Wanted: Clean-living young people for a long career (women need not apply). Responsibilities: Varied. Spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, public relations, marriages (own marriage not permitted). Hours: On call at all times. Salary: None, bar basic monthly stipend.
He hasn't placed classified ads in the Irish press just yet, but according to Father Patrick Rushe, coordinator of vocations with the Catholic Church in Ireland, "we've done just about everything" else to attract young men to the priesthood. And yet, the call of service in one of Europe's most religious countries is falling on more deaf ears than ever.
Earlier this month, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, made a grim prediction about the future of the church in Ireland: If more young priests aren't found quickly, the country's parishes may soon not have enough clergy to survive. He told the congregation at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin that his own diocese had 46 priests aged 80 or over, but only two under 35 years old. It's a similar story all over the island. According to a 2007 study of Catholic dioceses in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, about half of all priests are between the ages of 55 and 74.
Ireland's ties to the Catholic Church run deep. The ordination of a family member was once regarded as a moment of great prestige, especially in rural areas. Even as recently as 1990, over 80% of Irish people said they attended Mass at least once a week. But the country's relationship with the church began to change dramatically in the mid-1990s when Ireland's economy began to take off, ushering in years of unprecedented growth. Soon, disaffection replaced devotion among Ireland's newly rich younger generation. Most devastating of all, however, were the sex-abuse scandals involving pedophile priests that surfaced around the same time. Criticism over the handling of the case of Father Brendan Smyth — a priest who had sexually abused children for over 40 years — even led to the collapse of the Irish government in 1994. (Prime Minister Albert Reynolds was forced to stand down amid public anger over the lengthy delays in extraditing Smyth to Northern Ireland, where he was wanted on child abuse charges.)
(Read: "For Ireland's Catholic Schools, a Catalog of Horrors.")
But more was still to come. Last May, the government published the findings of a nine-year inquiry into child abuse at church-run schools, orphanages and hospitals from the 1930s to the 1990s. The report, which described "endemic sexual abuse" at boys' schools and the "daily terror" of physical abuse at other institutions, shook Ireland to its core and left the reputation of the church and the religious orders that ran its schools in tatters. Then, this week, another government inquiry found that the church and police colluded to cover up numerous cases of child sex abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese from 1975 to 2004, prompting the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, to apologize to the Irish people. "No one is above the law in this country," he said. There are now calls for similar inquiries to be held in every diocese in Ireland.
The scandals have undoubtedly made it difficult to bring new men into the priesthood. Father Brian D'Arcy, superior of the Passionist Monastery in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, says the only way to reverse the trend may be to relax the strict rules governing priests' lifestyles. Top of his list? The vow of celibacy. "Of course it would be a big help if priests were allowed to marry or if we could ordain married men," he says. Earlier this month, he says, a priest in the Derry diocese, Father Sean McKenna, announced to his congregation that he was in a relationship with a woman and was stepping down. His parishioners gave him a standing ovation. "Good men are being driven out by foolish [rules]," D'Arcy says.
(Read a brief history of celibacy.)
But some clerical leaders say that allowing married or female clergy won't solve the problem. "They're easy solutions on paper but the crisis is deeper," says Father Patrick Rushe, vocations coordinator for the 26 dioceses in Ireland and Northern Ireland. He points out that the Anglican Church, which permits both married and female clergy, is also facing a shortage of vocations. "[Becoming a priest] is a lifetime commitment and a sacrifice. I think that's what's putting people off. It's not just celibacy," he says.
The church's solution was to launch a recruitment campaign last year, holding special Masses, workshops and conferences aimed at attracting young men to the priesthood. The initiative seems to have paid off, at least in the short term. Last September, a total of 38 Irish men began to study for the priesthood at seminaries in Ireland and Italy. The figure may pale in comparison to the 100 or so new seminarians who signed up annually in the 1960s, but it was the highest intake for the church in a decade. Five years ago, there was only one ordination in Northern Ireland out of a Catholic population of 700,000 people. "You're not just going to pull somebody off the street and they'll suddenly become a priest," Rushe says. "It's a decision that can take a long time to make."
(See pictures of new hope for Belfast.)
Vincent Cushnahan, 29, currently the youngest serving priest in Ireland, says the church also needs to carry out structural reforms, such as cutting the number of parishes (and, therefore, the number of priests required to fill them) and giving greater responsibilities to lay people. In some Irish parishes, for example, non-ordained church members are now responsible for roles such as youth ministry.
(See pictures of church hats.)
Cushnahan knows how hard it is for the church to recruit young men these days — becoming a priest was a difficult decision for him to make. "I had to forsake married life, my own house, money," he says. "[Being a priest] can be more isolating and counter-cultural than it has been in the past. It's more challenging, but also more rewarding because of that."
