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from FaithWorld:

Faith overtones heard in Occupy protests but many religious leaders wary

(A banner outside St. Paul's Cathedral in London October 31, 2011. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett)

Religions condemn greed. The "Occupy Wall Street" protests around the world condemn greed. So theoretically, religious leaders should find common ground with the rallies denouncing the inequalities of capitalism.

Some activist clergy have turned up at protest camps. Not long after Occupy Wall Street began in New York, some Christians arrived in Zuccotti Park with papier-mache statues of a golden calf, a Biblical symbol of idol worship.

But the hierarchies have kept their distance - or tried to - even though the protests have religious overtones with appeals to equality, charity and justice. When protesters camped at St Paul's Cathedral in London, its Church of England staff found itself torn between God and Mammon.

In the United States, Roman Catholic bishops are meeting this week without economic inequality on their agenda. The Jewish Week newspaper called the Occupy movement a "new third rail for the Jewish mainstream". Some imams have joined the protests to speak about the advantages of Islamic finance, which bans interest and focuses on investing in the real economy. But the movement has not been a central issue for most large Muslim organizations.

The diffuse nature of the protests, which have no central leadership or agreed list of demands, make them a difficult partner for established religion even if they seem to share some basic values.

from FaithWorld:

UK astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees wins 2011 Templeton Prize

((A supernova within the galaxy M100 that may contain the youngest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood, in a composite image released to Reuters November 15, 2010/Chandra X-ray Observatory Center)

British astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees, whose research delves deep into the mysteries of the cosmos, has won the 2011 Templeton Prize for career achievements affirming life's spiritual dimension. The one million sterling ($1.6 million) award, the world's largest to an individual, was announced on Wednesday in London. Rees, master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, is former head of the Royal Society and a life peer.

Announcing the award, the United States-based Templeton Foundation said Rees's insights into the mysteries of the Big Bang and so-called black holes in space have "provoked vital questions that address mankind's deepest hopes and fears... Lord Rees has widened the boundaries of understanding about the physical processes that define the cosmos, including speculations on the concept of 'multiverses' or infinite universes... The 'big questions' Lord Rees raises -- such as 'how large is physical reality?' -- are reshaping the philosophical and theological considerations that strike at the core of life."

Rees, 68, says he has no religious beliefs but was brought up in the Church of England and values its culture and ethics. Theology cannot explain scientific mysteries, he told Reuters, but added: "I'm not allergic to religion or religious believers." Previous winners of the prize, which seeks to promote better understanding between science and religion, include Catholic nun Mother Teresa, U.S. preacher Billy Graham and Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well as many leading scientists.

from FaithWorld:

Feisty debates between Catholics and secularists before pope visit to Britain

If you like debates about religion but were turned off by the uproar in the United States over Koran-burning and the New York Islamic centre, take a look at the rhetorical duelling that's been going on in Britain ahead of Pope Benedict's visit there starting on Thursday. For the past few weeks, the leading lights of secularist and atheist thought have been hammering away at the Catholic Church, playing up its sins like the sexual abuse crisis and arguing that the pope doesn't deserve the honour of a state visit. A quick Google search digs out plenty of them.

On the other side, a group of lay Catholics has formed a speakers' bureau ready to face off with the critics and defend the pope and the Church. They're a kind of rapid reaction force, ready to appear anywhere to refute the secularists and atheists. The result has been a feisty in-your-face exchange providing the pro and contra arguments for many current disputes over the Catholic Church. Some arguments could be criticised as too emotional or even irrational, but boring they're not.

Catholic Voices, the speakers' bureau that's been putting up sparring partners for the Church's critics, must already rank as one of the big innovations of this papal tour.  Popes are no strangers to protests when they visit foreign countries, but the Vatican and the local Church hierarchy usually ignore the critics or give cautious responses. Under Pope Benedict, Vatican public relations has been so badly organised that both he and his aides have often provided even more fuel for criticism. Given the strong and mostly critical interest the media would show in the pope's visit, these speakers - journalists, lawyers, students and a few clergy - decided the Church needed a more professional operation if it was to get its message across.

