The top US cardinal (pictured) says meaningful dialogue is stifled because so many people enter conversations with their minds already made up.

"One of the things that would foster better listening skills among young people - among all of us - is don't enter a conversation with a conclusion" he says.

He passed on that sentiment to those at his Arlington, Virginia presentation "A Listening Church in a Divided Nation".

"If you come with a conclusion, you're not going to be open to what people have to say" Gregory told his audience. "Before I condemn you, let me try to understand you."

Personal attacks

Conversation often morphed into what Gregory describes as "personal attacks".

"We have to learn how to focus on the issue and not the person. It seems to me that one of the reasons that we're in such a divisive stance is that we've shifted our focus in many cases from questions of opinion etc. etc. to personal attack."

He calls his own Archdiocese of Washington "the epicentre of division".

"Now, with social media, whatever was suggested Monday morning at ten o'clock is broadcast everyplace including insulting things about families or their lives" he told his audience.

"It's infected our Church."

Synod on Synodality different

Gregory says there was no such level of attack last year at the Synod on Synodality assembly in Rome.

"We sat at those tables and we got to know each other and speak to each other and talk about the issues that were important to us as Catholics" Gregory says.

Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington is the first African American cardinal in the United States.

• La Croix

Examples of anti-Catholicism in the United States are surprisingly easy to find.

Moreover, Catholics themselves seem to be increasingly aware of the spectre of anti-Catholic bias.

In the past, a largely immigrant church would have quietly borne the sting of prejudice, but today American Catholics seem less willing to tolerate slander and malicious behaviour.

In addition, the question of anti-Catholic bias has recently been brought to the fore by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Emboldened by its public-relations successes, with attacks on television shows like "Nothing Sacred," Broadway offerings like "Corpus Christi" and last year's exhibit "Sensation" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, this organization has made anti-Catholicism a hot political issue.

But this raises a critical question: How prevalent is anti-Catholicism in American culture? Is it, as some have termed it, "the last acceptable prejudice?"

Is it as serious an issue as racism or anti-Semitism or homophobia?

Or are rising complaints about anti-Catholic bias simply an unfortunate overstatement, another manifestation of the current "victim culture," in which every interest group is quick to claim victimhood?

In short, is anti-Catholicism a real problem in the United States?

Historical Roots

It is, of course, impossible to summarize 400 years of history in a few paragraphs. But even a brief overview serves to expose the thread of anti-Catholic bias that runs through American history and to explain why the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. called anti-Catholicism "the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people."

The eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. called anti-Catholicism "the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people."

To understand the roots of American anti-Catholicism one needs to go back to the Reformation, whose ideas about Rome and the papacy travelled to the New World with the earliest settlers.

These settlers were, of course, predominantly Protestant.

For better or worse, a large part of American culture is a legacy of Great Britain, and an enormous part of its religious culture a legacy of the English Reformation.

Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, in his landmark book American Catholicism, first published in 1956, wrote bluntly that a "universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia."

Proscriptions against Catholics were included in colonial charters and laws, and, as Monsignor Ellis noted wryly, nothing could bring together warring Anglican ministers and Puritan divines faster than their common hatred of the church of Rome.

Such antipathy continued throughout the 18th century. Indeed, the virtual penal status of the Catholics in the colonies made even the appointment of bishops unthinkable in the early years of the Republic.

In 1834, lurid tales of sexual slavery and infanticide in convents prompted the burning of an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Mass., setting off nearly two decades of violence against Catholics. The resulting anti-Catholic riots (which included the burning of churches), were largely centred in the major urban centres of the country and led to the creation of the nativist Know-Nothing Party in 1854, whose platform included a straightforward condemnation of the Catholic Church.

By 1850 Catholics had become the country's largest single religious denomination. And between 1860 and 1890 the population of Catholics in the United States tripled through immigration; by the end of the decade, it would reach seven million.

This influx, largely Irish, which would eventually bring increased political power for the Catholic Church and a greater cultural presence, led at the same time to a growing fear of the Catholic "menace."

