Following weeks of protests, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris has spoken out in defence of this freedom of expression.

Principal dismissal sparks tensions

The dismissal of Christian Espeso, principal of Immaculate Conception High School in Pau, southern France, has stirred national controversy. On 11 September, the local education authority removed Espeso from office, citing "breaching secularism" after he introduced confessions during school hours and required students to attend a conference led by a bishop.

"Many of us are stunned" stated the Diocese of Bayonne's Directorate of Catholic Education on 13 September, calling the decision "totally disproportionate in light of the facts".

Immaculate Conception High School, under Espeso's leadership, ranked first in its region and fourth nationally.

Archbishop defends religious expression

Archbishop Ulrich addressed the controversy on Radio Notre Dame, emphasising the importance of religious expression within Catholic institutions.

"We must be able to proclaim the Gospel in Catholic schools" he stated. "There are people who want to silence us."

The archbishop's comments come as the debate intensifies over the role of Catholic schools in a secular society. Currently, Catholic schools educate about 17% of French pupils and represent 95% of all private schools in the country.

Balancing secularism and religious identity

French Catholic schools operate under a 1959 agreement that requires them to follow the same curriculum as public institutions while maintaining their Catholic identity. The state pays the salaries of their teachers who are inspected by the Ministry of Education. In return, the schools agree to welcome students of all backgrounds and make catechism classes optional.

However, the balance between state oversight and religious autonomy appears to be shifting. In January, a group of public education representatives called for an end to state funding for Catholic schools, claiming that the current system undermines France's commitment to secularism.

Changing religious landscape

Philippe Gaudin, director of the Public Institute for the Study of Religions and Secularism, attributed the growing tensions to a shifting religious landscape in France.

"There is a huge decline in Christian religious practice" Gaudin told OSV News. "At the same time, there is a growing presence of Muslims who are loudly asserting their identity and their demands. This is something new. So the state is trying to put in place a public policy to manage all this."

The dismissal of Espeso has become a flashpoint in this wider debate over how religious institutions operate within France's secular framework.

Source

• CNA

Regional anniversary days or King's birthdays are easy. Many have their own rituals and routines: beach, boat or bach for the weekend is the aspiration for most of us.

In one sense, Matariki is a long-overdue move towards a confident national identity.

Most of our holidays are imports, and many are seasonally out of place or a touch too colonial for the present day.

At the same time, the public ritual of hautapu at Matariki confronts us with another world - the Maori world, which is often invisible to Pakeha consciousness.

It invites us to consider a spiritual side to a holiday that does not fit easily into our dominant national narrative.

Secular culture and karakia

Pakeha New Zealand is one of the most aggressively secular cultures in the world.

And yet, we will soon see the Wellington elite participating in a karakia to atua (divine beings) that many of the attendees do not believe exist — although it would be a naïve or reckless politician who would admit to that view!

I applaud this inclusion of spirituality in the bland intellectual desert of Pakeha secularism.

I also believe there is a reality which the invocations of the whetu (stars) of Matariki engage with.

I am not a sceptical Pakeha politician, virtue-signalling my allegiance to the cultural tide of resurgent Maori identity.

In fact, my view is that the atua being invoked may well decide to engage in human affairs, but I would much rather that they didn't - I doubt their benevolence, not their being.

Despite my qualms, I much prefer a nation where our debate is about the best way to engage with spirituality, rather than whether it has a place at all.

Engaging with the reality of the unseen world allows us to engage in the kind of moral reasoning that can build a flourishing society - one that enables productive political competition instead of a divisive reductionism.

Including Maori rituals and spirituality

The inclusion of Maori rituals and spirituality in public life is in one sense the development of a new civic religion.

Christianity once notionally held that place, but the hypocrisy of the settlers, and their settler churches, led to Christian allegiance being more a matter of public identity signalling than a devout force uniting communal life.

What we are now seeing, in response to the human longing for transcendence, is a re-emergence of one Maori way of being into our public culture.

I welcome that cultural shift.

Rituals, as the English theologian Elizabeth Oldfield recently observed, help us to attend to aspects of reality that we might otherwise not notice.

In a world defined by algorithmic bids for our attention, it is all too easy for us to ignore what ought to be obvious to us.

Maori have never lost attentiveness to those aspects of reality that we call spirituality.