Catholic Voices coordinator Austen Ivereigh (photo at far right in screengrab from Sky TV debate, click on image for video), a former deputy editor of The Tablet and spokesman for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, gave me his thoughts about the project and how it's been doing:

"We thought that our model of a 'media-friendly, studio-ready, ego-free' speakers would work well for both the Church and the 24-hours news media, but we’ve been amazed at its success. A big part of the success, we think, is that we making ourselves available to talk about absolutely anything –authoritatively, but in straightforward human language. I think the media have been really impressed that 'ordinary' Catholics have been standing up and rebutting these critiques – rather than polemicists or professional talking heads (or indeed bishops). We haven’t replaced those, of course, but have offered another kind of “voice” – deliberately non-expert, but very well briefed – alongside the usual commentators and spokespeople.

"It’s the fruit of six months of intensive briefings on hot topics, and media skills training. It’s been enormously satisfying to see a group of 20-odd 'ordinary' Catholics – not leaders of Church organisations, but people with jobs, generally in their 20s and 30s – appear in studios and carry off an effective 3-minute live broadcast interview. I think we’ve presented a much more 'real' face of the Church than the media are used to.

"The ferocity of the criticism directed at the Pope and the state nature of the visit – a lot of it deeply irrational, and clumsy in its allegations – has kept us in demand; journalists have been looking for responses that are straightforward and human, and which reflect attitudes in the Catholic community."

from FaithWorld:

Expect papal meeting with UK sexual abuse victims — Patten

One regular but regularly unannounced feature of papal trips in recent years has been the private meeting with local Catholics who were sexually abused as youths by priests. Journalists only find out about them after they've taken place. Just such a meeting seems to be on the cards during Pope Benedict's visit to Britain next week, but of course it does not appear in his official schedule. Chris Patten, the prime minister's special representative for the papal visit,  said as much on Monday in an interview with BBC television (quote at the end of the clip):

"On several previous visits, the pope has met victims of abuse. He has never said he was going to meet them before he did and his meetings have always, for very understandable reasons, been private. I would be surprised if in this visit or any future visit he behaved in any different way."

When our London correspondent Avril Ormsby asked about any possible meeting with victims in an interview with him last week, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said: "It will not be announced beforehand, and it will take place in private, if that is going to be the case. But precisely because of those rules, it is not clear."

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from FaithWorld:

Could Irish abortion case lead to a “European Roe v. Wade”?

European Court of Human Rights,30 Jan 2009/Vincent Kessler

Ireland has defended its strict law against abortion at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg in a case that could overturn that ban if the judges agree with three women who said it endangered their health and violated their rights.  The women, two Irish and one Lithuanian living in Ireland, had travelled to Britain to have abortions because traditionally Catholic Ireland allows the procedure only when the mother's life is in danger. Read our full story on Wednesday's hearing here.

The three women, named only as A, B and C, argued they had to terminate their pregnancies due to medical and social problems, and that being forced to travel abroad for abortions meant submitting to inhumane treatment that violated their right to privacy. They also said the law constituted gender-based discrimination.

This has been described as "Europe's Roe v. Wade case" (here and here) because a Court ruling would be an authoritative interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to which 47 European states are parties and with which they must comply.  "Domestic courts have to apply the Convention," the ECHR's FAQ says. "Otherwise, the European Court of Human Rights would find against the State in the event of complaints by individuals about failure to protect their rights."

Pro and anti-abortion posters in Dublin for 2002 referendum, 2 March 2002/Paul McErlane

from FaithWorld:

Bishops see more selfish Europe 20 years after Berlin Wall fell

Europe has become increasingly selfish and materialistic in the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the heads of the Roman Catholic bishops' conferences across Europe said at the end of their three-day annual meeting at the weekend.  "The crisis sweeping Europe today is serious," they said in a statement after the session in Paris. They cited materialism, individualism and relativism as major challenges facing European society.

The bishops' sober assessment contrasted with the upbeat mood that the overwhelming "Yes" vote in Ireland's Lisbon Treaty referendum created.  It must be noted they drew up their statement before they'd heard the news from Dublin on Saturday. And their statement ended with a note of Christian hopefulness. Still, their diagnosis is so fundamental it's hard to imagine they would have changed much in the text.