The American Protective Association, for example, formed in Iowa in 1887, sponsored popular countrywide tours of supposed ex-priests and "escaped" nuns, who concocted horrific tales of mistreatment and abuse.

By the beginning of the 20th century, fully one-sixth of the population of the United States was Catholic.

Nevertheless, the powerful influence of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other nativist organizations were typical of still-potent anti-Catholic sentiments.

In 1928 the presidential candidacy of Al Smith was greeted with a fresh wave of anti-Catholic hysteria that contributed to his defeat. (It was widely rumoured at the time that with the election of Mr Smith the pope would take up residence in the White House and Protestants would find themselves stripped of their citizenship.)

As Charles R. Morris noted in his recent book American Catholic, the real mainstreaming of the church did not occur until the 1950's and 1960's, when educated Catholicssons and daughters of immigrants were finally assimilated into the larger culture.

Still, John F. Kennedy, in his 1960 presidential run, was confronted with old anti-Catholic biases and was eventually compelled to address explicitly concerns of his supposed "allegiance" to the pope. (Many Protestant leaders, such as Norman Vincent Peale, publicly opposed the candidacy because of Kennedy's religion.)

And after the election, survey research by political scientists found that Kennedy had indeed lost votes because of his religion.

The old prejudices had lessened but not disappeared.

Contemporary Prejudices

But why today?

In a "multicultural" society shouldn't anti-Catholicism be a dead issue?

After all, Catholics have been successfully integrated into a social order that places an enormous emphasis on tolerance.

Moreover, the great strides made in dialogue among the Christian denominations should make the kind of rhetoric used in the past outmoded if not politically incorrect.

But besides the lingering influence of our colonial past, and the fact that many Americans disagree with the Catholic hierarchy on political matters, there are a number of other reasons for anti-Catholic sentiments.

Most of these reasons are not overtly theological. (However, as the recent flap at Bob Jones University demonstrated, strong theological opposition to the church still exists among small groups of Baptists and evangelicals in the South.)

Rather, these sentiments stem mainly from the inherent tensions between the nature of the church and the nature of the United States.

First, in any democracy, there is a natural distrust of organizations run along hierarchical lines, as the Catholic Church surely is. The church's model of governance can strike many as almost "anti-American." (Many Americans, for example, view the church's ban on women's ordination largely in terms of democratic principles, or "rights" and "representation.")

Second, the church's emphasis on community, as well as what St. Ignatius Loyola famously called "thinking with the church," is often seen as at odds with the American ideal of rugged individualism.

This attitude manifests itself whenever the institutional church is criticized but personal faith is celebrated.

This is also the philosophy represented in such movies as "Dogma" and "Stigmata." The implicit message is that while organized religion is bad, "spirituality" (especially in a highly personalized form) is good. Similarly, in a pluralistic society, the church's emphasis on the one, eternal truth can strike some as difficult to comprehend.

Third, in a rational, post-Enlightenment society the church's emphasis on the transcendent seems at best old-fashioned, and at worst dangerously superstitious.

The church teaches a transcendent God, embraces mystery, seeks to explain the nature of grace, and believes in the sacramental presence of God.

The rational response: How can an intelligent person believe in such things? Continue reading

Barrett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, is a constitutional law expert who has clerked for appellate and Supreme Court judges. She is eminently qualified.

A Catholic at a Catholic university, she has helped law students and others understand how to reconcile being a good Christian and a good judge.

This should not be a problem. Article VI of the Constitution requires judges and other public officials "to support this Constitution."

It also demands that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Professor Barrett clearly subscribes to the first of these clauses. As she said at the senate hearing: "It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law."

But some Democrats on the committee seemed not to have heard of the second clause.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-California, expressed a concern to Barrett that, based on her past speeches, "the dogma lives loudly within you."

(This strange accusation has created a wonderful backlash, as the sale of "The dogma lives loudly within me" T-shirts becomes a cottage industry among Catholics.) Feinstein implied that believers who accept their church's moral teachings are un-American.

