursday for forging ahead with plans to legalize same-sex marriage when the country faced more urgent economic concerns.

Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois spoke as the Church’s main charity agency issued a report showing more and more women in France falling below the poverty line in the past decade and fewer poor people succeeding in rising above it.

(French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira attends a news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, November 7, 2012. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer )

France’s Socialist government approved a draft law on Wednesday to allow same-sex marriage, despite coming under fierce attack from religious leaders and conservative politicians.

The proposed law, presented as the first major social reform of Francois Hollande’s presidency, would grant gay couples the right to adopt children but not to use assisted procreation methods such as artificial insemination.

(The sun sets over the Muhammad Ali Mosque at the Citadel in Cairo June 14, 2009. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih )

Mohamed Talaat didn’t like the fact Christian music was being played at a party to promote interfaith harmony in the Egyptian town of Minya south of Cairo, so together with a group of like-minded Islamist hardliners, he showed up to put a stop to it.

It was simply un-Islamic to broadcast Christian songs, Talaat explained.

“Egypt is Islamic and so we all have to accept Islamic rules to halt any strife,” he said by telephone.

(11th Century North African Qur’an in the British Museum, 11 February 2007/LordHarris)

Saudi judges who enforce sharia (Islamic law) have condemned what they see as “the stench of Western ideas” in sweeping legal reforms pushed by King Abdullah, underscoring friction between government modernizers and religious hardliners.

In a letter to Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa seen by Reuters, eight judges complained about foreign trainers who shave their beards contrary to purist Islam, the minister’s meetings with diplomats of “infidel” states and plans to let women practice as lawyers.

(The opinions expressed are the author's own, and may not necessarily reflect those of Thomson Reuters)

Mumbai’s Sufi shrine Haji Ali Dargah Trust has barred women from entering the sanctum that houses the tomb of the Sufi saint Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari. The reason: authorities said that they saw a woman visit the tomb in inappropriate clothing.

This might not be entirely surprising. The mosque and dargah – or tomb – sit on a tiny island in the waters off Mumbai that is connected to the mainland by a tiny causeway. It is one of Mumbai's most well known tourist attractions, and many people from India and other countries walk past the mendicants and beggars, some of whom are missing limbs and often chanting, on the causeway to admire the architecture and the view.

Persecution can bring people together. It can also prise them apart.

In Pakistan, so many minorities are threatened by homicidal extremists that travelling the country can feel like hopping across an archipelago of communities under varying degrees of siege.

Rarely is the impression stronger than in Quetta, the fear-filled capital of Baluchistan province, and a cauldron of the bigotry and intolerance that has poisoned so much of Pakistan’s body politic.

A wave of killings unleashed on the Hazara community has left its 500,000 members afraid to venture out of their enclaves in the east and west of the city. At least 100 have been killed in Quetta and its environs since January. Nobody has been prosecuted.