Here's the way they put it:

"All that has happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been a great stepping stone in the European adventure... (but) twenty years later, we now see that the incredible European project, with a strong ethical basis, has greatly weakened... The hopes placed on building Europe have not so far been fulfilled. Here we take note of the influence of several factors:

• "The development of the European Union has gone hand in hand with a growth in consumption, at least for some people. The mere constant acquisition of goods will never fill people's hearts... The rules of the market and competition will never give birth to the ideal.
• "Present society wishes to give to the individual every possible opportunity to exercise individual choice and to seek personal fulfilment. In doing so it risks simply locking the individual into the defence of self-interest or acquired benefits... A society in which each individual, each group, each nation defends only their own vested interests cannot but be the jungle... We should not be surprised then if mafia and terrorist organizations thrive against this background...
• "A pluralistic society often risks being tempted by relativism, and particularly by ethical relativism. Each person sets their own norms and claims their own rights. Social life can only rest on common rules, on a vision of humanity that does not change according to shifting lobbies or opinion polls...

"The crisis sweeping Europe today is serious. Low birth rates and the future of its demography do not lead to optimism. However, we do not intend to be prophets of doom. Things are not necessarily doomed to get worse! Our faith calls us turn our attention to the European society in which we live, and to gaze on it with hope."

from FaithWorld:

Britain muddles through with assisted suicide guidelines

Pressure is growing in Europe for some form of legalised euthanasia but few governments have gone as far as the Benelux countries in allowing assisted suicide in clearly defined cases. The mix of growing public support for ending lives of the terminally ill or brain dead but continued prohibitions on it in the law has led to some long and hard-fought legal battles in Italy (Eluana Englaro) and in France (Vincent Humbert).

It has also created a legal and ethical twilight zone where for compassionate reasons the law did not really punish the doctors, nurses or relatives who helped someone die. In France, this became clear in a number of court cases where the person accused of assisted suicide were convicted but got only a short suspended sentence. In Britain, a frequently used way to get around the law has been the so-called "suicide tourism" route to the Dignitas suicide group in Zurich.

Pressed by the Law Lords to clarify British policy, the Director of Public Prosecutions in London has issued guidelines indicating when someone who helps another person to commit suicide might face legal action. At first glace, this may seem like a clarification. But it still leaves enough questions out there to leave the issue shrouded in uncertainty. The reception in London has been mixed. Some commentators say this strikes a sensible balance but others think it's not enough and parliament has to debate and legislate on it.

The guidelines are listed below and here is our news report explaining the story.

Do you think governments such as Britain's should take a clear decision to keep the euthanasia ban or scrap it? Or do you think they should leave some leeway, as in the case of these guidelines, to let families make the final decision for relatives who suffer from  terminal illnesses or want to end their lives because of severe and incurable physical disabilities?

Among factors weighing against a prosecution are:

• The victim expressed a clear wish to commit suicide
• The victim asked for assistance in killing themselves
• The victim had a terminal illness or a severe and incurable physical disability; or a severe degenerative physical condition
• Those assisting were wholly motivated by compassion
• The victim was physically unable to undertake the act that constituted assistance
• The act of assistance or influence was judged to be relatively minor

from FaithWorld:

Vatican forgives John Lennon for “more popular than Jesus” quip

When John Lennon said in 1966 that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus," there was a furious reaction in the United States. Dozens of radio stations in the South and Midwest banned Beatles music and some concert venues cancelled scheduled appearances by the band. Their manager Brian Epstein quickly flew to the U.S. to try to quell the storm. Soon afterward, Lennon told a news conference in Chicago that he was sorry for making the comparison, although he added he still thought it was true. The Vatican, as far as I can see from online archives, stayed silent and aloof even thought it could hardly agree with or approve Lennon's message.