Read: Keeping The Faith: Still Doing God's Work."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1942665,00.html
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
In the name of God!!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8345705.stm
Faith Diary: Whose God is Allah?
By Robert Pigott (Religious Affairs correspondent )
Roughly two thirds of Malaysia's population is Muslim
Religion can be a tense affair in Malaysia.
Roughly two thirds of the population is Muslim, and religious minorities have repeatedly accused the government of undermining their rights.
The interception by Malaysian authorities of thousands of Bibles bound for Christians in the country has produced the latest flashpoint.
The reason - the Bibles use the word Allah to describe God, and that's been banned by the government.
It says the risk of causing upset to Muslims is too great.
Muslim groups claim that Christian use of a word so closely associated with Islam in Bibles and children's books could be aimed at winning converts.
Religion is closely associated with ethnicity in Malaysia, with ethnic Malays obliged to be Muslim.
Ethnic Indians and Chinese who practise Hinduism and Buddhism are welcome to convert to Islam, but Muslims are not allowed to adopt another faith.
The Malaysian government confiscated 5,000 Bibles earlier this year as they were imported from Indonesia, and it has now intercepted another 10,000.
But Christian leaders - representing a little under 10% of the population - say Malays have been using the word Allah to refer generally to God for hundreds of years.
Christians are now fighting back.
An Evangelical church launched a legal action in an attempt to win the right to refer to God as Allah in children's books.
The Roman Catholic Church has also gone to court after its newspaper in Malaysia was threatened with the loss of its licence if it continued to use the word.
Christians are turning the issue into one about how minorities are treated in Malaysia.
The Christian Federation of Malaysia says the country's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and it's asking whether that can still be meaningful if Christians are denied Bibles which use their own language.
SWISS DECIDE ON MINARETS
When the treatment of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries becomes an issue, Christian-majority countries are apt to compare it unfavourably with the equality they give to Muslims.
There are about 100 mosques across Switzerland
But strict equality - at least in the architectural arena - is up for debate in one Christian-majority country: Switzerland.
Later this month the Swiss will vote in a referendum on whether to ban the construction of minarets in the country.
The proposal came from right-of-centre groups and is backed by Switzerland's biggest political party, the far-right Swiss People's Party.
There are about 100 mosques serving some 300,000 Swiss Muslims and small minarets are not unknown - although they're not used for calls to prayer.
Muslims have found allies among Switzerland's Jewish population, who have claimed that the plan would threaten religious harmony and hold up the integration of Muslims.
As in Malaysia, the constitution is being invoked by opponents of the proposal.
The two largest Jewish groups said the referendum infringed religious freedom, a concept enshrined in the Swiss constitution.
ITALIANS CROSS ABOUT CRUCIFIXES
Part of the Swiss People's Party's argument against minarets is that they are a symbol of political power - more than they are about religion.
Now with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights against the use of crucifixes in Italian schools, the same claim is being made for this symbol of Christianity.
Soile Lautsi wants to give her children a secular education and objected to the presence of a crucifix in every classroom at their school in northern Italy.
A law dating back to the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools.
The European Court said the compulsory display of a symbol of a given religion in public buildings violated the rights of parents to educate their children as they wished.
A law from the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools
The ruling has produced an angry response from politicians and church leaders who say the crucifix is much more than a religious symbol in Italy.
Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", not a mark of Catholicism.
The Reverend Frederico Lombardi said the European court should not interfere in what was a profoundly Italian issue, and said it was wrong to imply that the crucifix could be a sign of division or exclusion.
Soile Lautsi's case is similar to one brought in 1995 by a parent in the German state of Bavaria.
A German constitutional court decided it was against religious freedom for crucifixes to be imposed in classrooms.
The Bavarian parliament came up with a new law, requiring the removal of crucifixes - but only if a parent insisted.
The US Supreme Court has also had to decide whether religious symbols break the constitution, and its separation of church and state.
It recently ruled against the positioning of framed copies of the 10 Commandments in two courtrooms in Kentucky, because they had a "predominantly religious purpose".
However, the court did acknowledge that even the 10 Commandments - taken from the Book of Exodus in the Bible - could be displayed, if it was done to illustrate the country's legal history.
It said a monument outside a government building in Texas could continue to display the Commandments, which the Bible describes being given to Moses by God.
But even without court rulings some Italian Christians suspect that long-established traditions are under threat by the changing atmosphere.
Among the casualties, they complain that schools are abandoning nativity plays for fear of offending people from other faiths.