Then came Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, whose 100 percent approval rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America may make him a Catholic that Senator Feinstein can accept.

He grilled Professor Barrett on a 1998 law review article she co-authored as a student with law professor John Garvey (now president of The Catholic University of America).

That article discussed the dilemma of someone with moral or religious objections to something he or she is asked to do as a judge.

For example, authorizing an abortion for a minor girl or imposing a death sentence could present a conflict of conscience for an "orthodox Catholic" (by which, the authors explained, they simply meant someone who believes Catholic teaching on the point at issue). Continue reading

• Richard Doerflinger worked for 36 years in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It discovered people of all faith leanings, including non-believers have a shared distrust of atheists. Only respondents in New Zealand and Finland did not exhibit a clear bias against atheists.

The study was conducted by an international team and published in the Nature Human Behaviour journal. The outcome was based on the responses of more than 3,000 people across 13 countries and five continents.

Participants were asked whether an imagined person, who tortured animals as a child before becoming a teacher and then killing five homeless people, was more likely to be religious or atheist.

The results show people were twice as likely to believe the killer was an atheist.

This suggests "people perceive belief in a god as a sufficient moral buffer to inhibit immoral behavior," the researchers say.

Researchers found these results to be true even in largely secular countries, like Australia, China, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

However, the study reports anti-atheist bias was strongest where there are high numbers of believers, like the United Arab Emirates, United States and India.

"I suspect that this stems from the prevalence of deeply entrenched pro-religious norms," Will Gervais, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and one of the co-authors on the study says.

"Even in places that are currently quite overtly secular, people still seem to intuitively hold on to the belief that religion is a moral safeguard."

Source

• Radio NZ
• Huffington Post
• Image: Strange Notions

"For us, everyone is the same and this has also been addressed by the Pope, who made special reference to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and intersex (LGBTI) community," he said.

The archbishop is one of a number of church leaders in Fiji who have spoken out about the need for transgender women to be treated with respect and dignity.

A recent case of a 22-year-old transgender woman, who was raped and burnt to death in Turkey earlier this week, has highlighted the dangers faced by the transgender community all over the world.

The Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma's secretary for communications Reverend James Bhagwan said no one, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion deserved to be treated in this manner.

Methodist Church president Reverend Tevita Banivanua said this fear and prejudice for people who were different were shameful.

Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji's media relations officer Kamlesh Arya said the organisation believed every human being was entitled to the rights of freedom, human dignity and freedom of association.

Sulique Waqa a transgender feminist and indigenous Fijian said,"Although we are seeing a marked increase in public awareness about transgender people, we are still part of a community that experiences high rates of unemployment, poverty and violence."

Waqa said certain venues and public spaces in Fiji were hostile areas for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersexual and queer community (LGBIQ).

She has worked on LGBIQ community issues of the Pacific region for over 15 years.

Waqa founded the Haus of Khameleon, a transgender led feminist movement that is lobbying, campaigning, organising, researching, training and advocating for transgender equality in Fiji and the Pacific.

Source

• fijitimes.com
• fijitimes.com
• htransrespect.org
• Image: 4.bp.blogspot.com

Nai Lalakai editor Anare Ravula, The Fiji Times Editor-in-Chief, Fred Wesley and The Fiji Times general manager/publisher Hank Arts, the Fiji Times Limited.

They are charged with inciting communal antagonism in relation to letter to the editor published by the Fiji Times in its supplemental iTaukei language newspaper, Nai Lalakai on April 27 this year.

A fourth man, Josaia Waqabaca, the author of the letter also appeared in court and was charged with the same offence.

The charges were made under the Crimes Decree, passed by the military government in 2009.

The letter accused Muslims of invading foreign lands, and killing, raping and abusing women and children.

It also warned that some muslims had found their way into Fiji's parliament.

It was written by Josaia Waqabaca, who was jailed after the 2000 coup, for his role in a plot to kidnap the then military commander, and now prime minister, Frank Bainimarama.

