Senior figures from across Austria's political spectrum have condemned the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, over his party's European election campaign directed against Israel and Turkey.

In an advertisement in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Freedom opposes the accession of Turkey and Israel to the European Union. Although Turkey is in EU accession talks, Israel is not.

Heinz-Christian Strache prepares for a TV discussion in Vienna, Sept. 17, 2008. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader (AUSTRIA)

"What is the most distasteful and despicable is the style," says Ernst Strasser, the conservatives' candidate in next month's elections for the European Parliament, referring to Strache's campaign. "This style is abusive. He vilifies other religions and ethnicities."

According to Chancellor Werner Faymann, Strache is "a hate monger, a disgrace".

"It makes absolutely no sense for Israel to be mentioned. Israel is not a candidate for accession. There isn't even an accession process. The only reason to mention Israel is to serve anti-Semitic prejudices. It is disgraceful."

Strache, who denies he is preaching hatred, accuses Faymann of being a "rabble-rouser" and abusing his position as chancellor.

The dispute indicates more than just political opportunism in the run-up to the poll, although that is obviously playing a part.

Freedom, which polled 18 percent in September's national election, has become a hard-right party since former dental technician Strache took the helm in 2005. It has also focused on religion. A recent rally where Strache waved a crucifix drew condemnation from politicians and religious leaders. Another campaign slogan, "The West in Christian hands", was not well received, either.

The hard-right rhetoric, an eye-catching campaign aimed at the youth vote and dissatisfaction with the centre parties, appears to have given Freedom a boost. However, Strache's line has at times been a bonus for the more moderate Alliance for Austria's Future, the party of late far-right leader Joerg Haider, who used to lead Freedom.

A controversial European Union election campaign poster of Austrian far right Freedom party in Vienna May 11, 2009. Posterreads " The West in Christian hands - Judgement day". REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler

The parties are often lumped together as "Austria's far right", such as when they polled almost a third of the vote last year. Together they could make a serious political force -- they outpolled the conservatives and were just behind the Social Democrats in September. the Alliance has tried to use the dispute to portray itself as the more mature. "(Freedom) is using the only way to mobilise votes it has," Alliance's EU candidate Ewald Stadler says.

Freedom's popularity has nevertheless affected mainstream policy, with centre parties loath to open up a flank to the far right. The conservatives and Social Democrats have spoken out against the EU asylum directive and oppose lifting labour market restrictions to the eight ex-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004.

Pope Benedict has left the Holy Land bequeathing a message of peace, tolerance and love between all religions and peoples.

We hope that message also filters through to the eternally fractious relationship between journalists and security men - which gets even more strained when a high-profile visitor like the Pope is in town.

Months of elaborate preparation went in to ensuring the Pope's visit was safe and successful and also to ensure journalists got controlled access to major events to tell the stories their readers and viewers want to see.

This planning process is hostage, however, to a simple dichotomy which pits journalists against bureaucrats and security officials.

In the eyes of the security men, journalists are bothersome, quarrelsome and disobedient and need to be coralled (even though that process is often like 'herding cats'). Notions of a free press and unlimited access take a back seat to security concerns.

In the eyes of the journalists, security men are unthinking automatons with no common sense or an appreciation of the (self-)importance of journalists - and they need to be challenged and confronted whenever possible. The elaborate coverage restrictions, security sweeps, shuttle buses and byzantine pool regulations are, of course, both ridiculous and the main obstacle between the journalist and his/her exclusive, prize-winning story.

Perhaps its not unusual then that tempers occasionally overheat.

In the video below you will see what happens when very clear 'pool' rules are breached by a local photographer - who runs from a pre-ordained position towards the Pope and enters the inner core of accredited Vatican journalists who travel with Benedict wherever he goes.

The photographer in question had a different accreditation - only allowing limited access to the Pope's itinerary.

To give you an idea of how seriously these breaches of protocol are taken - the gentleman 'herding the cats' in this case is the Director of the Government Press Office which oversees many aspects of the work of foreign journalists in Israel.

