Older IRENICA (Archived)

Zenit, Jun.23, http://www.zenit.org/article-29688?l=english The decision of the European Court of Human Rights to ban the crucifix from Italian classrooms is a result of the encroachment of “secularist fundamentalism” and “Christianophobia,” says the former president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. In November, the human rights court ruled in favour of an Italian citizen of Finnish...
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Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph, Jun.23, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7847571/Is-a-religious-bus-ban-on-my-dog-right.html On two occasions last week my dog was barred from London buses, not because she’s particularly fierce or big, but on religious grounds. A friend and I had taken her to the park, and as I went across to the grocer, my friend took Daisy, a Manchester...
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Christine Lavelle in Deadline Press and Picture Agency, Jun.16, deadlinescotland.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/16145-3064/ Scotland’s Catholic leader rolled up his sleeves and donned a tabard today as he helped out in a Sikh cafe kitchen today. Cardinal Keith O’Brien stopped in at Edinburgh’s Punjab’n Raosi Café – which translates as the Punjabi Women’s Kitchen – in a bid to...
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Alex Kennedy in The Associated Press, Jun.16, www.cjad.com/news/56/1154374 New Creation Church, which says it has a congregation of 20,000 worshippers, said it apologized for a sermon by Mark Ng in 2008 that was posted last week on YouTube and subsequently picked up by local media websites. In the audio clip, Ng, who heads the church’s Mandarin...
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Ciaran Giles in The Associated Press, Jun.14, www.thestar.com/news/world/article/823236–barcelona-to-ban-use-of-niqab-in-city-buildings Barcelona said on Monday it will ban face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings, the latest Spanish city hall to crack down on the use of such garments in public, as much of Europe considers following suit. City Mayor Jordi Hereu insisted the measure was not specifically anti-religious, saying...
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Mitchell Landsberg in the Los Angeles Times, June 9, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-claremont-20100609,0,4360922.story Calling multi-faith expansion the next step, the Theology School will offer training for Muslims and Jews in a program that strains its historic ties to the Methodist Church. In a bow to the growing diversity of America’s religious landscape, the Claremont School of...
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On Wednesday 26th May, 2010 the General Assembly invited Professor Mona Siddiqui to address them. Professor Siddiqui is a professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Glasgow University. A video-clip of her address can be seen by following this link: stream1.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/archive/2010/special_guest.php
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H.H. The Dalai Lama writing in The New York Times, May 24, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html . WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can...
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Eboo Patel writing in The Washington Post, May 26, newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2010/05/the_dalai_lama_on_interfaith_c.html . The Dalai Lama on interfaith cooperation On Sunday, I was privileged to share the stage with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City for a conversation on interfaith cooperation. It was the end of a long tour of...
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Martin Whittingham and Jenny Taylor writing in The Guardian: comment is free, May 28, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/may/28/rethinking-islamic-reform-ramadan-yusuf . Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan’s presence promised much, but these scholars never got down to the nitty-gritty. Can Islam be reformed? What role, if any, should government play in bringing about reform? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, a charismatic white California-based American...
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