Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: Bernie Sanders on his Jewish faith, the relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, Jewish safety concerns in Western Europe, and tracing culpability in the Roman Catholic Church child abuse scandal.
AROUND THE WORLD
Putin's Patriarch: Does the Kremlin Control the Church?
by George Soroka
Foreign Affairs
In a society where over 70 percent of citizens identify as Orthodox even though the percentage of active churchgoers is in the single digits, the cultural resonance of the church is as obvious as its doctrinal relevance is moot, making it ripe for political exploitation. In contemporary Russia, it is not the Orthodox Church but the jingoistic Orthodox atheist that is the regime’s greatest ally.Nigeria’s Restive North | The Wider Image
Reuters FaithWorld
Piles of rubble are all that remain of the residence of Nigeria’s most prominent Shi’ite Muslim leader after it was demolished by bulldozers in the northern city of Zaria. Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky’s compound was leveled after three days of clashes between the army and Shi’ite residents of the city in December in which rights groups say hundreds of Shi’ites were killed.
The Precarious Existence Of Iran's Sunni Muslims
by Steve Inskeep
NPR
Last month, a crowd in Tehran attacked the embassy of Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia. They were protesting Saudi Arabia's execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric who had criticized the Saudi government. The Iranian torching of the Saudi embassy became another episode in the cold war between these two regional powers. It also underlined an awkward reality: Religious faiths don't obey the borders on a map.
There are Good Reasons Why Europe’s Jews are so Worried
by Harold James
Reuters op-ed
The political leaders of France and Germany today deplore anti-Semitism and make striking gestures of solidarity with their country’s Jewish population, but the gestures seem helpless. The number of anti-Semitic incidents, as tracked by such bodies as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, is on the rise. Many Jews in many European countries, but above all in France, are contemplating leaving because they believe their homelands have become so unsafe. The political establishment tries to reassure them with the argument that the parallels with 1933 are really too much of a stretch.
Trial of Reinhold Hanning, Ex-Auschwitz Guard, Opens in Germany
by Melissa Eddy
New York Times
Reinhold Hanning, a 94-year-old former Nazi charged with being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people who perished at a concentration camp in Poland, refused to make any statements as his trial opened on Thursday in Germany, even as a survivor directly urged him to break his silence.
No ‘P’ in Arabic Means No Palestine, Israeli Lawmaker Says
by Isabel Kershner
New York Times
One of the many things that divides Israelis and Palestinians is the letter P. The consonant that prefaces prejudice and partisanship became an object of mirthon Thursday after Anat Berko, a conservative lawmaker from the governing Likud Party, said in Parliament that there could be no such place as Palestine because there is no P in Arabic.
Tracing the Bishops’ Culpability in the Child Abuse Scandal
New York Times editorial
Hierarchical accountability remains a pressing issue that the Vatican has not fully confronted in the numerous dioceses of the world where the scandal was suppressed. The pope’s 17-member commission presented fresh evidence of this failing when one of its two abuse-victim members, who had gone to the news media to criticize the slow pace of its work, was suddenly suspended on Saturday in a commission vote of no confidence.
Pope To Visit Mexico As Priests Find Themselves On Drug War's Front Lines
by Carrie Kahn
NPR
Pope Francis travels to Mexico on Friday, a country where suspected narco-traffickers have murdered nearly a dozen Catholic priests in the last few years.
DOMESTIC
The Married Priest Debate
by Phyllis Zagano
National Catholic Reporter
Supporters of a wider married priesthood in the Roman Catholic church argue for the whole church's tradition of married clergy, never abandoned by most of the 23 or so Eastern Catholic churches. The other side points to studies of failed clergy marriages and says married priests are just too expensive.
Police See Possible Hate Crime in Stabbing of Jewish Man in Brooklyn
by Benjamin Mueller
New York Times
A 25-year-old Jewish man dressed in Hasidic clothing was stabbed in the back on Wednesday as he walked along a street in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and his assailant was being sought in what the police were investigating as a possible hate crime, officials said.
Sikh American Actor Flies Home to New York Wearing His Turban
by Christine Hauser
New York Times
A well-known Sikh American actor, Waris Ahluwalia, who was not allowed to board an airplane in Mexico City because he refused to remove his turban during a security check, flew home to the United States on Wednesday, ending a two-day standoff with Aeroméxico.
Why I Have Hope For American Muslim Equality
by Hina Shamsi
Huffington Post op-ed
I do not lose hope, though. For me, a key source of inspiration comes from American Muslim communities and allies themselves. It comes from activists engaged in organizing, and from sophisticated conversations taking place all over the country about how discrimination impacts diverse American Muslim communities. It comes from interfaith and political leaders, and local business owners, who stand against anti-Muslim discrimination, like this initiative in Minneapolis. It comes from reading about Holocaust survivors who, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, decided to speak out against anti-Muslim demagoguery.
Sanders May Play Down Judaism, But He Played Big Role in Hannukah Case
by Danielle Ziri
Jerusalem Post
Jewish presidential hopeful and Democratic New Hampshire primaries winner Bernie Sanders doesn’t talk much about his Jewish background but his involvement with a Vermont case about public Hannukah displays, may have had a significant role in the 1989 US Supreme Court decision to allow Hannukah menorahs to be displayed on public property countrywide, research conducted recently by Chabad-Lubavitch revealed.
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