In this next video you will see what happens when people spend too much time waiting around in the sun wearing suit jackets and ties and getting...well, a little cranky.

The cameraman here was doing exactly what he was supposed to do on behalf of the Host Broadcaster pool which has been providing the bulk of the live pictures of the Pope's visit to Israel. A TV Pool like this is set up to film on behalf of everyone so as to avoid a crush of journalists attending every event and making it even more unmanageable. Maybe someone should have explained that part a bit better to the security guy.

If things can get a little heated when diplomatic protocol and stringent preparations are in place, it can get even uglier when unofficial visitors attract even more attention than the leader of the world's Roman Catholics....

Cue Leonardo diCaprio visiting Jerusalem two years ago with his Israeli girlfriend Bar Refaeli and a private security escort to keep the couple out of harm's way....

Two of diCaprio's security guards were arrested for their part in the scuffle.

Perhaps its only fitting to leave the last word to the Pope himself who said, as he left the Holy Land for Rome: "It remains only for me to express my heartfelt thanks to all who have contributed in so many ways to my visit. To the government, the organisers, the volunteers, the media..."

(PHOTO CREDIT: Pope Benedict during the Nazareth mass REUTERS/Tony Gentile)

Who wrote Pope Benedict’s speeches for this trip? Why do his speeches to Muslims hit the spot and those to Jews seem to fall short? Does he have two teams of speechwriters, one more attuned to the audience than the other?

We don’t know the answers (yet) but a pattern suggesting that has certainly emerged. Look at what he had to say today in Bethlehem to Palestinians, Christian and Muslim:

• To Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: “Mr President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers…”
• To Palestinian Catholics at Mass: “In a special way my heart goes out to the pilgrims from war-torn Gaza: I ask you to bring back to your families and your communities my warm embrace, and my sorrow for the loss, the hardship and the suffering you have had to endure.”
• At Aida refugee camp: “I know that many of your families are divided – through imprisonment of family members, or restrictions on freedom of movement – and many of you have experienced bereavement in the course of the hostilities. My heart goes out to all who suffer in this way.”
• On the Israeli-built wall: “In a world where more and more borders are being opened up – to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges – it is tragic to see walls still being erected… How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built!”

(Photo: Pope Benedict speaks at Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, 13 May 2009/Tony Gentile)

These comments stand in strong contrast to his speech at Yad Vashem, which was so abstract that his Jewish audience — and commentators in the media — were openly disappointed by it. They called it lukewarm, said he avoided speaking clearly about the Holocaust and said nothing about the fact he himself is German. He skirted the contentious issues that strain Catholic-Jewish relations, such as the possible beatification of the late Pope Pius XII or the recent lifting of the excommunication of an arch-conservative bishop who denies the Holocaust.

The latest gaffe came yesterday when his spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, flatly denied to journalists that the German-born pope had ever been a member of the Hitler Youth (see our story). He was reacting to repeated mentions of this in the media and possibly a comment to that effect by the speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin. But the pope, while he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in a book over a decade ago that he had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth by force. Reporters who had the book back in their office bookcases quickly found the quotes on the internet. Within hours, Lombardi had to eat humble pie and admit the book was right after all.

Coming after the uproar over the case of the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, where Vatican communications were chaotic, one has to wonder why some speeches work and others don’t. Just imagine if Pope Benedict had added a line to his Yad Vashem speech saying there was no place in the Church’s ministry for Holocaust deniers. Or cut and pasted that line from his speech in Auschwitz in 2006: ” I come here today as a son of the German people.” It would have been so easy. It would have been so effective.

(Photo: Rev. Federico Lombardi, 12 March 2009/Alessia Pierdomenico)

Fr. Lombardi told us yesterday that Benedict had said all these things before and couldn’t be expected to repeat them all in every speech. To criticism that he didn’t mention the total number of Holocaust dead or the issue of anti-Semitism at Yad Vashem, he said the pope had spoken about them on his arrival at Tel Aviv airport — hardly comparable to the Holocaust memorial as a place for a solemn statement. And his reaffirmation of the Vatican’s support for a Palestinian homeland was also just a repetition of what had been said before. By these arguments, he could have skated over that issue today, but he didn’t. Today’s speeches had far more sense of the occasion and the location.