Among Maori, the debate is not whether there is a spiritual dimension to life - that is a given - but about which way of engaging spiritually is good, and has the power to ensure our collective flourishing. Read more

• The Ven Dr Lyndon Drake (Ngati Kuri, Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu) is the Archdeacon of Tamaki Makaurau in the Maori Bishopric of Te Tai Tokerau. He holds a DPhil in theology from the University of Oxford.

France's unique approach to "laïcité" — loosely translated as "secularism" — has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the country.

The struggle cuts to the core of how France approaches not only the place of religion in public life, and also the integration of its mostly immigrant-origin Muslim population, Western Europe's largest.

Signs of faith barred

Perhaps the most contested ground are public schools, where visible signs of faith are barred under policies seeking to foster a shared sense of national unity.

That includes the headscarves some Muslim women want to wear for piety and modesty, even as others fight them as a symbol of oppression.

"It has become a privilege to be allowed to practice our religion," said Majda Ould Ibbat.

She was considering leaving Marseille, France's second-largest city, until she discovered a private Muslim school, Ibn Khaldoun, where her children could both freely live their faith and flourish academically.

"We wanted them to have a great education, and with our principles and our values," added Ould Ibbat, who only started wearing a headscarf recently.

He teen daughter, Minane, hasn't felt ready to.

Her 15-year-old son, Chahid, often prays in the school's mosque during recess.

Navigating French culture and spiritual identity

For Minane, as for many French Muslim youth, navigating French culture and her spiritual identity is getting harder.

The 19-year-old nursing student has heard people say even on the streets of multicultural Marseille that there's no place for Muslims.

"I ask myself if Islam is accepted in France," she said in her parents' apartment, where a bright orange Berber rug woven by her Moroccan grandmother hangs next to Koranic verses in Arabic.

Minane also lives with the collective trauma that has scarred much of France — the gripping fear of Islamist attacks, which have targeted schools.

They are seen by many as evidence that laïcité (pronounced lah-eee-see-tay) needs to be strictly enforced to prevent radicalisation.

Minane vividly remembers observing a moment of silence at Ibn Khaldoun in honor of Samuel Paty, a public school teacher beheaded by a radicalised Islamist in 2020.

A memorial to Paty as a defender of France's values hangs in the entrance of the Education Ministry in Paris.

Secularism - pros and cons

For its officials and most educators, secularism in public schools and other public institutions is essential.

They say it encourages a sense of belonging to a united French identity and prevents those who are less or not religiously observant from feeling pressured, while leaving everyone free to worship in private spaces.

For many French Muslims, however, and other critics, laïcité is exerting precisely that kind of discriminatory pressure on already disadvantaged minorities.

The see it as denying them the chance to live their full identity in their own country.

Amid the tension, there's broad agreement that polarisation is skyrocketing, as crackdowns and challenges mount for this French approach to religion and integration.

While open confrontations are still numbered in the dozens among millions of students.

It has become common to see girls put their headscarves back on the moment they exit through a public school's doors.

"Laws on laïcité protect and allow for coexistence — which is less and less easy," said Isabelle Tretola, principal of the public primary school whose front gate faces the door to Ibn Khaldoun's small mosque.

She addresses challenges to secularism every day — like children in choir class who put their hands on their ears "because their families told them singing variety songs isn't good."

"You can't force them to sing, but teachers tell them they can't cover their ears out of respect for the instructor and classmates," Tretola said.

"In school, you come to learn the values of the republic."

Secularism is one of four fundamental values enshrined in France's constitution.

The state explicitly charges public schools with instilling those values in children, while allowing private schools to offer religious instruction as long as they also teach the general curriculum that the government establishes. Read more

• Giovanna Dell'Orto is a freelance journalist for Associated Press and Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass, University of Minnesota.

Faced with declining resources and a faithful but increasingly small cohort of weekly Mass attendees—between 2 and 11 percent of the province, according to The Economist in 2016—Cardinal Lacroix called on the church in Quebec not to struggle to hold on to what it has left but to see itself as a mission church moving outward.

"We must reorient our pastoral teams toward a more intensely missionary activity, turned toward the people and groups that we join too little," the cardinal said.

