Austrian cardinal lays down the law to rebel Catholic priests
Austria’s Roman Catholic Church has laid down the law to its rebel priests by telling them they could not support a reform manifesto criticized by Pope Benedict and stay in an administrative post.
One priest told Reuters he had already stepped down from the post of deacon rather than renounce the “Call to Disobedience” manifesto that challenges Church teaching on taboo topics such as women’s ordination and offering communion to non-Catholics.
Another priest had withdrawn his support for the reform campaign and kept his job, a Church spokesman said on Wednesday.
He added that two or three more have yet to decide whether to withdraw their support from the manifesto from a reform group called “Priests’ Initiative” whose demands have been echoed by some Catholic groups and clerics in Germany, Ireland, Belgium and the United States.
“You can easily remain a member of the Priests’ Initiative. You must only distance yourself from the ‘Call to Disobedience’ in an appropriate way,” Church spokesman Nikolaus Haselsteiner said.
“In an average company, a department head can’t say he doesn’t care what the CEO says,” he added.
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U.S. Supreme Court clears way for California to remove large cross
The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling that a large Christian cross as part of a war memorial in California violated the constitutional ban on government endorsement of religion.
The justices rejected an appeal on Monday by the Obama administration and by an association that erected the cross arguing the government should not be forced to take down the memorial cross that stood atop Mount Soledad in San Diego since 1954 to honor veterans.
The case involved whether a religious symbol can be prominently displayed on public land and whether the cross violated the U.S. Constitution’s requirement on church-state separation.
The Supreme Court has been closely divided and has struggled for years to come up with clear rules on what religious displays, ranging from crosses to the Ten Commandments, can be put on public property, along with secular items.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that a federal judge erred by ordering the removal of a large Christian cross as part of a war memorial in a remote part of the California desert. But that ruling did not decide the constitutionality of the cross.
The 43-foot high San Diego cross is surrounded by walls displaying granite plaques that commemorate veterans or veterans groups. Located between the Pacific Ocean and an interstate highway, it can be seen for miles.
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Salafis’ art show riot reflects religious divide in the new Tunisia
The artist agreed to be interviewed but asked not to be named. Picking up a piece of work vandalised by Islamist zealots at a recent arts fair in a suburb of Tunis, she said: “Don’t describe it or people will know who I am.”
Tunisian artists have gone to ground since Salafi Islamists broke into Abdeliya Palace on June 10 and destroyed a handful of works at the Printemps des Arts fair to protest against art they deemed insulting to Islam, then ran riot for days.
One of the most controversial works on display was an installation depicting veiled women as punching bags. Another showed veiled women in a pile of stones, a comment on the stoning of adulteresses in Islam. The work that caused most anger spelt the words “Sobhan Allah” or “Glory to God” in ants.
While condemning the violence, which killed one person, the culture and religious affairs ministers also criticised the artists for crossing the shifting limits of free expression.
Tempers have since calmed. But the incidents were the latest to raise fears among secular intellectuals that the freedoms won when last year’s revolt ousted secular dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali are slowly being circumscribed by religious mores imposed by zealots, not the once-feared police.
Read the full story by Lin Noueihed here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Tunisian loses jail appeal over Facebook cartoons of Prophet Mohammad
A Tunisian court has upheld a seven year sentence against a young Tunisian who posted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Facebook, in a case that has fuelled allegations that the country’s new Islamist leaders are gagging free speech.
Jabeur Mejri was convicted on Monday of upsetting public order and morals in a country where Muslim values have taken on a greater significance since a revolt last year ousted secular strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, ushering the Islamist Ennahda party into power.
The initial sentence was handed down on March 28 against Mejri, who is in jail, and against Ghazi Beji, who was sentenced in absentia. Mejri was able to appeal, but Beji remains on the run.
Mejri’s lawyer criticised the ruling which she said proved Tunisia’s judiciary was still subject to political interference some 18 months after the revolution.
“This is a very severe sentence and suggests that the Tunisian judiciary has not yet rid itself of political interference,” Bochra Belhaj Hmida told Reuters.
“We should at least seek to rule justly. This is unjust and has ruined the life of a young unemployed man. The judge showed no mercy and no consideration for this youth’s circumstances.”
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It’s cool… Islam is a religion of peace and now a great force of democracy in the world. It’s cool
Ultra-Orthodox Jews arrested in Israeli Holocaust memorial vandalism
Israeli police said on Tuesday they had arrested three ultra-Orthodox Jews on suspicion of having spray-painted anti-Zionist slogans at the national Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial two weeks ago.
The men, aged 18, 26 and 27, belong to an ultra-Orthodox group opposed to Israel’s existence and admitted to the vandalism, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. They were due to be arraigned in court later in the day.
Some of the graffiti, all written in Hebrew, accused Israel’s founders of secretly encouraging the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War Two to hasten the creation, in 1948, of the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the slogans outrageous and said after the incident it was hard to believe “a human being could be capable of writing such things”.
Some ultra-Orthodox Jews regard modern-day Israel as an abomination, believing the establishment of a Jewish state must await the coming of the Messiah.
Yad Vashem, a museum and memorial, was established on a Jerusalem hilltop in 1953 and is often visited by foreign leaders who lay wreaths in its stark Hall of Remembrance.
via Arrests made in Israeli Holocaust memorial vandalism | Reuters.
Egypt election result stirs joy among Islamists, doubts in the Gulf and Israel
Egypt’s new president may lack real foreign policy clout for now, but the mere fact that a Muslim Brotherhood man is at the helm of the biggest Arab nation will embolden fellow Islamists seeking revolutionary change around the Middle East.