So we’re left with the question we started with. Who writes these speeches? It’s something we’ll have to follow up once the morning-to-evening coverage of this visit is over.

One passage in Pope Benedict’s letter today about the Williamson affair particularly stood out — the part where he confessed to almost complete ignorance of the Internet. There can’t be many other world leaders who could write  the following lines without blushing: “I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news.” This made it look as if the world’s largest church was ignorant of the world’s liveliest communications network.

That’s not the case, of course. The Vatican runs a very full website of its own, www.vatican.va, as do Vatican Radio (in 38 languages), Catholic bishops conferences, dioceses and parishes as well as Catholic publications all around the world.

In fact, somebody in the Vatican seems to be following the Internet far more closely that the mainstream media (including ourselves), which missed an interesting little nugget now popping up on tech blogs and some Catholic sites mostly in Europe. The Holy See’s representative to the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently warned against the tensions that could be caused if ICANN created new top-level domain names (so-called gTLDs) for religions.

In a letter to the president of ICANN dated February 20, its representative Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani spoke of “the possible perils connected with the assignment of new gTLDs with reference to religious traditions (e.g., .catholic, .anglican, .orthodox, .hindu, .islam; .muslim, .buddhist, etc…). These gTLDs could provoke  competing claims among theological and religious traditions and could possibly result in bitter disputes that would force ICANN, implicitly and/or explicitly, to abandon its wise policy of neutrality by recognizing to a particular group or to a specific organization the legitimacy to represent a given religious tradition.”

ICANN President Paul Twomey responded on February 24 that ICANN was indeed considering new faith-based gTLDs but “an objection may be filed if there is substantial oppostion to the gTLD application from a significant portion of the community to which the gTLD string may be explicitly or implicitly targeted.”

Imagine a group of technicians and managers having to decide who gets to use the domain name “.islam”? What could they tell the Vatican if they ignore Polvani’s plea and let “.catholic” domain names proliferate out of control? What about that “.orthodox” domain name — orthodox what?

Is this a good idea?

The members of Italy’s atheist association probably would not fill one of the side chapels of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. But that’s not stopping the group from launching an unprecedented ad campaign on buses in Italian cities, much like the one recently started in Britain.

(Photo: Planned Italian bus ads/UAAR)

The Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics (UAAR) will run the ads on four buses in the northern city of Genoa next month. The ads, which will cover the entire bus painted a soothing sky blue, read: “The bad news is that God doesn’t exist. The good news is that you don’t need him.”

The Padua-based group is launching the campaign in Genoa because advertising is much more expensive in other large cities such as Milan and Rome. But Genoa is also home to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the president of  the Italian Bishops Conference. According to some Italian reports, one of the buses will pass near his residence.

The group claims to have some 3,000 members and says it has received many more contributions since news of the bus campaign.  UAAR, which has chapters in 40 Italian cities, says if more funds come in,  it will take the campaign to Pope Benedict’s backyard in Rome. It says it decided to run the ads because the Italian media pays no attention to atheists. It added that Italian politicians “don’t always have to say ‘yes’ to the Church.”

The UAAR says it got the ad idea from the British Humanist Association, but it didn’t follow the London example completely. The British ads say “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” One would have thought the British atheists would be more decisive than Italian ones in denying the deity.

(Photo: British atheist Richard Dawkins in a London bus, 6 Jan 2009/Andrew Winning)

Atheists in Barcelona, London and Washington have already run ads like this and more are bound to come elsewhere. Do you find these offensive? Humourous?  A waste of valuable ad space? Do you think atheists get ignored by the mainstream media?

