November 2009 Archives

When religions loose sight of their higher calling, and hardened divisions make of believers and religious bodies causes of social disorder and conflict, sometimes people in the political sphere prove themselves to be more visionary and high-minded

Ahmed Fadaam and Aamer Madhani ("USA Today," November 23, 2009)

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has an unusual proposal to mend some of Iraq's sectarian wounds: He offers mixed couples a $2,000 "gift" if they get married.

Before the U.S. invasion, intermarriage between Shiites and Sunnis was fairly common. As sectarian fighting ripped apart the country, intermarriage became a rarity.

Now that the security situation is relatively calm, the Iraqi government wants to nudge couples of mixed sects to get hitched, hoping that will repair the relationship between Iraq's majority Shiite and minority Sunni populations.

"After 2006, we found that mixed marriages had stopped," said Raad Majeed Mohammed, an aide to al-Hashemi, a Sunni and one of Iraq's two vice presidents. "The idea behind this project is that promoting love and socializing between Iraq's people is good for the country."

About a dozen mixed couples will take part in a mass wedding Friday and will receive their $2,000 gifts, Mohammed said. An additional 375 same-sect couples will join the celebration, but they'll receive $750, Mohammed said. The government wants to help those cash-strapped couples in getting their start, he said.

Mohammed said the mass wedding celebration will include a banquet and music. The government is paying for gowns for the brides and suits for the grooms, as well as for hotel rooms for the couples to spend their first night together as husband and wife.

She said she is hopeful that Iraq's worst days are in the past, so she and al-Rubaiee can raise a family without concern about their different sects and possible violence.

"Mohammed is a good man," al-Samaraee said. "We read the same Quran, worship the same God and have faith in the same prophet. God willing, there will be no more division."



Even so, some of the couples who signed up for the cash reward say their plans to marry across sectarian lines draw mixed feelings from loved ones.

"I even noticed some hesitation from my own family," said Aws Saad Abdul Jabbar, 23, a Sunni marrying a Shiite woman this week. "I told them I like the girl, and being from another sect is not a factor. Her way of thinking and morals are more important than sect."

Read the whole of this lovely article here

Religion and religious believers always should function with a higher devotion to peace than those trapped in the random vicissitudes that impact political rivalry

Kwang-Tae Kim (AP, November 21, 2009)

Seoul, South Korea - Buddhist monks from South and North Korea held a joint ceremony at a temple in the communist country Saturday in a continuation of civic exchanges between the nations despite a bloody naval skirmish earlier this month.

Eight South Korean monks from the Cheontae Order and four North Korean monks -- all clad in gray or dark blue Buddhist robes -- marked the 908th anniversary of the death of the order's founder, a monk named Jawoon said after returning home from the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

The two countries are trying to minimize political damage from the naval clash off their disputed western sea border on Nov. 10, which killed one North Korean sailor and wounded three others, according to South Korea.

"This shows that inter-Korean exchange and cooperation proceeds in a normal manner," South Korean Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said of Saturday's ceremony.

Kaesong is also the site of a joint North and South Korean industrial complex and was one of two scenic areas that South Korean tourists had been able to visit, along with the Diamond Mountain resort on North Korea's east coast.

The Cheontae Order, South Korea's second-largest Buddhist sect, helped North Korea restore a temple in Kaesong in 2005. Since then, monks from the two Koreas have held annual ceremonies there, except last year when ties soured.

The tours -- a key symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation -- were halted last year amid heightened tensions. North Korea said in August it would restart them, but a date has yet to be worked out.

Buddhism is the oldest major religion in both Koreas, and is followed by about 22.8 percent of South Korea's population.

North Korea claims to guarantee freedom of religion, but severely restricts its observance and allows only state-approved religious groups. It has about 10,000 Buddhists, according to the Korea Institute for National Unification, a Seoul-based government think tank.

Read the entire article here

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful."

Source: http://fwd4.me/5MJ
By Daniel Flynn

We humans are both physical and spiritual.  Ideally these should function happily in harmony.  Often they don't.  This war waged within is eloquently described by many religious greats through the ages, the apostle Paul in Romans 7:23 ("another law at work in my members ... making me a prisoner"), the Sakyamuni in verse 1 of The Dhammapada ("the wheel of the wagon follows the hoof") and others.

