The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes near the Sea of Galilee was set alight on June 18 and anti-Christian graffiti was daubed on its walls.

A crowd-funding campaign by a group of Orthodox rabbis and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein raised NZ$20,000 - as at July 27 - for repairs to the church.

"Condemnation is not enough; after a while it loses its credibility," said Elijah Interfaith Institute Director Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein, who is spearheading the effort.

"When Jews reach into their pockets to support a cause, one knows they are serious," he said in a Times of Israel report.

The project received the endorsement of 17 leading Orthodox rabbis.

"The church is visited daily by 5000 people, making this act of vandalism the most visible to date in a series of attacks on religious sites of other religions," a statement from the group said.

"The accompanying graffiti appealed to texts from the Jewish prayer book, making it an attack on explicitly religious grounds."

Last week, Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's defence minister, ordered the detention without trial of Mordechai Meyer, 18, for extremist activities believed to include starting the fire at the Galilee church.

He was one of three extremists detained after Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was prompted to launch an unprecedented offensive against "Jewish terrorism".

This followed an arson attack by suspected hardline settlers in the West Bank village of Duma last Friday that killed a one-year-old Palestinian toddler and gravely injured his parents and brother.

Meanwhile, Catholic Church leaders in Israel filed a complaint for incitement with the police against the leader of the far-right group Lehava, Benzi Gopstein, after it was reported that he called for churches in Israel to be torched.

Sources

• Times of Israel
• The Telegraph
• Haaretz
• Image: Times of Israel

The Telegraph reported Archbishop Justin Welby saying faith leaders seemed desperate to hide behind "bland" and "anaemic" statements about what they have in common.

This is instead of facing up to the "profound differences" between them, the archbishop told the annual dinner of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in London.

He warned that the pretence that mainstream religions agree on everything is simply "dishonest".

It risks leaving them impotent to halt the spread of extremism.

The audience included hundreds of Jewish community leaders as well as Muslims, Christians and representatives of other faiths.

Archbishop Welby said religious leaders must work together to provide an "alternative vision" to combat the influence of extremists.

"If we don't do that we leave all the good arguments in the hands of the radicals and that is the great challenge I face, and I believe we all face," he said.

"If we're going to do that we have to come together and we have to have the difficult conversations in safe spaces and that's a very, very difficult thing up do."

He added: "We need to move beyond inter-religious interaction in which we the usual suspects issue bland statements of anaemic intent with which you could paper the walls of Lambeth Palace - and much good would it do you - all desperate to agree with one another so that the very worst outcome could possibly be that we end up acknowledging our differences."

"That is not enough in the face of the dangers we face at this time."

The archbishop said it "is disingenuous and ultimately dishonest because alongside all that we hold in common and all that we share there are profound differences between what we believe and the outworking of our faith".

"True friendships and relationships can withstand honesty about differences in values, opinions and religious understandings and a common commitment to mutual flourishing in diversity," he said.

Source

• The Telegraph
• Image: The Guardian

The bishops do not consider the language used by the group in its communications, and actions the group has taken, to be consistent with the way in which a Catholic group should operate.

Canon Law provides for bishops to grant permission for the use of the name Catholic and the ability to remove it. The bishops have sent a letter to all Members of Parliament informing them that they do not have permission to use the word Catholic in their name and to cease using it. The bishops also assured Members that they do not condone the way in which the group operates, and that they do not consider it to be a Catholic group.

Catholic Action sent communications to MPs and media throughout their campaign against the Marriage Definition Bill. Their submission was rejected on the grounds that it was offensive. This means it was not considered or even seen by the committee, and will never be released publicly by Parliament.

Catholic action has previously protested against "blasphemous" art at Te Papa, ripped down church billboards depicting the Virgin Mary taking a pregnancy test, called for Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn to be sacked by the Pope if he did not to recant his qualified support for contraception, and called New Zealand's Catholic bishops "gutless".

• Faith Central
• The Northern Advocate
• DunedinSchool
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: MP.Natlib.govt.nz

The controversy was a blow to the predominantly Muslim country's reputation for combining free speech and democracy with a mostly moderate brand of the faith.

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Source

• AsiaNews.it
• Image: Weasel Zippers