The Decree's section 65 prohibits any communication that is likely to incite dislike, hatred or antagonism of any community.

The April 27 letter includes this paragraph:

The content read:

Ko ira na Musulomani era sega ni taukei kei Viti, sai ira nai lawalawa oqo era a curu botea na vanua eso ka dua vei ira ko Bangladesh mai Idia, kara vei vakamatei kina, kucuvi na nodra yalewa, ra vakararawataki na gone me yacova sara nira sa lewa ka sa nodra tu edaidai

Translation:

"Muslims are not the indigenous of this country. These are people that have invaded other nations, for example, Bangladesh in India, where they killed, raped and abused their women and children. Today they have gone to the extent of having a part in the running of the country".

The four were required to provide sureties of a $1000 each and were released on bail.

They will reappear in court on August 31.

The maximum penalty for the charge is 10 years imprisonment.

In 2013, the newspaper was fined $US 170,000 for contempt of court, for publishing an article that called into question the independence of Fiji's post-coup judiciary.

Source

• radionnz.co.nz
• Fijisun.com.fj
• fijitimes.com
• Image: fijisun.com.fj

The second attack on the billboard was discovered early this morning. The words "Islam Hates Us" had been stuck over the original caption, "I don't like losers", which had been written in a speech bubble coming from the mouth of US presidential campaigner Donald Trump. Depicted in the background was the crucified Christ.

St Luke's Presbyterian parish council convenor David McNabb said members of the church were able to remove the paper that had been stuck over the sign by using just soap and water. Continue reading

The incident took place on a Valley Flyer bus travelling between Petone and Naenae last Wednesday morning.

Another challenge is the reluctance of employers to hire them are among the issues that will be up for discussion at a Muslim at Work Summit this coming Wednesday.

Many Muslims were getting a better deal in employment here than in their countries of origin, but some employers were still nervous about hiring them says, Auckland University of Technology [AUT] professor of diversity Edwina Pio who is convening the Summit.

"Many employers, with every good intention, are skittish about employing Muslims, based on media pictures and coverage about Muslims globally, which is often linked with violence, gender inequality and extremist jihad."

"The summit aims to dispel myths, shed light on the Islamic culture and create understanding of the diversity within our Muslim workforce," said Pio.

The Summit is being held at AUT and speakers include Equal Employment Commissioner Jackie Blue, Imam Sheikh Rafat and New Zealand's first ethnic police inspector Rakesh Naidoo.

Source

• Scoop
• Image: TV3News

And the commentors have been quick to climb on board.

Ireland, it seems, is inhabited by characters straight out of Fr Ted and Mrs Brown's Boys, and now they are invading New Zealand making our roads unsafe.

A headline on the Stuff website read "Irish driver up the creek over kayak on car."

A photograph was posted showing a car parked on the side of the road with a kayak perched sideways on its roof.

"It defies belief but a tourist thought it best to tie his kayak side-ways across his car roof to drive through Coromandel's busy rural roads," said the article.

"To make matters worse, the Irish driver could not see the danger in such an unorthodox method."

"The driver was unrepentant telling the officer that stopped him that if he secured the kayak long-ways as he is supposed to it would cause damage to the roof of his car," Inspector Freda Grace of Waikato District police said.

The story has gone global and been reported by Irish media.

Stuff subsequently slipped in a link to the original news item: Police have since apologised for saying the driver was Irish.

The driver was not Irish, he lives in Auckland.

Stuff invited readers to comment by responding to the question What's the stupidest thing you've seen on our roads?

A number of the 68 comments, confirmed the "dumb Irish" stereotyping.

But as the truth emerged later comments began to redress the balance.

One commenter wrote "Unfortunately, after living in this country for almost 10 years, I'm not at all surprised by this stereotyping (not so much in the article, but in the below comments)... Rarely a week goes by where I don't hear some kind of a reference to "drunk Irish" "potatoes" "etc etc either out socialising or in the office. Sad for what is otherwise a fantastic country to live in."