Faith Diary: Whose God is Allah?
By Robert Pigott (Religious Affairs correspondent )
Roughly two thirds of Malaysia's population is Muslim
Religion can be a tense affair in Malaysia.
Roughly two thirds of the population is Muslim, and religious minorities have repeatedly accused the government of undermining their rights.
The interception by Malaysian authorities of thousands of Bibles bound for Christians in the country has produced the latest flashpoint.
The reason - the Bibles use the word Allah to describe God, and that's been banned by the government.
It says the risk of causing upset to Muslims is too great.
Muslim groups claim that Christian use of a word so closely associated with Islam in Bibles and children's books could be aimed at winning converts.
Religion is closely associated with ethnicity in Malaysia, with ethnic Malays obliged to be Muslim.
Ethnic Indians and Chinese who practise Hinduism and Buddhism are welcome to convert to Islam, but Muslims are not allowed to adopt another faith.
The Malaysian government confiscated 5,000 Bibles earlier this year as they were imported from Indonesia, and it has now intercepted another 10,000.
But Christian leaders - representing a little under 10% of the population - say Malays have been using the word Allah to refer generally to God for hundreds of years.
Christians are now fighting back.
An Evangelical church launched a legal action in an attempt to win the right to refer to God as Allah in children's books.
The Roman Catholic Church has also gone to court after its newspaper in Malaysia was threatened with the loss of its licence if it continued to use the word.
Christians are turning the issue into one about how minorities are treated in Malaysia.
The Christian Federation of Malaysia says the country's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and it's asking whether that can still be meaningful if Christians are denied Bibles which use their own language.
SWISS DECIDE ON MINARETS
When the treatment of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries becomes an issue, Christian-majority countries are apt to compare it unfavourably with the equality they give to Muslims.
There are about 100 mosques across Switzerland
But strict equality - at least in the architectural arena - is up for debate in one Christian-majority country: Switzerland.
Later this month the Swiss will vote in a referendum on whether to ban the construction of minarets in the country.
The proposal came from right-of-centre groups and is backed by Switzerland's biggest political party, the far-right Swiss People's Party.
There are about 100 mosques serving some 300,000 Swiss Muslims and small minarets are not unknown - although they're not used for calls to prayer.
Muslims have found allies among Switzerland's Jewish population, who have claimed that the plan would threaten religious harmony and hold up the integration of Muslims.
As in Malaysia, the constitution is being invoked by opponents of the proposal.
The two largest Jewish groups said the referendum infringed religious freedom, a concept enshrined in the Swiss constitution.
ITALIANS CROSS ABOUT CRUCIFIXES
Part of the Swiss People's Party's argument against minarets is that they are a symbol of political power - more than they are about religion.
Now with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights against the use of crucifixes in Italian schools, the same claim is being made for this symbol of Christianity.
Soile Lautsi wants to give her children a secular education and objected to the presence of a crucifix in every classroom at their school in northern Italy.
A law dating back to the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools.
The European Court said the compulsory display of a symbol of a given religion in public buildings violated the rights of parents to educate their children as they wished.
A law from the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools
The ruling has produced an angry response from politicians and church leaders who say the crucifix is much more than a religious symbol in Italy.
Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", not a mark of Catholicism.
The Reverend Frederico Lombardi said the European court should not interfere in what was a profoundly Italian issue, and said it was wrong to imply that the crucifix could be a sign of division or exclusion.
Soile Lautsi's case is similar to one brought in 1995 by a parent in the German state of Bavaria.
A German constitutional court decided it was against religious freedom for crucifixes to be imposed in classrooms.
The Bavarian parliament came up with a new law, requiring the removal of crucifixes - but only if a parent insisted.
The US Supreme Court has also had to decide whether religious symbols break the constitution, and its separation of church and state.
It recently ruled against the positioning of framed copies of the 10 Commandments in two courtrooms in Kentucky, because they had a "predominantly religious purpose".
However, the court did acknowledge that even the 10 Commandments - taken from the Book of Exodus in the Bible - could be displayed, if it was done to illustrate the country's legal history.
It said a monument outside a government building in Texas could continue to display the Commandments, which the Bible describes being given to Moses by God.
But even without court rulings some Italian Christians suspect that long-established traditions are under threat by the changing atmosphere.
Among the casualties, they complain that schools are abandoning nativity plays for fear of offending people from other faiths.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Canada and India: why should the worlds meet?
With Canadian primeminister stephen Harper soon visiting India, i was googling to find some more info on it.