"Cardinal Lacroix's decision is fully in tune with what the Quebec bishops have called the missionary turnabout, following Francis's ‘Joy of the Gospel,'" said Frédéric Barriault, a researcher at the Jesuit-run Center for Justice and Faith in Montreal, in an email.

"For years, there were too many churches and too few priests and faithful to tend them.

"They needed to dispose of many of these ageing and sometimes crumbling churches to kickstart the real church, the one that is not made of concrete, brick and mortar, but of flesh, blood and faith.

"They needed to dispose of these aging churches to kickstart the real church, the one not made of brick and mortar, but of flesh, blood and faith."

In recent years, hundreds of churches in Quebec have been slated for demolition or conversions into mixed-use facilities—homes, theatres and more—reflecting the waning presence of institutional Catholicism.

The number of baptisms in the province has sharply declined.

The economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have exacerbated the budget challenges of already struggling parishes.

Still, 64 percent of people in Quebec identify as Catholic, according to the polling firm Angus Reid, even if weekly Mass attendance is no longer the norm.

Barriault suggests that out of such challenges may emerge new expressions of authentic Catholicism in the province. "It means less parochial churches, priests and Sunday Masses," he said, "and more smaller meeting rooms where laypersons would animate the liturgy of the Word and be a sign of God's love for humanity by their personal and collective [action] for the common good."

It is an opportunity "to become the ‘field hospital church' that Francis so often speaks about."

While the missionary direction may be new, Barriault insists that the church has a long tradition of engaging people in Quebec, especially through efforts in pursuit of social justice.

To help explore that tradition, the Center for Justice and Faith has been compiling stories and information about past social justice campaigns by Catholics in Quebec in an online archival project, "Mémoire du christianisme social au Québec."

Young people in Quebec, according to Barriault, born after the Second Vatican Council and the so-called Quiet Revolution, when civic institutions in the province experienced rapid secularization, have never known the ultramontane and Tridentine church of the past.

They are "rediscovering the prophetic heritage of Catholic social activists involved in labour, feminist, ecological and decolonial struggles," he said.

"The church would be wise to tap into that vein, with the hopes and dreams of Quebec's youth."

The church in Quebec also has a rich, living tradition of missionaries to draw upon, including those who have wrestled with what it means to preach the Gospel under the province's unique conditions.

Among them is the Rev. Claude Lacaille, who worked as a missionary with the Société des Missions-Étrangères in some of the most difficult political contexts in Haiti, Ecuador and Chile.

Though he had to navigate dictatorships and violence abroad, he says his return to Quebec in 1986, after the province had secularized, "was my most difficult mission of all."

Lacaille left Quebec for Haiti in 1965, when most Quebeckers were still practising Catholics.

He adapted himself well in foreign countries, he said.

His memoir, Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants, is full of stories of enculturation, throwing in with the struggle of others, living alongside other missionaries like the Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Carla Piette.

"But when I came back to Quebec, secularism was something that I was not confronted with before," he says.

"In Chile, I was working all the time in my environment with communists, atheists and so on. There was never a problem that I was a priest. ‘He's on our side,' they would say."

But "to be a priest in Quebec was a problem. That was difficult for me because I was surprised; I didn't know what to do." Continue reading

The home said she must remove her religious habit if she was to live at the publicly-funded residence.

Although the nun's application to live at the home was accepted earlier this year, it was on the condition she did not wear her religious habit.

The retirement home's letter to the nun said:

"Within our homes, our residents may have preferences and beliefs and these should be respected … with regard to secularism, all ostentatious signs of belonging to a religious community cannot be accepted in order to guarantee everyone's tranquility."

"Religion is a private matter and must remain so."

She was told she could wear a cross so long as it was discreet.

The nun then declined the offer.

Alain Chrétien, who is the mayor of Vesoul in the Haute-Saône region where the nun lives, has apologized to her and offered to help her find public housing.

He says the "error of judgment is very regrettable".

In his opinion, the retirement home's staff have made a "big blunder".

He says state employees are sometimes "paralyzed" by issues of secularism, and is concerned that "everyone has their own definition" of what it means.

The local parish priest cited her case in his monthly newsletter, saying the rest home's actions seemed "anti-Christian."

"(O)ur ears are being filled with principles of secularism that are not understood," he wrote.

"Old demons, mismanaged fears are blocking situations."

"What is secularism? It means giving everyone the opportunity to live their faith without harming anyone."