The driver, Jonathan Waters, from Auckland, said he was "stumped" when he heard the police said he was Irish.

Waters said he had just left Tairua when a gust of wind tore off the front roof rack, which caused the kayak to swing around.

He turned on his hazard lights and pulled over.

A police car travelling in the opposite direction pulled over and the officer helped Waters while he removed the kayak from the vehicle, he said.

Waters said he agreed with the officer that it was not safe to drive with the kayak sideways and assured her he would not do so.

The officer had to leave to attend a serious crash and apologised for not being able to help further, he said.

"I genuinely appreciate the help she gave me. However, I do feel that it is important to recognise that she did not give me a warning about dangerous driving, formal or otherwise."

Waters said he did not want to undermine the police but there had been "untruths" reported so far.

Waters took to Facebook over the matter.

"So apparently I am an Irish tourist who decided that tying my kayak onto the car sideways was the plan A of the day."

"Good old Kiwi cops and their direct quotes of immense untruthfulness."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Stuff.co.nz
• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: i.kinja-img.com

Dame Susan Devoy said she was disgusted to hear of an attack on a four year-old Jewish boy who was walking home from pre-school in Mt Eden.

The boy was traumatised after a man approached him, then slapped him hard on the top of his head in front of his mother, brother and a friend last week.

The Herald on Sunday said the alleged attacker laughed as he left the scene in a car with four other men.

The attack appeared to have anti-Semitic motivations. The boy was wearing a yarmulke or cap. Continue reading

While they are disheartened by this they say the situation is not as bad in New Zealand as it is in other places.

The constant association with radicals is disheartening, says the President of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand Inc, Dr Anwar Ghani.

"They [Muslims] are threatened, it's just the comments that are made that associate us with terrorism. It's really sad, because of the projections we are all painted with that brush."

Ghani said Kiwi Muslims are keeping silent on social media due to the comments being made.

"They are keeping quiet and observing what is coming out."

"However in saying that the situation in New Zealand is far better than the situation in Australia because the community here is better connected."

New Zealand Muslim League president Mohammed Hassan said Muslims living in Hamilton have not felt the backlash of incidences that have happened overseas.

Prime Minister John Key has said he is seeking advice as to what military support New Zealand could offer, if asked to join United States-led forces targeting the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

Members of New Zealand's Muslim community have told Radio New Zealand sending troops to fight Islamic State (IS) in Iraq would be a mistake.

• The secretary of the International Muslim Association of New Zealand, Tahir Nawaz, said sending the SAS to Iraq would be a bad idea.
• Secretary of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, Tony Green, who is based in Christchurch, said the United States invasion of Iraq created the conditions that gave rise to IS and further western intervention would only make things worse.
• President of the South Auckland Muslim Association, Mohammed Farouk Khan, is also opposed to New Zealand getting involved with the US-led action. "What difference does it make if America as a superpower goes to throw bombs on Iraq to stop bad people doing bad things, are innocent people not getting killed? So what is the difference between the bad people killing innocent people and a superpower killing innocent people as well?"

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Radio New Zealand
• Image: wikimedia.org

But local Muslims are making it plain that they have no sympathy with what is happening in the Middle East.

"In Islamic prophecy, a woman tied up a cat and did not feed it until it died and she went to hell, so I don't think the same religion will be inviting people in that kill people in this crazy way," Tauranga Muslim Association president Ahmed Ghoneim says.

"What they are doing is just not right," he said.

He said he loved Tauranga, had lived in the city for 11 years and had not experienced any fallout over the unfolding events overseas.

Another Tauranga Muslim, Ibrahim Hassan, said Muslims should not be judged on ISIS, because the extremist group did not represent their religion or beliefs.

"They don't belong to Islam in any way."

"They are trying to build an Islamic state by killing and threatening people and making them migrate from their cities. It's very sad and scary. They are just like 'join us or we will kill you'."