Here is an article by Haroon Siddiqui in www.thestar.com ( http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/724584)
Tips for Harper's trip to India
Ottawa has been far too slow to recognize its dynamic economy and geopolitical clout
If I were Stephen Harper and going on my first visit to India – landing in Mumbai Sunday to meet business leaders, then New Delhi to confer with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and others – I'd do the following:
Ignore the Canadian media's portrayal of India as orientalist exotica and the epicentre of some of the world's worst problems.
India is also an economic and geopolitical giant, in some respects more important than China. Besides democracy and English, it boasts a population that's much younger than China's.
Its $1 trillion economy equals Canada's, and is growing at 6.7 per cent this year, compared with the stagnant economies of the West.
India is spending as much as Canada, more than $1 billion, on development projects in Afghanistan.
India's army is the fourth largest in the world. Its navy rules the Indian Ocean. Its capacity to build satellites, missiles, fighter jets, etc. exceeds ours.
India is a serious global player.
Understand also that Ottawa has been painfully slow to recognize this reality.
The U.S. has been wooing India for years. Bill Clinton's 1999 visit was one of the best foreign policy charm offensives I've ever seen. George W. Bush followed with a realpolitik gift of a civilian nuclear deal, setting aside American anger over India turning nuclear and balking at the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Russia and France have since negotiated their own accords, wanting to tap the $100 billion bonanza of Indian nuclear energy needs.
Ottawa could have taken a principled stance and refused to sell uranium (as has Australia). Or it could have stopped acting peeved and opened some doors for our (largely Ontario-based) nuclear sector.
It did neither and has been plodding along, despite Harper's initial enthusiasm. Unless he has something dramatic to say, a photo-op on the nuclear file will only draw yawns in Delhi.
Know that while bilateral trade jumped to $4.6 billion in 2008, rising by a fifth over 2007, India's trade with the U.S. and China rose proportionately more (each now in the $45 billion range).
Believe it or not, India is investing more in Canada than we are there ($1.02 billion vs. $800 million). Indian conglomerates have taken over Canadian firms in the forestry, steel and pharmaceutical sectors, and are using Canada as a gateway to the U.S.
Remember that there are 100,000 Indian students in the U.S., 80,000 in Australia, 30,000 in the U.K. but only 4,000 in Canada.
This even though our universities are top-notch, cost less and provide a welcoming environment (unlike Australia, where Indian students have faced racist incidents). Plus Ottawa is offering foreign students the opportunity to eventually apply for immigrant status (eminently sensible, given that they're likely to integrate more easily).
"My assumption is that Canada does not sell itself aggressively in India," says S.M. Gavai, India's high commissioner in Ottawa.
Not just that. The provinces compete with each other in India. And they and the feds don't coordinate their actions.
"Canada has lagged hopelessly behind in the higher education field," writes David Malone, our former high commissioner to India (2006-08), one of our most successful envoys there. His article, Building Stronger Ties Between India and Canada: Better Late Than Never, posted on the Asia Pacific Foundation website, is very much worth reading.
Resist partisanship and promote the visits to India of Dalton McGuinty (Dec. 6-11, his second) and Jean Charest (in February).
Some Ontario universities – York, McMaster, Toronto, Waterloo and Windsor, in particular – have been working hard to forge links in India. They could use a prime ministerial push.
So could the 25 clean energy companies going with McGuinty.
Don't lecture the Indians on the environment. They, like the Chinese, balk at binding limits on carbon emissions.
India will not be deprived of economic uplift, especially by those who have been polluting for a century or more.
To the counter-argument that global warming cannot be reduced without India's and China's help, India says: If that's the case, subsidize our conversion to green technologies. What's our response?
It is what many Indian scientists themselves are saying: India cannot reach its economic goals amid environmental degradation: deforestation, sinking water tables, rising salinity, drying rivers and lakes.
Joint projects are the way to go.
Don't let Prime Minister Singh's modesty, mild manner and soft voice lull you into forgetting that he is one of the world's foremost economists, who also happens to hold power. Ditto his economic adviser, Montek Singh Ahluwalia (who was in Toronto in April, for an energy conference).
Don't even try to play in their economic league. Cultivate them instead on what interests them – India's role in the G20, which Canada is hosting next June in Huntsville, and for which Ahluwalia is India's designated envoy.
Prevail on Prime Minister Singh to also visit Montreal to receive his honourary doctorate from McGill.
Treat him as the historic figure he is. He was the architect of India's economic turnaround in the 1990s as finance minister. With his innate decency and honesty, he has as prime minister single-handedly broken the decades-long grip of corrupt and parochial regional leaders, and restored a national vision, thereby positioning India for yet another giant leap forward.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/724584
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.