"I don't think that a nun's veil can harm, because it's not a sign of submission but of consecration."

Laïcité, the French version of secularism, has been enforced by law since 1905.

While originally intended to regulate Catholicism in public life and establish strict state secularism, its principles in recent decades have been applied to Muslim women who wear hijabs or other religious garb in public.

The Observatory of Secularism says the rules on religious garb are supposed to apply only to state employees and public servants during work hours.

The nun's treatment was an example of "a wrong interpretation of laïcité," he says.

Source

• La Croix
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency

This time, the debate erupted after a far-right politician asked a woman who was accompanying her son and other children on a school trip to a regional council headquarters to remove her headscarf when entering the building.

It is a reminder that, for all our progress, Islamophobia is still rife - in France, and right across Europe.

As a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, it is really frustrating and obviously upsetting to face discrimination just for following the tenets of my faith. I know too well the pain of experiencing Islamophobia first hand in the UK.

I have been verbally abused and harassed by members of the public just because my faith is visible to them.

The Muslim mother targeted in this instance was also left in tears, in front of her child, after being publicly humiliated by Julien Odoul, a member of Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) party, who said he was acting on behalf of "secular principles in the wake of killings by a radicalised extremist".

This excuse is unacceptable.

There is nothing in French law that stipulates that women are not allowed to wear the hijab in or outside school gates while accompanying classes on outings.

What happened was this: a woman wanted to take part in her son's school trip was deliberately victimised in an attempt to keep visible Muslims out of sight and deter Islamic integration into French society.

Remarkably, many ministers of Emmanuel Macron's centrist government-backed the stance of the politician, claiming defence of French secularism.

Luckily, others within the same government quite rightly disagreed, citing that this position goes against the religious tolerance that "laïcité" is supposed to defend.

But the political defence of religious tolerance in France is laughable given that formal restrictions have already been placed on wearing religious symbols.

France has had a long history of political controversies surrounding the hijab, resulting in a legal ban on wearing a hijab in classrooms and government offices in 2004.

More worryingly, a recent opinion poll found that two in three French people are in favour of prohibiting parents accompanying kids on school trips from wearing visible religious symbols - but this attitude restricts individuals from expressing their true identity.

France has the largest population of Muslims in Europe (approximately 10 per cent of the population), and yet this large minority now feel they are being asked to hide themselves away.

It is so frustrating for visibly Muslim women to have to keep justifying their right to wear what they want in accordance to their faith; to be judged and made to feel that we are in support of acts of terror when we denounce it and are completely against it.

Many Muslim women in France have told me that they are often subjected to Islamophobic abuse on their daily commute and some have not taken jobs in teaching because the rules surrounding the profession would require them to compromise their religious beliefs.

I myself have been asked to take off my hijab when I was on holiday in France.

France became a secular state when it officially separated itself from the church in 1905 to abide by a set of national principles.

The country purports to be neutral in matters of religion, therefore not conferring privilege on any particular religion or set of beliefs.

However, what the modern French government has failed to realise is that their idea of secularism is restricting human rights, and is now being abused as a shield for discrimination and Islamophobic abuse. Continue reading

• Tasnim Nazeer is an award-winning journalist, author and producer

Today's Europe, where pluralism and secularism have changed the dynamic between Europe's citizens and their relationship with one of the continent's oldest institutions.

What do you think it means to be Catholic in Europe today? What are the core values that a Catholic should represent?

We must remember that for centuries Europe has been a collection of Christian countries.

After antiquity, a Christian culture was established in Europe.

From the 17th century and during the Enlightenment, particularly during the French Revolution, little by little the Church found that Europe was no longer an entirely Christian society.

It is a pluralistic society, a secular society, where there are also other beliefs.

I believe that being a Catholic in modern Europe means being part of this scenario.

It is the desire to live together while respecting others.

The Church is not here to "reconquer lost ground". This is not its mission.

To be Catholic is to be faithful to one's convictions in an environment that has changed to a pluralistic society.

This implies respect for human being and his or her beliefs.

We must always be respectful of each other, to accept the person as he or she is, without wanting to impose ourselves on an individual person or on society.

However, we have a mission inside this society.

We have convictions and values that we want to defend.

It must also be noted that there is interfaith solidarity and this is the mission of the Catholic Church.