Cardinal Renato Martino, the papal aide who angered Israel and Jews by comparing Gaza to a “big concentration camp” is no novice at being outspoken or controversial. The southern Italian cardinal speaks his mind, loves to talk and sometimes has had to pay the price. Martino, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (effectively its justice minister), has a laundry list of people and governments with whom he has clashed. But that hasn’t stopped him.

(Photo: Cardinal Martino at the Vatican, 12 April 2005/Tony Gentile)

Perhaps his most famous remark came in December, 2003 when, shortly after U.S. troops captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Martino told a news conference at the Vatican that U.S. military were wrong to show video footage of Saddam. “I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said at the time.

The “treated like a cow” remark was heard around the world and, needless to say, was not very appreciated in the White House. The Vatican had opposed the U.S.-invasion of Iraq in March of that year. In fact, a certain chill developed between Martino and then U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Jim Nicholson, a Vietnam veteran who later went on to become Bush’s Secretary for Veteran Affairs.

While that is the Martino quip everyone remembers, there has been no lack of others.

In 2005, ahead of a meeting of the Group of Eight rich nations summit in Scotland, he pointedly said the United States had to “open its eyes” about the problems of Africa. He angered anti-immigration parties in Italy by backing a proposal to allow Muslim pupils in Italy to study the Koran in state schools. He angered U.S. conservatives, including well-known television commentators, when he said Washington’s plan to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border was part of an “inhuman programme.”

(Photo: Cardinal Martino visits AIDS patient in Abidjan, 19 May 2007/Luc Gnago)

The former Vatican diplomat, who was the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York from 1986 to 2002, made headlines again last year when he called on Catholics to withdraw support their financial support for Amnesty International over the group’s call to decriminalise abortion.

Martino had more of a free rein during the papacy of Pope John Paul, who was not shy himself about speaking out. But Vatican sources have said Pope Benedict wants his cardinals to keep a lower profile and that Martino had been told by Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to keep the lid on and not be so controversial.

The cardinal obviously disregarded the advice when he gave his interview with the Gaza=concentration camp comparison to the Italian on-line newspaper Ilsussidiario.net. His comment only added to the speculation Israel’s military operation in Gaza is putting Benedict’s tentatively planned trip to the Holy Land in May in serious doubt. While both the Vatican and Israel have officially said the trip is still on, diplomats are not so sure.

(Photo: Israeli weapons explode over Gaza, 9 Jan 2008/Suhaib Salem)

What do you think of Martino’s concentration camp comment and his outspokenness in general? Do you think the pope should go ahead with his planned Holy Land visit despite events in Gaza?

Religion reporters often get asked how they keep up with developments in different faiths. One way is to read the leading publications in the field. Keeping up with the latest trends in Islam is about to get harder for those of us who are regular readers of one of the most interesting journals on Muslim issues, the ISIM Review published in English by the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

(Photo: Head scarf exhibit in Amsterdam Historical Museum, 6 March 2006/Paul Vreeker)

Not only is the Review closing down — ISIM itself, a Dutch academic institute set up by the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen 10 years ago — is being closed for lack of funds. The University of Leiden announced this on Dec 17 (here in Dutch) and ISIM announced it here in English. Surprisingly, it got almost no coverage in the media (here’s one short piece from De Telegraaf in Dutch).

The Dutch experience with Islam is one of the most strained in Europe, as seen by the murder of film maker Theo van Gogh and the rise of far-right politicians like Geert Winters Wilders. ISIM’s excellent research has been a useful antidote to that, presenting a much better informed view of Islam both in the Netherlands and abroad. I’ve found it very informative as background to the current issues concerning Muslim and a tip-off for scholars to consult when I’m writing about them. There aren’t enough of these publications around and it’s sad to see such a good one, and the institute that produces it, disappear.