Here is an article by Haroon Siddiqui in www.thestar.com ( http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/724584)
Tips for Harper's trip to India
Ottawa has been far too slow to recognize its dynamic economy and geopolitical clout
If I were Stephen Harper and going on my first visit to India – landing in Mumbai Sunday to meet business leaders, then New Delhi to confer with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and others – I'd do the following:
Ignore the Canadian media's portrayal of India as orientalist exotica and the epicentre of some of the world's worst problems.
India is also an economic and geopolitical giant, in some respects more important than China. Besides democracy and English, it boasts a population that's much younger than China's.
Its $1 trillion economy equals Canada's, and is growing at 6.7 per cent this year, compared with the stagnant economies of the West.
India is spending as much as Canada, more than $1 billion, on development projects in Afghanistan.
India's army is the fourth largest in the world. Its navy rules the Indian Ocean. Its capacity to build satellites, missiles, fighter jets, etc. exceeds ours.
India is a serious global player.
Understand also that Ottawa has been painfully slow to recognize this reality.
The U.S. has been wooing India for years. Bill Clinton's 1999 visit was one of the best foreign policy charm offensives I've ever seen. George W. Bush followed with a realpolitik gift of a civilian nuclear deal, setting aside American anger over India turning nuclear and balking at the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Russia and France have since negotiated their own accords, wanting to tap the $100 billion bonanza of Indian nuclear energy needs.
Ottawa could have taken a principled stance and refused to sell uranium (as has Australia). Or it could have stopped acting peeved and opened some doors for our (largely Ontario-based) nuclear sector.
It did neither and has been plodding along, despite Harper's initial enthusiasm. Unless he has something dramatic to say, a photo-op on the nuclear file will only draw yawns in Delhi.
Know that while bilateral trade jumped to $4.6 billion in 2008, rising by a fifth over 2007, India's trade with the U.S. and China rose proportionately more (each now in the $45 billion range).
Believe it or not, India is investing more in Canada than we are there ($1.02 billion vs. $800 million). Indian conglomerates have taken over Canadian firms in the forestry, steel and pharmaceutical sectors, and are using Canada as a gateway to the U.S.
Remember that there are 100,000 Indian students in the U.S., 80,000 in Australia, 30,000 in the U.K. but only 4,000 in Canada.
This even though our universities are top-notch, cost less and provide a welcoming environment (unlike Australia, where Indian students have faced racist incidents). Plus Ottawa is offering foreign students the opportunity to eventually apply for immigrant status (eminently sensible, given that they're likely to integrate more easily).
"My assumption is that Canada does not sell itself aggressively in India," says S.M. Gavai, India's high commissioner in Ottawa.
Not just that. The provinces compete with each other in India. And they and the feds don't coordinate their actions.
"Canada has lagged hopelessly behind in the higher education field," writes David Malone, our former high commissioner to India (2006-08), one of our most successful envoys there. His article, Building Stronger Ties Between India and Canada: Better Late Than Never, posted on the Asia Pacific Foundation website, is very much worth reading.
Resist partisanship and promote the visits to India of Dalton McGuinty (Dec. 6-11, his second) and Jean Charest (in February).
Some Ontario universities – York, McMaster, Toronto, Waterloo and Windsor, in particular – have been working hard to forge links in India. They could use a prime ministerial push.
So could the 25 clean energy companies going with McGuinty.
Don't lecture the Indians on the environment. They, like the Chinese, balk at binding limits on carbon emissions.
India will not be deprived of economic uplift, especially by those who have been polluting for a century or more.
To the counter-argument that global warming cannot be reduced without India's and China's help, India says: If that's the case, subsidize our conversion to green technologies. What's our response?
It is what many Indian scientists themselves are saying: India cannot reach its economic goals amid environmental degradation: deforestation, sinking water tables, rising salinity, drying rivers and lakes.
Joint projects are the way to go.
Don't let Prime Minister Singh's modesty, mild manner and soft voice lull you into forgetting that he is one of the world's foremost economists, who also happens to hold power. Ditto his economic adviser, Montek Singh Ahluwalia (who was in Toronto in April, for an energy conference).
Don't even try to play in their economic league. Cultivate them instead on what interests them – India's role in the G20, which Canada is hosting next June in Huntsville, and for which Ahluwalia is India's designated envoy.
Prevail on Prime Minister Singh to also visit Montreal to receive his honourary doctorate from McGill.
Treat him as the historic figure he is. He was the architect of India's economic turnaround in the 1990s as finance minister. With his innate decency and honesty, he has as prime minister single-handedly broken the decades-long grip of corrupt and parochial regional leaders, and restored a national vision, thereby positioning India for yet another giant leap forward.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/724584
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.
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