We stand in solidarity with all those who strive for a more just and more fraternal society.

If we fight for the respect of freedom of religion, it is because we agree with secularised society, but within this society, we have values to defend.

The Catholic Church does not oppose a secularised society.

Citizens have the right to believe or not to believe and I stand for that.

What are the challenges that the Catholic Church is facing nowadays in terms of its role in Europe?

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the Church in Europe, and it's also an opportunity, because it helps us to rediscover our roots and our mission, is to wholeheartedly accept secularised society.

It must be understood that Christianity was, for a long time, the cultural religion in Europe.

Today this is no longer the case.

And it would be dangerous to go back because it is always dangerous to have one religious tradition that obtains a monopoly.

This is true for Christianity, for Islam…for any religion.

The Catholic Church must accept these new cultural circumstances.

It requires a certain conversion from the Church.

For me, personally, and I believe that also this is the case for many bishops in our Church, I see this as an opportunity as this forces us to rediscover ourselves and meet each other.

Some people say that the Catholic Church is looking for power, as in the past.

This is not true.

What we claim is the right to be who we are.

This applies to everyone, to all religions, and to non-believers too.

For us, for the Catholic Church, it was The Second Vatican Council that signalled a fundamental change regarding openness. Before Vatican II, the Church had trouble accepting modernity, but Vatican II said "it's over, a dead end.

It's fruitless and it's not the truth".

This is no reason to condemn the past, it's just that the historical circumstances have changed. It's not good to live life through nostalgia and for a past that is no longer possible. Continue reading

• Image: New Europe

Maori religious culture provides a way of exercising public religion.

Public events include traditional Maori blessings, in which all are expected to join. Read more

It is common now, almost a show in itself for players to have wrist bands covered in religious iconography.

The cross, albeit badly drawn with marker pen, is worn across Super Rugby on any given weekend. Some players, when they score, clasp their hands in a praying motion, look to the heavens and give thanks. Read more

The first conference was held in 1969 during St Pope Paul VI's leadership.

This year the Vatican is joining forces with a University of Kent research initiative to host the "Cultures of Unbelief" conference.

Scholars from a range of disciplines will gather at Rome's Gregorian University to discuss the results of the "Understanding Unbelief" research initiative. During the past two years this initiative has been mapping the rise and nature of non-religion across the world.

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of "nones" — those who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or of no particular religion — will reach 1.2 billion worldwide by 2060.

Young people are particularly likely to identify as nones.

Last year an Understanding Belief researcher found 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the UK identify as having "no religion".

Research into unbelief has also focused on countries where the majority population is made up of nonbelievers, while other projects are looking at the motivations, experiences and problems faced by non-believers in religious societies.

The conference will also hear from researchers who have being examining themes such as non-religious childhoods, the persistence of magical thinking, and the ways in which mindfulness meditation might be seen to constitute a secular religion.

No plans have been announced for Pope Francis to address the conference, but organisers say the possibility remains open.

What's important, they say, is to build a dialogue and collaboration between believers and unbelievers to gain a greater understanding of the others' metaphysical, existential and moral beliefs.

"The growth of different forms of non-religion has been a significant development in many societies across the world in recent decades," says Gordon Lynch, a professor of modern theology at the University of Kent.

"This conference [draws] together findings from the most substantial international programmes of research in this field, and promises to be a genuinely landmark event in taking forward both our understanding of the varieties of non-religion and the social implications of these."

Prof. Stephen Bullivant of St Mary's University in Twickenham says the Church has long realised that atheism needs to be understood properly.

In his view, the conference could help stem the tide of people leaving the Church.

"We recognise that very sincere moral people are all striving to reach the truth and we need to understand that better. Part of the reason for dialogue is on the one hand for us to understand them but it's also for them to understand us," he says.

Source

• Religion News Service
• Irish Catholic
• Image: Washington Times

The visit is to mark the start of observances of next year's 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which traditionally dates from Oct. 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a German cathedral.

On Friday (Oct. 28), the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an interview that Francis — who is also a member of the Jesuit order — gave to a Swedish Jesuit, the Rev. Ulf Jonsson.

In the interview the two discuss a wide range of topics, from relations between Catholics and Protestants to being a minority faith in a secular culture and the "terrorism" of gossip.

