This November, the Vatican will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of wartime Pope Pius XII. There will be a photo exhibition and a conference on his teachings. That’s the official agenda. Although not be part of the program, there will also be controversy.

Vatican officials at a news conference presenting the initiatives appeared to be making a pre-emptive strike against what will most likely resurface during in November — the seemingly never-ending debate about about what Pius did or did not do, what he did or did not know about the Holocaust and whether he could have done more.

“Pius XII never failed to make his voice heard in a clear and explicit way in different circumstances, when needs called for it, and when there was precise information on facts and their consequences could be seen,” said Monsignor Rino Fisichella, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University.

“It is our hope that this solemn commemoration of such a great pope will offer impetus for more and deeper research without prejudice on his work,” Monsignor Walter Brandmüller, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historic Sciences, said in his prepared speech.

Later, in a question and answer session, Brandmüller lost his cool just a bit and expressed irritation at questions about calls for more opening of the Vatican archives. He effectively said the archives of Jewish organisations such as the World Jewish Congress should be more open and used more, suggesting that scholars would find material supporting the Vatican’s view that Pius did as much as he could under the circumstances.

Addressing a separate issue, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the commemorations were in no way intended to promote efforts to beatify Pius, which would put him on the path to sainthood. “These two things are completely different,” he said.

Jewish groups were surprised by Brandmüller’s comments, saying their archives are and always were wide open. It’s unlikely this is the last we hear — from either side — on this issue.

“Do Catholic countries have better football players?”

I was surprised to see this headline on the Austrian Catholic website kath.net today… and even more surprised to see they seemed to mean it seriously.

“A look at the participants in the final round of the European football championship in Switzerland and Austria suggests this,” kath.net writes in a report from Vienna. “In seven of the 16 participating countries, Catholics are clearly in the majority: Poland (95 percent of the population), Spain (92 percent), Italy (90 percent), Portugal (90 percent), Croatia (77 percent), Austria (69 percent ) and France (51 percent). Only one Protestant stronghold confronts them, Sweden. Of the 8.8 million inhabitants of the northern European country, 80 percent are Lutherans.”

There’s no hint of analysis of why this should be relevant, or mention of the personal faith — or lack thereof — of the players on these national teams. This purely statistical view (sports fans love stats, don’t they?) goes on to point out which participating countries have large numbers of both Catholics and Protestants (Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands).

The article notes that only 32 percent of all Czechs call themselves Christians, making the Czech Republic the most “de-churched” participating country, i.e. the country where religion has retreated the most. Even there, though, the Catholics make up the largest group among the believers (26.5 percent of the population). So maybe they still have a chance after all.

No religion story in Europe is complete without a mention of Islam, so the Vienna-datelined article ended up with a comment about Turkey. The Turkish team, by the way, beat Austria’s co-hosts Switzerland 2-1 on Wednesday in Basel and face the “de-churched” Czechs on Sunday in Geneva, aka “the Protestant Rome”.

“The only Muslim-dominated country in the European Championship is Turkey, where 98 percent of the 72 million inhabitants are Muslims. The 120,000 Christians there have a hard time because of much discrimination,” it wrote. “In Europe there are 224.5 million Catholics, 57.8 million Protestants, 39 million Orthodox, 15.7 million Muslims and 1.6 million Jews.”

These statistics appear to be completely irrelevant to Euro 2008. In fact, with the large Catholic majority in Europe that kath.net mentions at the end, it’s almost inevitable that many countries with a Catholic majority will end up in the final rounds every time the championships are held. Can any football fan tell me if there’s something this religion editor is missing?

It sounds counter-intuitive. German Jews want Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf — the 1925 book that spells out his plan for a Nazi state and gives expression to his extreme anti-Semitism — to be published in Germany. The Central Council of Jews in Germany would be ready to help edit the new edition and pressure the Bavarian state government (which owns the rights and blocks publication) to issue it. As our Berlin correspondent Dave Graham reported, Stephan Kramer, the Central Council ’s general secretary, made the suggestion in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio (here are the DLF text report and audio in German).

Kramer said things had changed since Bavaria banned its publication in the initial post-war years as a way to thwart a revival of Nazi ideology. “Through the Internet and other media, the book is widely available abroad. Especially in far-right wing circles, there has been what you might call a romanticising of the book Mein Kampf, so I personally and we in the Central Council now feel a publicly available version of Mein Kampf with critical commentaries would now be much more helpful. It would make clear to readers who access it what crude stuff was written there,” he said.

Meanwhile in Austria, work has begun on a spoof biopic of Hitler called — what else? — “Mein Kampf.” It’s based on a play of the same name by the late Hungarian-Jewish playwright George Tabori and will premiere in Germany next year.