Tauranga Regional Multicultural Council immediate past president Ewa Fenn said its members had not received any adverse comments about the situation in the Middle East. But they were worried about the on-going conflict and repercussions.

"It's very concerning because of the implications and the backlash for the Muslims around the world."

Prime Minster John Key has confirmed New Zealand was assessing its security alert following recent reports of a terrorist plot in Australia and that he was seeking advice about New Zealanders fighting for groups like Isis who want to return home.

The US has not asked New Zealand for support in the air strikes against Isis. New Zealand's air force no longer has a combat arm.

New Zealand has been named by the US State Department as one of more than 60 countries in the coalition supporting its efforts to counter Islamic State, according to a report in the Washington Post.

It cited New Zealand among 13 allies providing humanitarian aid - New Zealand has given $1 million to the United Nations refugee agency for Iraq since June

Key won't rule out sending New Zealand's elite SAS personnel to assist US efforts to counter Islamic State militants in Iraq or even Syria but says that would be done reluctantly as a last resort, if at all.

New Zealand has two options for responding to the growing terror threat posed by the ISIS militants according to a Massy University academic.

" First, if New Zealand supports the attacks on ISIS, then we ourselves start to fertilise the ground for becoming a target for ISIS sponsored third generation extremists."

"Second, if we maintain peaceful, prosperous and trust based quid pro quo relations with our migrant communities then we are pursuing the best course towards maintaining a harmonious and safe society," says Dr William Hoverd a senior lecturer at Massey University's Centre for Defence and Security Studies.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• massey.ac.nz
• The New Zealand Herald
• Bay of Plenty Times
• Telesurtv.net
• Image: Bay of Plenty Times

Tolerance is a moral virtue best placed within the moral domain - but unfortunately it is often confounded with prejudice.

Much of the psychological research about tolerance generally and about the development of children's understanding of tolerance of others who are different from them has been examined through research about prejudice - and not through the moral domain.

The assumption made is that absence of prejudice by default means a person is tolerant.

Prejudice and tolerance are actually theoretically different concepts - and not the opposite of each other.

In fact, they coexist in most of us.

Tolerance is difficult to define, which may have led to limiting the study of tolerance in psychology in favour of studying prejudice.

But, unlike prejudice, tolerance can be grounded in the moral domain which offers a positive approach to examining relationships between groups of people who are different from each other.

Based on its Latin origin, tolerance, or toleration as philosophers often refer to it, is most commonly viewed negatively as "putting up with" something we dislike or even hate.

If a person is prepared to "put up with" something - along the lines of, I do not like the colour of your skin but I will still serve you not to lose your custom - that person is someone who does not discriminate but remains intolerant in thoughts and beliefs.

Besides, who wants to be tolerated or be "put up with"?

At the same time tolerance cannot be indiscriminate.

Indiscriminate acceptance in its most extreme form could lead to recognition of questionable practice and human rights violations - for instance, child marriages and neo-Nazi propaganda.

Tolerance as a moral virtue

An alternative way for us to think of tolerance is to place it within the moral domain and recognise that it is what it is, a moral virtue. Continue reading

Sources

• The Conversation
• Image: Revisions

In the survey of over 2,000 households in New Zealand, conducted 89 per cent agreed with the statement "It is a good thing for any society to be made up of different races, religions and cultures".

The findings of this study suggest that in some ways, New Zealand can be considered a psychologically multicultural society, but in others, it cannot.

• New Zealanders appreciate cultural diversity and believe that it is good for society, but reject equitable resource distribution aimed to reduce social inequalities
• New Zealanders do not typically experience race-based rejection, but Asian and Pacific peoples are the most likely to experience this type of rejection
• Ethnic groups typically have warm intergroup feelings, but they have warmer feelings towards members of their own ethnic group. If one ethnic group likes another ethnic group, the feelings tend to be reciprocated
• Perceptions of economic competition tended to be low, but Asian New Zealanders were generally seen as the most threatening
• All ethnic groups displayed strong levels of patriotism.