Here are excerpts from their exchange:

On his goals for the Sweden trip and relations with Lutherans:

"I can think of only one word to say: to come close. My hope and expectation is that of coming closer to my brothers and sisters. Closeness does all of us good. Distance, on the other hand, makes us bitter. When we are distant, we close within ourselves and we become individual entities, incapable of encountering each other.

"We are held back by fears. We need to learn to transcend ourselves to encounter others. If we do not do this, we Christians, too, become sick because of our divisions. My expectation is that of being able to take a step of closeness, of being closer to my brothers and sisters in Sweden."

On the best means to promote unity among Christians:

"[T]heological dialogue must continue, even if it will not be easy. Personally, I believe that enthusiasm must shift towards common prayer and the works of mercy — work done together to help the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned. To do something together is a high and effective form of dialogue.

I also think about education. It is important to work together and not in a sectarian way. There is a policy we should have clear in every case: to proselytize in the ecclesial field is a sin. Benedict XVI told us that the Church does not grow by proselytism, but by attraction. Proselytism is a sinful attitude. It would be like transforming the Church into an organization.

Speaking, praying, working together: this is the path that we must take. Look, in ecumenism the one who never makes a mistake is the enemy, the devil. When Christians are persecuted and murdered, they are chosen because they are Christians, not because they are Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Catholics or Orthodox. An ecumenism of blood exists. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by David Gibson in Religion News Service
• Image: Huffington Post

Speaking in an interview on the Crux website, Mary McAleese said Ireland had, at least in part, been dissuaded from anti-immigrant movements because of its rich Christian culture.

She was asked if that would change because of the increasingly secular nature of modern society in Ireland.

Mrs McAleese said she thought this would not be the case, and she rejected the overuse of the term "secular" in the Irish context.

"Ireland has an extraordinary story to tell of a country that was, for a very long time, in the grip of a form of clericalism which saw every form of dissent as ‘militant secularism' when, in fact, a lot of that dissent actually was in opposition to clericalism, not Christianity, and was, in fact, infused with a love of the Gospel," she said.

"It was a determination that the Gospel would be experienced in a way that was not overwhelmed by rule books or people banging them over the head with the codes of canon law, but that people would experience an accompanying God who was deeply personal and who was like a parent or grandparent to them, who just watched over them, and smiled no matter what they did, and accompanied them in their life, and nudged them in the right direction, but never gave up on them, no matter what."

For Mrs McAleese, the arrival of secondary education in Ireland, with the help of religious congregations, led the Irish to question clericalism in the structures of the institutional Church.

The values of Christian faith remained with them, however, and will always be a part of any decision that they make as a constitutive element of the culture.

"(Christian Faith) is always going to be infused, it's always going to inform secular thinking," she said.

Sources

• Crux
• Image: Irish Independent

Bishop William Crean of Cloyne said the goal of such people seems to be the elimination of the Church from public debate.

"Ireland through its political and media establishment seems determined to eliminate the engagement of the Catholic Church in the public sphere," Bishop Crean said.

He was speaking at the ordination of nine deacons at Maynooth.

"There are many in these systems who have developed a gratuitous cynicism towards the Catholic Church and desire its destruction, believing that it stands between the people and Ireland becoming a progressive society," he said.

He added "our response ought always to be positive".

Meanwhile, Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam said last weekend that there are consequences for the Church being frequently dismissed and disregarded in Ireland.

He said that it is "not surprisingly in this situation greed overcomes gratitude while selfishness frequently displaces compassion".

Archbishop Neary said the real challenge facing modern culture in Ireland today is not atheism but idolatry.

This comes in the form of the worship of false gods ". . . whether it be money, a selfish and self-centred lifestyle or pleasure".

Speaking at Corpus Christi celebrations in Country Galway,Archbishop Neary warned against the "huge temptation to assimilate, to accept and conform to the dominant values which are at variance so often with our faith".

In such a situation, he said, "it is so easy to pick and choose between different aspects of our Christian faith, to acknowledge publicly what may be popular at a given time but to discard what is no longer regarded as ‘cool' in our culture".

The bishop warned that if people attempt "to separate faith from life then we do an injustice to both".

"Faith and life impinge on each other, influence each other, challenge each other," he said.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Times

He said this partnership had lasted but now there was little respect shown to the church by the national and provincial education authorities.