How to deal with the Hitler legacy is a political, moral and artistic minefield. The debate about publishing Mein Kampf  has gone on for years. German and Austrian directors have made films about him, but usually serious ones like Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 film “Der Untergang “(Downfall). A German parody, “Mein Fuehrer — The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler,” sparked controversy and scathing reviews in Germany last year.

Hitler was responsible for some of the worst evils in history, starting with the Holocaust. Do you think Mein Kampf should be published in Germany or that filmmakers should make parodies of his life?

When journalists are all looking one way, a good reporter loves to find a scoop somewhere else. Most religion journalists (uncluding us) are naturally gearing up for the first papal visit to the United States, coming up April 15-20. The popular German daily Bild seems to have scooped us all with its report today that Pope Benedict is planning to visit his native Germany next year.

We’ve asked at the Vatican and they said the pope’s 2009 travel schedule had not yet been worked out. They don’t usually confirm trips until a few months before them anyway, so it is unlikely we’ll hear anything firm from them anytime soon. Reuters wouldn’t put out a story on this without official confirmation, but we can tell you here about this report.

Bild, which is often very well informed, has quite a bit of detail, a telltale sign they probably got this from German officials involved in the planning. It says Benedict is due to visit Berlin and Erfurt in the ex-communist east on his third trip to Germany as pope (after the Cologne World Youth Day in 2005 and Bavaria in 2006). The Eichsfeld region near Erfurt is one of the few Catholic areas in eastern Germany.

“The premier of Thuringia state, Dieter Althaus, this morning handed over the invitation, which was coordinated with the German president, to the pope. And he accepted it gladly!” the daily wrote in a story posted on its website.

“As Bild.de has learned, Pope Benedict XVI will probably come in the second half of April to Germany. An arrival in Berlin, meeting with the German president and government as well as Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit are planned.

“In the tradition of John Paul II, who held his famous ‘freedom speech’ at the Brandenburg Gate in 1996, his successor will also dignify this historic place. He may also give a speech… His arrival is planned for a Friday evening and he is supposed to fly by helicopter on Saturday morning to Heiligenstadt in Thuringia. He will presumably be met on the grounds of Scharfenstein Castle in Eichsfeld by thousands of the faithful for a Mass. The pope will also say his Sunday Angelus prayer there.

Afterwards it’s off to Erfurt. The Cathedral Hill there is a powerful symbol of the Catholic self-confidence in Eichsfeld, where Catholic Christians resisted the system both during the Nazi era and the East German dictatorship. The departure for Rome is planned from Erfurt.

“During his visit to his native Bavaria, critics called on Benedict to visit eastern Germany. Now Christians in eastern Germany will have their own papal visit!”

UPDATE: Our Berlin bureau advises that Germany is expecting to hold a general election next year, probably in September or October. After the U.S., that would make it the second trip he’d make to a country about to hold a national election (something I thought he tried not to do). I’ve seen the speculation in U.S. media about the possible effects the papal visit could have on the vote there. It will be interesting to see if the same thing happens in Germany.

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has just published a booklet for school teachers urging them not to advocate creationism or intelligent design (ID). That’s “evangelical” as in the German evangelisch (meaning Protestant, mostly Lutheran), and not “evangelical” as it’s more commonly used in the United States. Still, it’s interesting to see that the EKD in Germany, where there are few U.S.-style evangelicals and almost no dispute about the theory of evolution, felt it necessary to issue a 22-page booklet about teaching evolution. It’s called “The Origin of the World, the Theory of Evolution and the Belief in Creation in School” (here in German).

EKD Chairman Bishop Wolfgang Huber (pictured below) writes in the introduction that there is “an intense debate” about these issues but that “it is being conducted in Germany in a different way from, for example, the United States of America. Still, a fundamental clarification is of considerable practical importance.” He doesn’t elaborate.

The daily Die Welt gave a bit more background. “This dispute is increasingly spilling over from the USA to us and has already led to political debates. The Hesse state culture minister (and Protestant synod member) Karin Wolff spoke last year of a “surprising agreement” between evolution and the Bible. With that she sparked a dispute within the Church in which the reasonable faction of the EKD found itself confronted with the growing strength of evangelicals loyal to the Bible. This “orientation aid” should now calm the dispute by setting limits towards both sides.”The “orientation aid,” as the booklet is called, criticises Richard Dawkins and other atheists for thinking science can disprove the existence of God. It compares the books of the “new atheists” to the communist textbooks in East Germany: “The new atheism propagated by Dawkins and others today fits seamlessly into this ideological scheme.”