Oddly enough, a February 2008 peer review commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education — the same ministry now pulling the plug on ISIM — gave the institute high marks for its work. It said that “the Institute has succeeded in using its very limited means to constitute itself as a prominent centre with great international attraction. Clear indicators for this are its appeal for prominent colleagues from all over the world (cf. the success of its Visiting Fellows Programme), the great international appreciation of its research projects, and its ability to attract younger scholars (PhDs and post-docs), again from very different regions and backgrounds … this solid academic reputation … has made the institute a focal point within Europe for comparative debates, workshops and conferences on a wide array of questions concerning Islam and its rising presence in the continent.”

Alexandre Caeiro, an ISIM PhD who’s an expert on Islamic fatwas in Western Europe, told me a group of scholars associated with ISIM has been circulating a petition to the Dutch Ministry of Education urging it to reconsider. If you know and appreciate ISIM (or just discover the ISIM Review now by searching through its archive) and want to support it, you can contact Caeiro at isim2009@gmail.com.

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(Photo: A Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur, 7 Feb 2008/Bazuki Muhammad)

Malaysia prides itself on its multicultural heritage, and rightly so. The Southeast Asian nation of around 27 million people is one of the few countries in the world where so many races and religions live together in peace and stability.

Having arrived in July from Hungary, an ex-communist country that has one of the least diverse ethnic makeups in the world, I can attest it is a truly amazing cultural experience and one of which the country should be proud.

After four years of seeing nothing but look-alike Hungarian baroque churches, I now find Hindu and Buddhist temples nestled side-by-side in downtown Kuala Lumpur. A whitewashed Protestant church sits on a square where the country’s independence from Britain was proclaimed. There is a mosque near where I live and the evening call to prayer is still a sound that thrills and intrigues. When you see and hear all that, it is easy to believe the public face of the country.

The nation, however, defines itself by the fissures that run through the whole of society. Difference, both ethnic and religious, is what makes a Malaysian. Religion is bound up with race and race is bound up with politics and the stated political aim of the government is to defend the rights of the majority Malays, who by definition are Muslims.

(Photo: Fireworks over Putra Mosque outside Kuala Lumpur, 31 Aug 2005/Bazuki Muhammad)

The country is nearly 60 percent Malay, with two main minorities. The Chinese (whose religion can be Buddhist, Taoist, Christian or other) make up 11 percent of the population and the Indians (mostly Hindus) are seven percent. Smaller groups practice Sikhism, animism or forms of folk religion.

As the global economy stumbles,  the government is battling to reassert itself against a strong opposition. Political rhetoric about defending Malay rights and attacking non-Malays appears to be heating up.

In a speech on Friday, Malaysia’s normally reserved Foreign Minister Rais Yatim praised the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush. He also observed that we “have to enforce laws, in fact strict laws, and nourish the various conventions of the general Malaysian society”.

The next victim of the rise in tensions could be a Roman Catholic newspaper, the Herald, that may have less than two weeks left to publish after it used the word “Allah” in Malay for “God.” It did this in the Malay language edition of its newspaper, which is aimed at the indigenous populations of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo Island.

(Photo: Herald newspaper, 17 Dec 2008/Bazuki Muhammad)

“Allah” simply means “God” in Arabic, without any religious strings attached. Arab Christians use it in their prayers and it’s the term for the Almighty in Malay translations of the Bible. But Malaysia’s government believes its use here could inflame racial tensions, so it has threatened to suspend the paper’s annual permit to publish.

The government is also struggling against a boisterous Internet culture. While it can easily close down newspapers its pledge to foreign investors to keep the net free has created challenges it did not imagine. It tried to close down a blog written by Raja Petra Kamaruddin after he ignored warnings to abide by the law.

Raja Petra is related to one of Malaysia’s royal families, is a Muslim and supports the opposition. He has been arrested several times under laws that allow detention without trial and was most recently freed in November. He is currently also being tried for sedition.  One of his offences was to write an article entitled “I promise to be a good non-hypocritical Muslim” that said those who attack other faiths “foam at the mouth in defence of Islam. They slander and defile other religions. They declare all other religions as false and their holy books as fakes.” That too threatened the social order, according to the government.