When she was interviewed by Mervin Singham at the Ethnica Conference in Christchurch last year Professor Colleen Ward, referring to the survey said.

"In terms of the principle I think we're starting on firm ground in New Zealand. I think that diversity is appreciated here."

"But it's no good to say in principle 'I appreciate diversity, it's great to have it' on one hand, and then on the other hand, 'As long as it doesn't mean I have to do anything to respond to it."

"If you say 'Diversity is great but I don't want a synagogue, mosque or temple in my neighbourhood', what does that mean?"

'"All groups have to be able to accommodate difference in a reasonable fashion."

"If I value it, I have to accommodate to a certain extent."

This interview has been referred to in a recently posted blog on American Thinker which discusses the question "Can Muslims be multiculturalist?" i

The writer, a conservative American academic, Robert Klein Engler states "At its core, Islam does not allow for freedom of religion, yet this freedom would be considered one of the core principles of the multiculturalism we hear professed."

Engler challenged the opinion expressed by Ward that "...multiculturalism hasn't failed in France, Germany and the UK. They've never had it. It's never been tested."

Source

• VictoriaUniversity
• Victoria University
• Americanthinker

Image: southaucklandblogger

The secretary-general of the Italian bishops' conference, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, said couples in "irregular matrimonial situations" are still Christians.

Speaking at a national liturgical gathering in Italy on August 27, Bishop Galantino noted Church teaching that those in "an irregular marital situation" cannot receive Holy Communion "because of their condition".

But such couples are often looked at "with prejudice" in the Church, he said.

He discussed how people in irregular relationships can feel this discipline as "very severe, not inclusive" and even "punitive" towards "the difficulties of marital life" or towards their choice to break up a relationship.

"Often many people perceive the Church's attitude as more severe than what it actually is, since they feel the fact they are not admitted to sacraments as an exclusion from ecclesiastical life," the bishop said.

He said that Catholics should recognise that some of the faithful are excessively harsh towards those in irregular relationships and they erroneously see the Church's discipline "as an exclusion of their brothers and sisters".

He said that some of the faithful sometimes look at people in irregular relationships "with a glance full of prejudice, as if their faith and their belonging to the Church was compromised".

"In addition to the burden of their non-admission to the sacraments, there is an unjustified de facto discrimination towards them, as an added price to pay."

"Even these people are Christian faithful, so they are part of the Church and in the eucharistic assembly they are and they must feel at home," the bishop said.

Bishop Galantino said current pastoral guidelines reaffirm Church membership of those in irregular relationships and suggest "paths of ecclesial life" and liturgical participation, even though they cannot receive Holy Communion.

His comments were widely reported in Italian media.

Bishop Galantino, who was appointed to his current position by Pope Francis, has made controversial comments in the past, such as the need for the Church to welcome gays and to consider optional celibacy for the priesthood.

In October, the Vatican will host a synod of bishops to discuss issues facing the modern family.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency

It is understood some Christian parents at Riversdale are furious the school wants to introduce the "mindfulness" technique, claiming it has Buddhism origins. Read more

Employers find it okay to employ Buddhists and Hindus but are wary of hiring Muslims, an AUT study has found.

Indian Christians in the research faced the least barriers, and acknowledged the benefits derived from having westernised names, a Western dress sense and fluency in English.

More than 200 people were interviewed for the research. Some Muslim employees said they faced racial comments or queries linking them to terror attacks and many said they experienced discrimination because of their faith.

"Women with veils and/or burqas are viewed with general curiosity and avoidance ... it is also difficult for men with beards," said the report.

The research for a book entitled Work and Worship by AUT Professor of Diversity Edwina Pio investigated the impact of minority religions in the New Zealand workplace.

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: focus-coaching.co.uk

Verica Rupar knows first hand the power of the media to foster cultural and religious diversity - or to fan the flames of racial hatred. As a Serbian journalist living in conflict-torn Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Rupar watched how media reporting of the war reproduced and intensified racial stereotypes and human rights violations, not the reverse. Continue reading