The booklet has several pages on the relationship between science and religion. Sorry, I can’t translate them all but they boil down to saying that biblically literal creationism is unseriös (”unserious” is a serious put-down in German). ID turns God into a god-of-the-gaps, it adds. So how does the EKD want German schools to deal with creation? Unlike in the U.S., even state schools in Germany have religion classes, separated according to religions and denominations. The EKD says it believes the Biblical story of creation explains the overall purpose of life while science explains the physical details. “God the creator is part of this belief, but not creationism,” the booklet writes. “So Protestant religion class can discuss creationism, but not advocate it.”

The booklet talks positively about “cooperation that connects subjects” (fächerverbindende Kooperation) and says “in principle all classes can deal with both the belief in creation and the theory of evolution.” Religion class is special in that it can advocate a religious view such as God as creator. “But teachers, because of their pedological responsibility and the duty to be evenhanded that goes with their occupation, cannot claim a comparable right for themselves, neither about creationism nor other views, for example atheist ones,” it adds.

It seems a bizarre tool in the hands of security officials, but German authorities believe a cartoon comic strip can help them get their message across to young people who might be tempted to flirt with militant Islamism. The unusual experiment in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state, has stirred international interest from as far away as the United States and Japan, according to the team behind the idea.

The comic is aimed at 12-16 year-olds and has been distributed in mosques and to every secondary school. “The reactions are almost entirely positive,” said Thomas Grumke, the interior ministry official who first thought up the hero Andi, his Muslim girlfriend Ayshe and the rest of the characters, including a militant imam and two young men who fall under his influence.

The story, which can be downloaded here in German, is interspersed with short passages of text addressing key issues and terms like sharia, jihad and the difference between Islam and Islamism. On that last point, it says: “Islam is a monotheistic religion (a belief in one all-embracing God), which is closely related to Judaism and Christianity. By contrast, Islamism is a political ideology which poses as ‘true Islam’ and wants to realise this as a binding, guiding principle for state and society. This ideology is directed against the free democratic order and thus is unambiguously extremist.”

Ayshe, the feisty, headscarf-wearing Muslim girl in the story, is able to quote the Koran in defence of her relationship with non-Muslim Andi. When her brother’s friend Harun tells her this is forbidden by Allah, she fires back: “What a lot of nonsense. It says in the Koran we should be gracious and friendly towards those who don’t fight us because of our faith.”

Grumke said the feedback from Muslim girls has been that they are drawn to Ayshe as someone who is both devout and assertive.

He acknowledged that stereotyping is an issue when using the comic format, but he said figures like the militant imam in the story, who advocates fighting and killing non-Muslims, are not unrealistic. “This preacher has a stereotypical beard and clothing. Not every preacher has looks like that, but he may well do, and the likelihood is very high that he looks like that.”

The comic initiative was launched by the NRW interior ministry’s department for protection of the constitution - Verfassungsschutz in German. Essentially it is a domestic intelligence agency which can use covert surveillance methods to track militants, but its boss Hartwig Möller told Reuters its role is about much more than just preventing attacks.

“Isn’t it just as dangerous if there’s a religious community which doesn’t practise violence but which in the long term wants to change our society, to abolish our democracy, and which is seeking free room in which to establish their standards, which aren’t compatible with the constitution, where sharia would be introduced which isn’t in line with our legal system. Isn’t that just as dangerous?” he asked in a telephone interview.

Aiman Mazyek, general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany , said the basic approach of the comic was right, but he regretted the authorities hadn’t consulted the Muslim community beforehand. The NRW ministry said it was prepared with the help of Islamic experts.

For more detail, read the Reuters feature and then let us know what you think. Is this the right message, and the right vehicle, for preventing young Muslims from embracing al Qaeda-inspired violence?

German soccer blogs are not a place I usually go to for a story about religion, but an interesting one has popped up on the forum of the Eintracht Frankfurt team. The team let its fans vote over the Internet late last year to pick a 2008/2009 season jersey among 16 proposed models. Despite the fans’ enthusiasm for this innovation, Eintracht has ignored the result and chosen to use the runner-up design. As the team explained on its website:

After a close examination, we have decided that the winning jersey with the cross unfortunately cannot be used because the symbol on the front has a religious background. Inter Milan, an Italian club with a long tradition, has appeared in the current Champions League competition in a similar jersey and been strongly criticised for it. So after careful consideration, Eintracht Frankfurt has gone back and chosen the second jersey, which came in a close second in the vote.

The runner-up that came out on top has what Eintracht calls “hints of eagle claws on the front and a stylised eagle on the shoulder”. The city’s coat-of-arms has a red eagle that also figures on the Eintracht team logo.