(Photo: Raja Petra Kamaruddin, 6 May 2008/Bazuki Muhammad)

At the same time as the government is battling its opponents, attempts to control the lives of ordinary Muslims are on the rise. There is a seemingly endless series of “fatwas” prescribing what is and is not allowed. Most recently, rulings from the government-backed National Fatwa Council on yoga and young women wearing trousers have provoked both amusement and incredulity.

The fatwa on yoga was seen as an attack on the ethnic Indian minority here who are economically disadvantaged and staged large scale riots in November 2007. Even a small demonstration earlier this year was put down by police using teargas.

With a by-election test looming for the government in January in a seat in the rural Malay Muslim heartland and polls in March for top posts in the biggest coalition party, the United Malays National Organisation, there is a risk the rhetoric will get even harsher.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

Some years ago, an American reporter who covered religion was at Tel Aviv airport leaving Israel.

As she was subjected to the usual questions from Israeli security, she was asked what she did for a living. “I write about religion,” she replied. “Which one?” the security officer responded. “Well, all of them,” the reporter said.

“How is that possible?” the officer asked. After 20 more minutes of questions, the reporter was allowed to board her plane, but it was clear from the conversation that the security officer could not conceive of a journalist writing about a faith to which she did not subscribe.

It’s an interesting question during this season of religious celebrations: Does a journalist have to be “religious” to cover religion? Is it desirable to have a reporter of one faith covering stories about another? What about atheist or agnostic reporters?

Reuters News Religion Editor Tom Heneghan, who produces the excellent FaithWorld blog, says reporters “need to know enough about the religion they’re covering to get beyond the usual clichés about the faith.” But, importantly, “they have to be ready to put aside the usual ‘either/or’ approach they learned covering politics or business. Religion often doesn’t fit into those categories, but into a ‘both/and’ perspective.”

For example, “Pope John Paul II was both liberal in some political issues such as defense of the poor or opposition to the Iraq War, and conservative in Catholic theology. Islam has radicals who commit violence in the name of God and moderates who say Islam is a religion of peace.”

Among Reuters journalists who cover religion are believers, agnostics and atheists, Heneghan says. His view, which I share, is that in principle all our journalists should be able to cover any religion because they are supposed to approach them objectively and that it’s hard to detect any differences in the reports they write.

“The real dividing line,” he says, “is probably between those with a religious background and those without one. Reporters who cover their own faith often have a big advantage over those who are not familiar with that faith — although they may also get too close to the story. Reporters who are believers or are from a religious background sometimes have a better feel for the complexities of a religion story, no matter which faith they are covering.”

No matter who does the reporting, Heneghan says, a good religion story is one that is clear and simple, without being simplistic.

FROM RELIGION TO FINANCE

This season of religious celebrations has also become a season of financial turmoil, alleged $50 billion Wall Street Ponzi schemes and wrenching business and government policy decisions that are putting many out of work. Against such a backdrop, it’s fair to ask how reporting on religion and ethics issues is relevant and how such reporting can help a professional audience make decisions.

The Bernard Madoff case has brought the intersection of ethics and finance into the spotlight, but even before that news broke Pope Benedict weighed in on the world economic crisis and the ethics of the financial community, branding the global financial system as “self-centered, short-sighted and lacking in concern for the poor.”

"Objectively, the most important function of finance is to sustain the possibility of long-term investment and hence of development," he wrote in the message for the Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, celebrated on Jan. 1. "Today this appears extremely fragile: it is experiencing the negative repercussions of a system of financial dealings — both national and global — based upon very short-term thinking, which aims at increasing the value of financial operations and concentrates on the technical management of various forms of risk," he said.

"The recent crisis demonstrates how financial activity can at times be completely turned in on itself, lacking any long-term consideration of the common good," he said.

Stories like that one plainly illustrate the connections between “religion news” and “financial news.”

INTERPLAY NOT DOCTRINE

At Reuters News, “Our role is to cover the interplay of religious issues with society, politics and global affairs and to ensure that we are both expert and accurate in everything we write,” says Sean Maguire, our global editor for politics and general news.