When the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano came out with a nostalgic look back at the Beatles on the 40th anniversary of their 1968 White Album on Saturday, it lead off the article with Lennon's famous quote and promptly shrugged it off. "The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up with the legend of Elvis and rock and roll," it wrote. The Beatles' music was creative and original, even more so than their haircuts and clothes, and has stood the test of time, it said. The Italian-language original has now been overtaken on the OR website by the latest edition, but an English translation will certainly pop up somewhere (on Zenit?).

At the risk of possibly over-interpreting an arts page story, I wonder what all this says about the ridiculing of religious leaders. The uproar back in 1966 was mostly from the U.S. "Bible Belt" and the Vatican seems to have been quiet. Would it be the same today? At the Catholic-Muslim Forum in Rome three weeks ago, the two sides agreed in a statement about religious minorities that "their founding figures and symbols they consider sacred should not be subject to any form of mockery or ridicule." Muslim countries, which were not very vocal on the international scene back in the 1960s, are now working hard at the United Nations to push through a global blasphemy law.

What do you think would happen today if a rock band claimed to be more popular than Jesus? Or Mohammad?

from FaithWorld:

Is the BBC “anti-God”? Its D-G thinks it’s the opposite

When he joined the BBC in 1979, its Director General Mark Thompson says, his mother told him: "The BBC is anti-Catholic and anti-God’." Another critic recently accused it of having "a materialist, mechanistic consensus which has rejected God." 

Thompson has just defended the BBC in a speech to Theos, which describes itself as a public theology think tank: "I believe that the BBC has maintained the daily and weekly presence of religion on its services with more consistency and commitment over decades than any other British media organization." You can read the speech here.

Who's right -- Thompson or his mother?

from FaithWorld:

Orthodox Anglicans skate around schism at conference

Religion reporters have been tracking the slow disintegration of the Anglican Communion since 2003 with one word itching away at the tips of their typing fingers -- schism. We don't get to write history with a capital "H" that often and the few times we do can be career high points. So the prospect of covering an event where you can draw parallels to the Great Schism of 1054 (east-west back then, north-south now, etc) is tempting. In the meantime, though, even a hint of a schism is enough to land the term in a story. But it has to have the right packaging -- adjectives such as "potential" or "looming" or something else -- to indicate the big kaboom has not actually happened (or at least not yet). So we can scratch the itch a bit, but not too much.

Covering the current orthodox Anglican conference GAFCON in Jerusalem, the Daily Telegraph has scratched at that itch really hard with a story headlined "Anglican church schism declared over homosexuality." It took a 94-page guidebook for "a pilgrimage to a Global Anglican future" as proof that Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinole and his allies have finally cut their ties to the Anglican Communion. "Hardline church leaders have formally declared the end of the worldwide Anglican communion, saying they could no longer be associated with liberals who tolerate homosexual clergy," it wrote.

Well, up to a point, as our news story reports. The guidebook, entitled "The Way, The Truth and The Life", goes to the rhetorical brink of schism ... and stops. "There is no longer any hope ... for a unified Communion," Akinola writes. "All journeys must end some day." He gives no road map for the future.

Robert Duncan, the Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh, also edged right up to the brink in a speech to GAFCON: "There remains no way to go forward together." But no S-word...

Having followed this drama since gay bishop Gene Robinson's consecration five years ago, I well understand the itch to finally write what seems to be the logical conclusion of this endless muddling through. But maybe a schism is not the conclusion we'll get. Over at The Lead, Jim Naughton, spokesman for the Episcopal diocese of Washington, D.C., had an interesting take on why this goes on and on:

"Whether there will actually be schism is an open question, but at least one factor mitigates against it: as soon as schism is declared, the media will loose interest in the Anglican Churches of Nigeria and Uganda, and their small, but influential group of followers in the United States. (How much had you read about these Churches before the consecration of Gene Robinson?) At that point, these churches will no longer be useful to the donors who have made GAFCON possible, and the money will be reallocated to other fronts in the culture wars. It is in the interest of Akinola, Orombi, Minns, Sugden, etc. to sustain the Communion in a state of near-schism for as long as possible, and then, at some point, find a way short of schism to declare victory."

Did you read much about the Anglican Communion before this dispute over Gene Robinson appeared? If not, do you think it will disappear from the news when and if the issue is ever solved?