The country’s ultra-orthodox power brokers are losing influence as more moderate forces push back. On Saturday, only days after the collapse of government coalition talks, tens of thousands of ordinary citizens boarded buses for what will go down in Israeli history as the first freedom rides. For generations, public transport …
West Virginia’s new bishop Tuesday called for his predecessor, Michael Bransfield, to pay $792,000, apologize to victims and to the diocese, and lose his place in the diocese’s cemetery as part of a restitution package for alleged financial and sexual misconduct that some church experts say is a first for …
Thousands of Buddhists from all over the world made a pilgrimage this fall to a monastery high in India’s Himalayas. Orange-robed monks with shaved heads huddled cross-legged on the floor, as Tibetan opera singers in multicolored gowns teetered under the weight of giant silver headdresses. They carried fruit baskets as …
Researchers mapped shifts in social structures over time, and the influence of the Catholic Church, on the West’s steady abandonment of incest. Nov. 8 (UPI) — When researchers set out to understand how many Western societies came to value individualism, they decided to look at historical shifts in a society’s broader …
Invoking God, patriotism and family values, the Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon is creating a backlash against the “Communizing” government of President Moon Jae-in. SEOUL, South Korea — Supporters credit him with “Moses’ leadership and Solomon’s wisdom.” Detractors invoke labels like “narcissistic demagogue” and “fake prophet.” Whatever else the Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon …
All year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made news for efforts that critics worry are crossing church-state separation lines. In July, he launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, created by religious conservatives who have bemoaned growing LGBTQ equality. Then in October, a private Pompeo speech, “Being a Christian Leader,” was advertised across …
Priceless volume that survived centuries after exile of its persecuted owners finally returns to Galicia On a summer’s day in 1476 a scribe called Moses Ibn Zabarah put the finishing touches to an enormous and magnificently illustrated Hebrew Bible commissioned by the son of a wealthy Jewish family from Galicia, …
BRUNEI is a politically stable country whose extensive oil and gas resources make it one of the richest countries in the world. Oil wealth arguably allows the state to control the population through financial incentives such as no income tax and subsidised petrol. But this wealth is now coming under …
It has always struck me as strange that a narrative about genocide — Noah and the ark — should be employed as a children’s story. As the other boys and girls in Sunday school focused on the cuteness of the rescued animals, I remember thinking about the mass of humanity …
William P. Barr just gave the worst speech by an Attorney General of the United States in modern history. Speaking at the University of Notre Dame last Friday, Barr took “religious liberty” as his subject, and he portrayed his fellow-believers as a beleaguered and oppressed minority. He was addressing, he said, “the …
Mini-golf, helter-skelters and film-showings help historic places of worship to balance the books From certain spots in the north of England, you can half-close your eyes and imagine yourself in a medieval theocracy, where pilgrimage routes, mighty monasteries and the tombs of saints define the landscape. One such place is Durham, …
LAKE TOBA, Indonesia — The ground still occasionally trembles here, a reminder of the active volcano below that last erupted 75,000 years ago and blasted a crater out of the earth the size of Los Angeles. The violent explosion, which triggered a global volcanic winter, formed a natural wonder — …
