Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:03 pm (GMT -5)

Friday, August 31, 2007

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African religious leaders praised the more than 25 years of dialogue between the Vatican and Muslim-dominated Libya during an interfaith meeting held in the Libyan capital of Tripoli this week.

Leaders from across the continent from seven major religions in Africa – Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Baha’i, Judaism, and African Traditional Religion – gathered Aug. 27-30 for the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa meeting.

During the meeting, religious leaders held up the little known but long-standing Vatican-Libya dialogue as a model of good relations between Christianity and Islam.

“Given the global situation between Christians and Muslims which is understood to be very tense because of what happened on Sept. 11 [2001], I think this is a very good contribution,” said the Rev. Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation to Ecumenical News International. Noko was the convener of the African interfaith meeting.

The population in the former Italian colony is 97 percent Sunni Muslim with a small Roman Catholic community, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The chairperson of the Muslim Councils for East, Central and Southern Africa, the Sheikh Saleh Habimana, said representatives from the Catholic Church and Tripoli hold discussions every year to build bridges across the two faiths.

“We meet yearly,” said Habimana, who is also the Mufti of Rwanda, according to ENI. “One year in Tripoli and the other at the Vatican. We have been discussing how we can work together in areas of common interest, such as refugees and education.”

Vatican and Libyan representatives are discussing the issue of Muslim students being taught in Christian schools.

“As you know most schools in Africa belong to churches and to some extent to Muslims,” Habimana said. “We have been discussing the sensitivities in acquiring education in such schools.”

The Rev. Maloba Wesoga, the administrative secretary of Nairobi’s Catholic diocese, praised the dialogue as an “indispensable initiative” to promote unity in diversity.

Although in theory, Libya is governed by the people, its government has been criticized as an authoritarian state. Only two churches were allowed to remain open after the 1969 revolution brought Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to power. However, one of the churches was confiscated a few years later.

In 1976, the Holy See organized an Islam-Christian congress held in Tripoli, which has since led to the annual dialogue.

The Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa meeting was organized by the Union of Muslim Councils for East, Central and Southern Africa.

Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back

Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:08 pm (GMT -5)

Pope attends environmentally friendly youth festival in run-up to Sydney World Youth Day

AP

2007-08-31 19:12:57

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VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI is taking a new step in the Vatican’s environmental campaign, leading a Catholic youth festival this weekend where participants will use recycled prayer books, biodegradable plates and recycling bags for their trash.

About 300,000 young Catholics are expected to attend the festival in Loreto, home of Italy’s most famous Marian shrine, in a run-up to next year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia.

The festival coincides with the Catholic Church’s «Save Creation Day,» and has a decidedly eco-friendly theme. Each participant will be given a knapsack _ made of recycled nylon _ containing a hand-cranked battery recharger, three sets of biodegradable plates and three bags for recycling trash.

The prayer books for Benedict’s Sunday Mass will be made out of recycled paper, hydrogen cars will be on display and trees will be planted in areas of southern Italy recently devastated by forest fires to make up for the CO2 emissions the festival generates, organizers said.

The message about caring for the environment will be entrusted not just with words, but with the young people’s gestures and the things they use,» said one of the event’s organizers, the Rev. Paolo Giulietti.

The Italian company Novamont said the use of 400,000 of its biodegradable plates would amount to a reduction of C02 emissions of 8 tons. As a result, it said, Loreto will be an «environmentally low-impact» event.

The Vatican has been going greener under Benedict, installing photovoltaic cells on the roof of its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity and joining a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions.

Just this week, the pope bemoaned the destruction wrought by the recent forest fires in Greece and Italy, saying the blazes destroyed «humanity’s precious environmental patrimony.

Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, frequently spoke out about the need to care for God’s creation. And the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, is known as the «green patriarch» for his environmental initiatives.

The head of the Italian bishops’ conference, Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco, told Vatican Radio it was the responsibility of the Church to teach its young about caring for the planet.

The youth rally has a poignant aspect: Loreto was dear to John Paul, and was the site of his final pilgrimage, in September 2004.

The city is famous for the Holy House, a simple stone cottage that the faithful believe was the house in Nazareth where the Virgin Mary was raised and received the annunciation. Legend has it that angels transported it from the Holy Land to the Loreto area, in central Italy near the Adriatic coast, in 1294.

Benedict is due to visit the cottage for a moment of prayer Saturday night after taking questions from the youths. On Sunday, he will celebrate a morning Mass and return to the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome for the rest of his summer holiday.

The Loreto meeting, organized by the Italian bishops’ conference, is in many ways an Italian warm-up for World Youth Day, to be held in Sydney July 15-20. The 80-year-old Benedict is expected to journey to Australia for that event.

Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:40 pm (GMT -5)
Religion and Spirituality.Com

August 31, 2007

Actor Ian McKellan

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British Actor Ian McKellen admitted to ripping out pages of hotel Bibles that contain verses condemning homosexuality. In an Aug. 10 interview on New Zealand’s TV1 Close Up program, McKelin confirmed the rumor that when he stays in hotels he "rips the part of the Bible out that criticizes homosexuality," LifeSiteNews reported Thursday.

"Yes it is true," responded McKellen to the interviewer’s question. "It’s Leviticus 18:22 that I object to, or is it 22:18, I’ve always got to look it up. ‘Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination.’ And they, I think the punishment for an abomination was being stoned to death," he said.

"I think it’s rather obscene and pornographic, and shouldn’t be there, so I remove it," he said.

McKellen first admitted publicly to the activity in 2004 in an interview with the UK Telegraph. In May last year, McKellen campaigned for homosexual "marriage" in Britain, saying a new law allowing homosexual civil unions did not go far enough.

Ironically, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings whose hero Gandalf is played by McKellen in the blockbuster movie, believed homosexuality was a disorder and staunchly defended traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality. In Tolkein’s letter to his 21 year-old son Michael, he wrote "The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject."

Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back

Original post by spirituality - Google News and software by Elliott Back