So why the change? It turns out that a Turkish lawyer (and Fenerbahçe fan) asked UEFA in December to invalidate an Inter Milan victory over the Istanbul team in the Champions League last November because the red cross on the Italian jerseys recalled the Knights Templar crusaders. Shortly afterwards, the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia reported that fake FC Barcelona jerseys were on sale in Saudi Arabia with the crossbar removed from the cross on the team’s emblem. Eintracht doesn’t mention this Christian/Muslim angle explicitly, but it takes only a few clicks to find it.

Eintracht’s fan forum erupted with comments. The main thread on the jersey is up to 1,728 and climbing, many defending the loser as simply a better design. Almost 500 fans have signed a petition against the winner. The religious angle seemed irrelevant to most of them.

Do you think that teams should pay attention to possible religious overtones on their jerseys?

As if it weren’t enough to share a name with Karl Marx, the new Roman Catholic archbishop of Munich has now written a book called, you guessed it - Das Kapital.

Subtitled “a polemic”, Reinhard Marx’s book argues that “Capitalism has never triumphed so shamelessly as today,” and that “the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer,” because of global capitalism. Now doesn’t that sound familiar?

The book, which will go on sale in Germany from November 5, tackles issues such as the outsourcing of labour to cheaper countries and the effect chasing profits can have on the welfare of the workforce.

Marx, who became archbishop in the Bavarian capital earlier this year is an up-and-coming figure in German Catholicism — Munich was Pope Benedict’s old diocese and the new Das Kapital, to be published 140 years after the original, is sure to earn him attention outside of the church too.

So is the archbishop a revolutionary? “There are new and good reasons as to why Karl Marx should not just be left sitting on the shelf,” he says. Watch this space.

Are German authorities right to have decided against banning a children’s book about religion which critics say is subversive and promotes atheism? The book “How do I get to God? asks the little pig” follows a little pink pig and a hedgehog in their quest to find God. In the end, the two creatures decide God would not like any of the religions.

But what has angered some readers, including Germany’s Family Ministry, is that the priest, rabbi and mufti are all depicted as being crazy. That, argues the ministry, ridicules relgion and should not be allowed.

The ministry, which also argued the book was anti-Semitic, had tried to get it added to Germany’s list of literature which is dangerous for children. The book cover looks harmless enough, with its picture of a cute little pink pig in blue and white chequered dungarees and his hedgehog companion in Wellington boots, gazing quizzically upwards.

But inside, the illustrations do resort to stereotypical negative images. The rabbi has long black curls and an evil glint in his eye, the priest is extremely fat and the mufti is portrayed as a hate-preacher.  The German government department which is responsible for deciding whether books and media could be harmful for young people took a benign view on Thursday. After a thorough discussion, the 12-person panel decided the book could not be viewed as anti-Semitic since its attacks on Christianity and Islam were just as harsh.

On the broader point, the department said poking fun at religion posed no danger to young people.

Do you think children should be protected from these stereotypes?

Only a few days ago, Samuel Kobia from Kenya was running unopposed for a second five-year term as general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at its Central Committee meeting now being held in Geneva. The story seemed pretty ho-hum. Then the German Protestant news agency epd revealed he had a “digital doctorate” from a unaccredited diploma mill in the U.S. Now he’s in danger of losing his job running the WCC, the global Christian grouping of 349 churches (mostly Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox) that represent more than 560 million believers around the world. Our correspondent in Geneva Robert Evans reports he may be on his way out. The rumour making the rounds is that we may hear as early as Tuesday that he will not be there much longer.

All because of a phony Ph.D? No, there’s a lot more where that story came from. The epd also ran a scathing interview with Lutheran Bishop Martin Hein of Kassel, the top German on the WCC Central Committee, in the run-up to the meeting. He made it abundantly clear that the German Protestants, who contribute one-third of the WCC budget, had lost patience with Kobia. Here’s a taste of what he said:

“The WCC takes stands on everything. The World Council of Churches does not have to be a little United Nations.”

Hein noted the WCC played an active role during the Cold War and the apartheid era in South Africa but added: “The real difficulty is that both those political challenges are now gone.”

He criticsed Kobia for taking decisions without much consultation and traveling around too much: “I’m sometimes amazed how often the secretary general is on the road.”

“In the long term, one-third of the costs of the WCC cannot come exclusively from Germany,” Hein said, adding he thought other churches in the Global North, including the Orthodox churches, could give more.

Kobia, 60, told a news conference last week that he saw visiting outlying faith communities around the world as part of his mandate. Responding to another complaint voiced by Hein, he said the WCC had cut back on some of its many programmes.

Kobia would be the first head of the WCC to serve only one term if he steps down. The first general secretary, Willem A. Visser ‘t Hooft of the Netherlands, served from 1948 to 1966. Kobia’s immediate predecessor, Konrad Raiser from Germany, served from 1993 to 2003.