“Sometimes,” he says, “that is about understanding how the differences between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam impact the Middle East. Other times it is about how different religious beliefs impact national approaches to the difficult ethical choices in health care provision.”

What you’re not going to see are reports on arcane doctrinal differences. What you will see is coverage of the religious issues that form a backdrop to our time, such as Benedict’s criticism of the global financial system.

Such issues “are at the core of disputes and conflicts that pit ethnic and sectarian groups against each other and tip countries into war,” says Maguire. “They inform the decisions that governments take, are a big influence on electoral behavior and they form the cultural matrix within which individuals make their daily decisions.

"So we don’t cover religion in isolation, but to better understand the actions, reactions and behaviors of groups, individuals and states. That aids us in our editorial goal of helping customers make informed professional decisions.”

Unfortunately, the financial problems of the media industry have been rough on religion and ethics reporting. In the 1980s, a number of U.S. news outlets, including such papers as the San Jose Mercury News and The Dallas Morning News, made big investments in religion and ethics reporting. Now, as the industry has contracted, so has the religion beat, as Boston Globe religion reporter Michael Paulson blogged from a Religion Newswriters Association conference this past fall.

This is bad timing. We live in a world in which investors and consumers are increasingly confused about whom they can trust. There’s never been a more important time for reporting on the intersection of religion, ethics, finance and policy.

What do you think? Are the media covering religion and ethics issues in a smart way? Are we making the connections between religion and ethics issues and politics, finance and other areas? What are the stories that need to be covered in 2009?

If you go by what’s reported in the media (including by us), you’d think cemetery desecrations in France like the big one last weekend happen occasionally and target mostly Jewish and Muslim graves. Those are the cases the police report and we write about. A report by two parliamentary deputies, however, has taken an overall look at the problem nationwide and come up with some unexpected conclusions.

First, there are far more cemetery desecrations than we knew about. They happen on an average of every two to three days!  There were 144 last year and 110 up until Sept. 1 this year. And most of them target Christian — which in France would mean overwhelmingly Catholic — graves. Most desecrations are vandalism by teenagers, with only a small minority prompted by the racism, anti-Semitism or satanic cult practices normally highlighted in the media, the report said. The news story on this by our parliamentary correspondent Emile Picy is here.

(Photo: Police inspect desecrated graves in France, 8 Dec 2008/Pascal Rossignol)

The report is not aimed at playing down the gravity of attacks on Muslim and Jewish graves, but rather to get an overall idea of the problem in order to suggest possible remedies. It lists some obvious ideas like better surveillance of cemeteries and better use of existing punishment. What I found the most interesting was their discussion of the waning respect for the dead. The title of the report highlights this — “Du respect des morts à la mort du respect?” (”From respect for the dead to the death of respect?”)

“The place that death occupies in our society is ambiguous and has evolved a lot in less than a generation,” it said. “Death is omnipresent in films, video games, film clips and music. It is often staged in a violent way, with many effects that seems realistic, all the while being more and more ‘virtual’ for many young people. At the same time, the end of life — 516,000 people died in France in 2007 — is often a reality that is hidden and kept at a distance … the increase in cremation also helps to keep death at more of a distance … the relationship that young people have with death and graves has necessarily changed. Distancing death from life can cause indifference and eventually a loss of sense and respect. What is not known or put aside can progressively lose its sacred dimension.”

The report suggests that schools teach more about the death rituals of different cultures to inculcate more respect for the dead in young people. Police — but apparently not pupils — might also learn more about “religion in its cultural dimension” to understand the phenomenon better. This being an official report in France, it could not find fault with the official policy of laïcité, which is more aggressively secularist than just a policy of separation of church and state. But it’s hard not to sense a touch of nostalgia in it for an earlier French society that had more respect for its dead and (but don’t say this in public!) for religion.

(Photo: Desecrated Jewish graves in France, 31 Oct 2004/Vincent Kessler)

The full report is only in French and not yet posted on a website. We’ll link to it once it appears.