Mohamed Mursi’s tenure as head of state is likely to unsettle Israel, please the Jewish state’s arch-foe Iran, and dismay secularist critics of the Brotherhood at home and abroad who argue that political Islam is no antidote to unemployment, a flatlining economy and social misery, analysts say.
It will also stir misgivings among some Gulf Arab states still struggling to respond effectively to the ousting of their long-term ally, deposed president Hosni Mubarak.
Analysts say any variations in aid flows from the Gulf may be an indicator of the health of their relationship with Cairo.
“Mursi’s victory will not benefit us directly. But it is a symbol of a victorious revolution,” Abu Yazen, an activist from the Syrian city of Hama, the repeated scene of bloodshed during Syria’s 15-month-old uprising, told Reuters.
“Mursi and his victory illustrates that revolutionaries will not rest until they reap the rewards of their work,” he added.
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Blaze at revered Sufi shrine triggers violence in Indian Kashmir
Fire gutted one of the most revered Sufi Muslim shrines in the Indian part of the divided Kashmir region on Monday sparking clashes between police and angry Muslim protesters, witnesses said. Indian Kashmir has long been plagued by violence over a campaign by some of its mostly Muslim residents, helped by supporters in neighbouring Pakistan, to break away from India.
Indian authorities say rebel violence has recently fallen to its lowest level since the anti-India revolt broke out in 1989, but Monday’s clashes will be a reminder of how volatile the region can be.
At least six people were hurt in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar when police fired teargas at stone-throwing protesters enraged over the destruction of the 350-year-old wooden shrine which housed a relic of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, an 11th century Sufi saint, police said. Rioters torched a fire engine and threw stones at firefighters and some members of the media.
“After morning prayers, fire started from the roof top of the shrine. We’re still trying to determine the cause,” said Farooq Ahmad, a police official at the scene. “The holy relic of the Sufi saint is safe and has been retrieved.”
Police sealed off roads leading to the shrine where hundreds of men and women had gathered, many of them wailing and crying. “I feel like I’ve lost everything,” cried a 45-year-old woman, Shameema Akhtar, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Muslim militants spearheading the anti-India campaign in Kashmir have in the past tried to enforce a radical form of Islam, banning beauty parlours, cinemas and liquor shops, as well as asking women to wear the veil. But they have had little success in a region where people mostly follow Sufiism, a gentle, mystic tradition of Islam.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the years of strife in the region that both of the nuclear-armed rivals, India and Pakistan, claim. Pakistan controls part of Kashmir in the west.
Nepalis worship with fervour as ancient rain god festival adapts to the times
Thousands of Nepalis threw coins and marigolds at a giant chariot over the weekend in a centuries-old ritual to appease the rain god and assure a good harvest, as well as guaranteeing good omens for the country’s rulers.
The annual two-month chariot festival for Rato Machhindranath, revered as the god of rain, has for countless generations been presided over by Nepal’s kings.
The monarchy was abolished in the Himalayan country in 2008 but that hasn’t stopped the festival. These days, the president stands in.
The centrepiece of the ritual in the old town of Pathan, 10 km (6 miles) south of the capital of Kathmandu, came with the display of a jewelled vest said to have been given to a farmer by a serpent king more than 1,000 years ago.
Lost by the farmer and claimed by a demon, legend has it that the vest has since been held by Rato Machhindranath for its rightful owner to claim in the presence of the king, or president.
“Whoever watches the displaying of the vest becomes free from troubles, disease and hunger,” said 49-year-old Hindu priest Kamal Raj Bajracharya.
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Analysis: Egypt Islamists face new compromises with the military
Mohamed Mursi’s victory in Egypt’s presidential election takes the Muslim Brotherhood’s long power struggle with the military into a new round that will be fought inside the institutions of state themselves and may force new compromises on the Islamists.
Stripped of many of its powers in the past week by the generals, the presidency Mursi is set to assume bears little resemblance to the one that Hosni Mubarak was forced to give up 16 months ago after three decades in charge. That, together with a host of other factors, will put a break on how much Mursi, 60, will be able do in office.
Despite the historic magnitude of his victory – Mursi is Egypt’s first freely elected leader and comes from a group outlawed for most of its 84-year existence – the chances of rapid changes in domestic or foreign policies appear faint.
Some of Mursi’s more ambitious campaign pledges – his promise to implement Islamic sharia, for example – could well be shelved as the realities of office bite in a country that is deeply divided by the idea of Brotherhood rule.
As things stand now, Mursi does not even have a parliament to pass such legislation, even if he wanted to, although he will form both a presidential administration and appoint a prime minister and government. But the Brotherhood-led legislature, elected in January, was dissolved by the generals who have given themselves the power over legislation in its absence.
A constant theme of Egyptian history since army officers overthrew the king in 1952, the old rivalry between the Islamists and the military looks set to continue.
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Iraqi military beard ban stirs religion debate
An Iraqi government decree banning soldiers and police from wearing beards on duty has revived a debate over religious practices in a country where sectarian divisions between Shi’ite and Sunni still fester close to the surface.
Iraq has long allowed police and soldiers to wear beards to a certain length, but in April the interior ministry began ordering that they must be clean-shaven in the name of the “public interest”.
Wearing a beard is seen in many parts of the Muslim world as a sign of piety or a symbol of radical Islamism, depending on its style. In Iraq, beards are sometimes associated with militias from both the Sunni and Shi’ite communities, which fought against each other, the security forces and foreign troops after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
For police mechanic Abu Haider, the ban quashed his hopes for greater religious freedom after Saddam Hussein was deposed.
“When I saw the letter saying the ministry won’t allow us to wear beards, I was resentful,” he said in Basra, a Shi’ite stronghold. Read the full story by Raheem Salman here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
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