A British shaman and self-proclaimed voodoo priest has been jailed for 15 months for using a sacred drink containing a class A drug at a healing ceremony. Peter Aziz, 51, made two brews of Ayahuasca with the leaf of the Chakruna plant – which contains the banned drug N-dimethyltriptamene or DMT – which were used Read more
An inflatable relocatable church. It is the idea of the Catholic parish priest of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk, Father Krzysztof Kowal, who having failed to obtain permits and funding to build a place of worship has availed of this sort of “ploy”. The initiative was proposed to him by a long-time friend in Poland who builds inflatable toys Read more
Is there some natural affinity between Apple (as in endless models of computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad and so on) and the Catholic Church, even the Catholic religion itself? How many Catholics out there have gravitated naturally to Mac rather than some kind of PC? How many Catholic PC users are in favour of ordaining women? Read more
Every Friday night for 23 years, Zeli Rossi has traded his bed in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais for a coffin. Rossi tells the G1 news website that his weekly sleeping habit became public last month when his 14-year-old grandson wrote a story about him for his school’s newspaper. Rossi says he sleeps in Read more
A group of Franciscan monks furious at the theft of valuable bibles from a 15th century Florentine church have taken the unusual step of praying for the thieves to be struck down by diarrhoea. Monks at San Salvatore al Monte – which was a favourite of Michelangelo – were angered when a rare and expensive Read more
Last Friday, a giant 75-foot floating Rosary rose skyward above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Bridge. The Rosary was the craft of 20 imaginative elementary-school-aged girls and their counselors participating in a summer camp at a Chicago Catholic parish. The girls prayed the Rosary in front of a Washington Avenue abortion business. They then carried the Rosary, Read more
Gregory Lowrey, owner of the Happy Valley Tattoo parlor, argued that his business was part of his church, UBU Ministries, which includes tattooing among its religious tenets. On an appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals, Lowrey contended that Jacklyn Johnson, who was an employee of UBU, was sacked for a just cause and that UBU, Read more
Young people who want to participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation at World Youth Day will be able to use upmarket portable confessionals that look like sailing ships sporting the pope’s logo. 200 portable confessional boxes are being erected along the Paseo de Coches in Madrid to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of youth who Read more
A group of atheists claims that its members are experiencing “dyspepsia, symptoms of depression, headaches, anxiety, and mental pain and anguish,” as a “direct and proximate result of the unconstitutional existence of the cross.” which has been chosen as a symbol at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, when Read more
Donald Trautman, the Roman Catholic bishop in Erie, Pa., received a special gift in honor of his 75th birthday: a bobblehead in his likeness. The Erie Times-News reports Trautman was presented with the swaying-headed statue last month at a gathering of priests from the 13-county diocese. Trautman calls the likeness “pretty close.” Have a look