The View from Number 80

Faith -Based News

A collection of links to news items  reflecting the influence of religion around the globe (Health Warning - reading too many of these can result in severe depression tinged with disgust)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033001776.html

The financial costs of the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church rose dramatically in 2005, even as the number of new allegations fell, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/MNG6OHU6RR1.DTL

More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture, and they were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of protesters who said their event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep rally."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600904.html

THE AIR FORCE got it right when it issued a carefully calibrated set of guidelines on religious expression last August. The proposed new rules protected the ability of service members to practice their religion and emphasized the importance of tolerating and accommodating religious beliefs. Unfortunately, facing a barrage of complaints from evangelical Christian groups and pressure from members of Congress, the Air Force backed down.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600755.html

Nine months after the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, Iranian politics has shifted so sharply to the right that some traditional conservatives are warning of the dangers of radicalism. In remarks that set off a domestic firestorm, a senior cleric close to the new president suggested in January that Iranian voters were largely irrelevant because the government requires only the approval of God.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4847752.stm

A 23-year old man has been charged over a central London protest sparked by the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, said Scotland Yard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4840234.stm

An Iranian director has pulled out of a Danish film festival in protest against the publication in Denmark of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4832702.stm

A Pakistani court has sentenced two men to death for bombing a Shia shrine last year which left 47 people dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4838818.stm

A row over whether Sudan's capital, Khartoum, should be subject to Islamic law has hit relations between former rebels and its partner in government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4838480.stm

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1739830,00.html

But nobody in Whitehall foresaw the backlash that would unfold when hundreds of committed Christians who run bed-and-breakfasts were deprived of their right to ban gays, unmarried couples and people of other faiths from staying under their roof.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032302177.html

In churches, mosques, ashrams, "healing rooms," prayer groups and homes nationwide, millions of Americans offer prayers daily to heal themselves, family, friends, co-workers and even people found through the Internet. Fueled by the upsurge in religious expression in the United States, prayer is the most common complement to mainstream medicine, far outpacing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4838286.stm

Some 300 Muslim scholars have begun meeting in Bahrain to discuss the row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=releases&-lay=web&-format=umnnewsreleases/releasesdetail.html&ID=2816&-Find

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1735879,00.html

Indonesia's burgeoning conservative Islamic movement, which had been on a fairly steep upward trajectory over the last few years, has encountered its first significant roadblock. Causing ructions is not some aspect of theology, but an attempt to enact a wide-ranging anti-pornography bill.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1738403,00.html

Two days of clashes in Mogadishu between an Islamic militia and forces that have challenged clerics' growing power have killed at least 60 people, according to medical workers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032202305.html

Islamic Activism Sweeps Saudi Arabia Cartoons of Muhammad Spur Homemakers, Students, Professionals to Organize

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032201113.html

The case of an Afghan man who could be prosecuted and even put to death for converting to Christianity has unleashed a blizzard of condemnation from the West this week and exposed a conflict in values between Afghanistan, a conservative Muslim country, and the foreign countries that have helped defend and rebuild it in the four years since the fall of the Taliban.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1737214,00.html

Even some Republicans are now horrified by the influence Bush has given to the evangelical right

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5705321,00.html

Suspected Islamic militants opened fire on a car carrying an Islamic cleric near a tribal town in northwestern Pakistan, killing him and abducting his three body guards, an intelligence official said Thursday.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/22/SFSUPES.TMP&nl=top

San Francisco elected officials, who have tangled with the Catholic Church before, issued a blistering statement Tuesday that calls on the Vatican to overturn its edict that children waiting to be adopted should not be placed with gays and lesbians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1736403,00.html

A senior Anglican priest resigned yesterday as editor of a Welsh language church magazine after publishing a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1736346,00.html

Worshippers at a famous shrine in an upmarket shopping district of Bangkok beat a 27-year-old man to death yesterday after he destroyed a statue of a Hindu deity with a hammer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1735524,00.html

Turkmenistan's autocratic leader told his country's youth to read his book three times if they wanted to go to heaven, Turkmen television reported yesterday

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,1735600,00.html

A powerful new militia dubbed "the Pakistani Taliban" has effectively seized control of swaths of the country's northern tribal areas in recent months, triggering alarm in Islamabad and marking a big setback in America's "war on terror".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4827294.stm

The Church in Wales has appealed to 500 subscribers to its magazine to return their copies after it printed a cartoon satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4822750.stm

A family of five has been beheaded in Sonitpur district, north-east India, by a mob who accused them of witchcraft.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1734776,00.html

A man could be sentenced to death after being charged with converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under Afghanistan's shariah laws, a judge said yesterday.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18469873%255E2703,00.html

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shook hands with the fluffy puppet Elmo from Sesame Street at an Islamic school in Jakarta yesterday and later fended off questions about rising anti-US feelings in the world's most populous Muslim nation.  The US will spend $US8million ($11million) over four years to fund an Indonesian version of Sesame Street, complete with puppets wearing Islamic veils - part of Dr Rice's broader message that Western culture can co-exist peacefully with moderate Islam.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/11/BAG10HMGD11.DTL

The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco could be forced to stop its adoption services because of an order from its former archbishop, Cardinal William Levada, who is now the second-in-command at the Vatican. The archdiocese received an e-mail this week from Levada stating, "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1729422,00.html

The possibility that California could choose the first lesbian bishop in the Anglican church has deepened the schism over sex and faith, defying a 2004 moratorium on consecration of gay bishops.

http://maxblumenthal.blogspot.com/2006/03/abramoff-splits-christian-right-he.html

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/33273

Like it or not indeed. Slowly and steadily, it seems, the Bush administration is waging a quiet war on homosexuals abroad in the name of Christianity by pushing so-called "Christian values." None of this will surprise those who follow the Bush administration's stance on anything queer-related. The current administration's role in striking the fear of God in opponents of same-sex marriage around the 2004 election certainly hasn't gone unnoticed by queer rights groups in the United States, and neither has its cozy friendship with evangelical Christians, who often fault homosexuality for contributing to the "moral decline" of the nation.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0309-10.htm

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today blasted the Bush administration for its relentless effort to steer federal funds to religious organizations, charging that the "faith-based" initiative undermines civil rights and civil liberties.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1728983,00.html

As a prominent gay rights campaigner, Niemiec, 25, has long been a target for extremist groups, but since the election of the Law and Justice party last November he has felt a new wave of prejudice coursing through deeply Catholic, conservative Poland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1728714,00.html

The Vatican has disconcerted Italian politicians - and some of the Roman Catholic church's most senior prelates - by endorsing a proposal by radical Muslims for a weekly "Islamic hour" in schools with a strong Muslim presence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030900248.html

President Bush said yesterday that the federal government gave more than $2.1 billion in grants to religious charities last year -- a 7 percent increase from the prior year and proof, he said, that his administration has made it easier for faith-based groups to obtain taxpayer funds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030702065.html

President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security yesterday to create a center for faith-based and community initiatives within 45 days to eliminate regulatory, contracting and programmatic barriers to providing federal funds to religious groups to deliver social services, the White House announced last night

http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/030206ccklrKmovreligionbill.7d361c3f.html

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802221.html

As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5673129,00.html

A woman has accused the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of sexually abusing her more than four decades ago when she was a child.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1726691,00.html