In Japan, a plastic moulding company called Nissei Eco is planning to introduce SoftBank’s Pepper robot as a cheaper substitute for human priests reading sutras at Buddhist funerals. Pepper is the first humanoid robot capable of recognising the principal human emotions and adapting his behaviour to the mood of his interlocutor. Continue reading
In an effort to draw the ‘selfie generation’ to Marian spirituality, the Pauline Fathers of Doylestown, Pennsylvania collected photos from dozens of countries around the world for a mosaic of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Read More
A convicted criminal who was serving out his sentence in a monastery has escaped for the second time and asked to be sent back to prison because life was too tough. Continue reading
Anglicanism has been toppled as the biggest religious denomination among prisoners in England and Wales for the first time. Roman Catholics are the largest group of believers behind bars after years of steady decline in the number of Anglicans, official figures show. There are also only 1,500 fewer Muslim prisoners than Anglicans after their number Read more
Game of Thrones” offers something else, something that caught me — a lifelong reader, student and lover of the Bible — by surprise. Watching “Game of Thrones” has made me a better Bible reader. Not despite the often despicable images — but because of them, says Caryn Rivadeneira Read more
How does a pub make up for mistakenly trying to kick out a group of celebrating seminarians? By naming a beer after them and calling it the “Thirsty Priests.” Tim Lewis is the PR Manager for Brains, the company which owns the City Arms Pub in Cardiff, Wales. He said that re-naming one of the Read more
Fr Harrison Ayre is a priest in the diocese of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. On his Twitter account he describes himself as “Priest for the theologian. canucks fan. vintage jazz enthusiast. beer snob. reader of books. He is pretty impressed with his godson’s two-year-old liturgical knowledge. Have a look and see why
Seven seminarians walk into a bar to celebrate after an ordination. Naturally they are dressed in their clerical shirts etc. The bartender says “Sorry gents, we don’t do fancy dress or stag dos”. Aghast, the seminarians thought this must surely be a joke, but in fact he was serious. “But we are real” they say, Read more
On August 22 AD, St Columba was on the banks of the river Ness. He came across a group of heathenish Picts who were busy burying a friend who had been attacked by an enormous “water beast” while swimming in the river. Continue reading . (you need to scroll down for the story)
When psychologist William Richards looks at religion, he sees mystical experiences everywhere. The same sort of experiences, he reasons, that come from mind-altering drugs. That’s why he’s giving magic mushrooms to religious leaders, for a research project based at Johns Hopkins University and New York University. Continue reading