"They rarely consult their partners when setting new policies and making changes in the education system," Roche said.

A new organisation which has recently been set up in Fiji would see this as progress.

The Pacific Islands Secular Association (PISA) was established in Fiji earlier this year.

PISA's aim is to work with Pacific Island nations to try to persuade governments that secular republican government is more appropriate in the 21st century.

It specifically identifies the Churches' role in health and education in Papua New Guinea as a problem.

The blogs on the Association's website are posted under the pseudonym pisasecularists.

Details regarding the membership and structure of the organisation do not seem to be available.

PISA describes itself as is a non-party-political organisation aiming to attract members from all walks of life.

"PISA is a democratic and independent non-profit organisation which receives no funding from government or other public bodies."

"Its work will be wholly supported by its members and supporters, those who agree that religion and politics should be kept separate."

PISA says none of the Pacific Islands can be described as culturally secular.

It notes that Pacific Island nations have been deeply affected by missionaries from a wide range of Christian denominations, and other religions over two centuries.

"Of the Pacific Island nations only Fiji has a written constitutional separation of church and state."

PISA believes secular state is the most developed constitutional form of democracy.

It says a secular state is typified by:

• Constitutional separation of church and state
• Impartiality of the state between religions and other, alternative beliefs
• Recognition that what citizens believe is a private matter, not something that concerns government, so long as any belief does not break the law
• Non-participation by religious organisations in the making of parliamentary laws
• No government subsidy of religions, their schools, or alternative beliefs and their schools

Source

• pacificsecularists.wordpress.com
• secularism.org.uk
• thenational.com.pg
• Image: www.fijileaks.com

The first 'Ministeroni' Karen Martyn, from Wellington is certified as a marriage celebrant for the niche religion, whose followers believe the world was created by a god made of spaghetti and meatballs.

Karen Martyn defended against her claims the church was merely a parody and claims it's a legitimate religion. Continue reading

The registrar-general of births, deaths and marriages Jeff Montgomery has approved the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as an organisation to solemnise marriages.

Massey University professor of history Peter Lineham has questioned the decision by the registrar-general and said he struggled to find any over-arching philosophy other than satirical intent.

The Church of the Fly Spaghetti Monster's chief office-bearer and 10 members applied in November.

The application was approved under a sub-section of the Marriages Act, satisfying the registrar-general that the principal object of the organisation was to uphold or promote religious beliefs, philosophical or humanitarian convictions.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is based on a belief in an airborne god formed from spaghetti and meatballs.

Adherents of the church wear colanders on their heads and describe their religion as "pastafarianism".

"I really think the registrar-general needs to answer. I am not at all convinced there's a genuine statement of values," Lineham says.

"[Historically] the New Zealand Government has been very coy about recognising religion."

"If you take Scientology, New Zealand was more cautious in its treatment than Australia and Scientology was certainly very slow to gain recognition for marriage celebrants and for tax purpose."

"I know some people who think The Force is rather more meaningful than a spaghetti monster."

"I am startled and I think the registrar has some explaining to do."

Montgomery said the purposes set out by the church were educating and training people, particularly atheists and superstitious people, about Flying Spaghetti principles and practices.

Those principles covered human rights, cultural and spiritual diversity, ethics, relieving poverty and advancing education.

"In considering the matter I have referred to the Objects of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, reviewed material available online about this organisation and considered other organisations already able to nominate marriage celebrants."

"A review of media and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's international website show a consistent presentation of their philosophies."

"While some claim this is a 'parody organisation', members have rebutted this on a number of occasions."

New Zealand law does not define religious, or philosophical, organisations eligible for approval to perform marriages.

Most organisations approved to perform marriages are faith-based and cluster around well-known religious views.

However, alternative philosophies have been granted official licensing capabilities, including yoga, Wicca, Scientology, Heathen, Druidism, Humanism and Reiki spiritual healing.

"As registrar-general it is my role to apply the relevant legislation."

"In this case, my decision can only be based on whether the organisation upholds or promotes religious beliefs, or philosophical or humanitarian convictions."

"No judgment is made on the validity of those beliefs or convictions."

The chief office bearer in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Top Ramen, said this was just the first step; they now need to to nominate marriage celebrants for approval before they can start conducting weddings.

According to the Ramen, who, for earthly reasons wishes to remain anonymous, the church has thousands of followers, although membership is not yet recognised in the census.