Some of us do "not too bad," hitting an OK balance with the two sides of life, but beyond the occasional "pretty good" individual, the spiritual and secular stay at pretty stark odds.   Once we get past the single self, the larger social units pretty much spin out of control.  It's very hard to get even a single whole family in order, and with each broader unit the problem exacerbates.  But the time we get out to big groupings, like cities and states for example the likelihood of balance between the material and the spiritual is slim.  For this reason, "church - state" relations always remain in a tumult.  They constantly swing this way and that.

These days a fascinating and important series of issues have arisen in this relationship.  The church and not-the-church have gotten themselves tangled up in the world of help.  Caring for the poor, the needy, the downtrodden, the disaster stricken is a responsibility both for the state, and for the person of faith.  But these often struggle in nature and motivation.  One issue I've already treated in these pages is the problems created in the world of global disaster relief by aid organizations comprised of proselytizing believers.

Here's another one that looks very difficult.  The Catholic church, and the city of Washington DC are facing what looks like a possible impasse. Tim Craig, Michelle Boorstein, and later Carol Morello did a fine job last Thursday and Friday making the issues clear, and as importantly capturing the heat, the tone, the ignorances and arrogances that are coming to participate in this thorny issue:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law.

 D.C. Council members are hardening their opposition to the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington's efforts to change a proposed same-sex marriage law, setting up a political showdown between the city and one of its largest social service providers.

Progress is being made in planned legislation designed to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. "Under the bill, headed for a council vote next month, religious organizations ... would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians."  But this puts the Catholic Church in a quandary, "Church officials say Catholic Charities would have to suspend its social services work for the city, rather than provide employee benefits to same-sex married couples or allow them to adopt."

Catholic Charities, serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church.

At issue is $18 million to $20 million in city funds for 20 to 25 programs run by Catholic Charities, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.

So, as we can see, these bodies (the city and the church) are very tightly wed.  They have combined intimately to do much good, lots of lives and great work is at stake, lots of money is all tangled up together, but when something unanticipated like this happens remarkably complex issues arise.

Elected officials insulting believers is not a healthy approach to addressing a complicated matter with much at stake, but sadly bluster is all too often the coin of the political realm.  Far better would be quiet discreet, reflective and respectful conversation from sincere adherents on both sides of the opinion.

Any sincere Catholic can only be happy for advances that erode bigotry and persecution.  Conversely one cannot expect the Church to conform to obligations contrary to its sacred traditions.

I for one hope that a creative solution can be found that allows the pleasant marriage between city and church, that helps so many in need to persist.  I think it can be done.  Some fiddling about with nuances, structures, divisions on paper, and solution driven thinking can open the way for all sides to remain in the help game in good conscience.  The good work and the collaboration should continue. We should not let the careless and the loud make things harden up.  There is no creativity for the sake of good when the mind is rigid, and the heart is prideful.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, while speaking recently to a conference on development addressed the complicated issues related to the relationship between proselytizing religious groups and emergency relief agencies. 

He was speaking at a seminar on faith and development, organised by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in association with the Royal Society of Arts. It was chaired by Rabbi David Rosen.

Williams said the fact these risks were "sometimes exaggerated" and were used as grounds for rejecting the whole idea of partnership with religious bodies "should not blind us to the fact that the dangers are perfectly real".

The entire UK Guardian Article   captures the subtleties and issues well.

We have here a remarkably convoluted set of issues pertaining to freedom of religion.

A proposal at the United Nations to protect the rights of believers has attracted substantial and virulent opposition from groups concerned to protect human rights.



It is a very difficult exchange to follow and make sense of, but IRFWP readers can make the effort by clicking to the full article posted here.

We have here a remarkably convoluted set of issues pertaining to freedom of religion.

A proposal at the United Nations to protect the rights of believers has attracted substantial and virulent opposition from groups concerned to protect human rights.



It is a very difficult exchange to follow and make sense of, but IRFWP readers can make the effort by clicking to the full article posted here.

VATICAN CITY -- E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology -- the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.

Read the entire article here