"We are a bona fide church, and our people do like to get married, some of them several times," she told Morning Report.

"We like to have baptisms and babies and celebrations and divorces, and it's always nice to have official marriage celebrants to preside over these celebrations.

"Churches are all about communities and celebrations."

There are around 2000 independent celebrants, 6000 organisational celebrants and more than 700 organisations approved to perform marriages in New Zealand.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: radionz.co.nz

In fact, 37 out of 100 people do not affiliate with any religion.

Religious affiliation was one of the 11 features surveyed.

This response is just one of the questions posed in an Ipsos MORI Perils of Perception survey.

The Ipsos Mori survey reveals the gap between perception about key features, and the reality for 33 countries, including New Zealand.

Try the quiz

The results show New Zealand is the least accurate of the developed countries (in the top five most ignorant).

South Koreans are the most accurate, followed by the Irish.

Perceptions in Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea are fairly accurate about the (relatively high) proportions of non-religious people in their country.

Most other countries hugely overestimate the proportion that are non-religious: the average guess across the countries is 37% when the actual average proportion is 18%.

This is particularly noticeable in India. The average guess 33%, when the true figure is under 1%.

Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Peru overestimate by 30, 27 and 25 points respectively.

In Russia there was an overestimation of 29 points.

Norway, Ireland and Serbia were all out by all out by 28 points.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• ipsos-mori.com
• Image: expertseniorplanning.com

"To those who celebrate Christmas, we wish you a very happy Christmas. To those who do not, "season's greetings".

The Anglican Bishop of Auckland, Ross Bay, says "All very laudable in a way, though an interesting thing is that non-Christians are some of the biggest celebrators of Christmas and have already reinterpreted it to suit a secular society."

But the word Christmas is not the real problem says New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Rudman.

According to him the real problem is what he calls "karakia at dawn".

Rudman says that as one of the 41.9 per cent of New Zealanders who ticked the "no religion" box in the 2013 census, he has never felt excluded or ostracised by the use of Christian-based words like Christmas or Easter.

But he does take exception to what he calls the "weird Christian custom of "karakia at dawn"," which he says the Auckland Council and government departments have adopted.

"Instead of standing up for our secularism, government officials are busy thrusting religion down our throats," says Rudman.

"They wrap it in a Maori cloak, and if anyone complains, they mutter biculturalism and Treaty of Waitangi."

He says "'karakia at dawn' precede the opening or launch of just about anything. Books, art galleries, wharf extensions, nothing is safe."

"Yet in reality, they're just imposing one religion on the rest of us by stealth."

"We live in a secular society, proudly supporting the right for everyone to follow their own religion - or have none."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: radionz.co.nz

The window portrays the three wise men from the east, the Magi, being lead to the Christ child in the stable in Bethlehem.

Other stamps feature stained glass windows from St Mark's Church, Carterton, St Aidan's Church, Remuera, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell and the Christchurch Hospital Nurses' Memorial Chapel.

Since 1960, the New Zealand Post Office has released special Christmas stamp issues for the Christmas postal season.

At first there was only one stamp in the Christmas issues, but from 1970 on Christmas issues have contained three to eight stamps.

There has been some criticism, at times, from Christian organisations when the stamps have not depicted religious themes.

In 2008 the 50c stamp featured a sheep wearing jandels and the $2.50 stamp depicted a Kiwi with a santa hat on.

In 2013 all the stamps were themed on families celebrating Christmas in different ways.

Source

• stamps.nzpost.co.nz
• stamps.nzpost.co.nz
• Image: stamps.nzpost.co.nz

Hundreds of non-Catholic children are already registered on Catholic school waiting lists in Hamilton city alone and this has Hamilton Diocese planning a new primary school north of the city.

The surge in popularity of Catholic schools among non Catholics seems to be at odds with a 6.7 per cent decline in the number of Christians the 2013 New Zealand Census recorded.

The Bishop of Hamilton, Stephen Lowe, said non-Catholics were looking for different things in Catholic schools.

"For some it is a really strong faith based education programme, lots of other Christians from other churches want to come to the Catholic school system because of what we offer.

"For others it's just because they perceive the school as being a good school," Lowe said.

Source

• stuff.co.nz/waikato-times
• Image: sjb.school.nz