According to the survey, 98 percent of respondents in Senegal say religion is very important, following by 93 percent in Mali. The lowest percentage was reported in Botswana, 69 percent, which is still a healthy majority.

“That begins to paint a picture of how religious sub-Saharan Africans are,” Lugo said.

The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. More than 25,000 sub-Saharan Africans responded in face-to-face interviews in more than 60 languages.

While the study confirms that Africans are, indeed, morally conservative and religiously pious, researchers explored a variety of topics, including religious tolerance, polygamy, the role of women in society, and political and economic satisfaction.

Islam and Christianity dominate as the most popular religions in the region — a stark reversal from a century ago when Muslims and Christians were outnumbered by followers of traditional indigenous religions.

Read it all.

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Primates Council has bracketed the UK with Kenya and Uganda as nations “where Christian views are marginalised and ignored”.

England is also defined as an “Associate Par­ticipant”, along with Australia, New Zealand, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Communion Partners of the Episcopal Church in the United States, in the “Fourth Global South to South Encounter” to be held in Singapore later this month.

The Council, which constitutes the Primates of Nigeria, West Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Southern Cone, to­gether with the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, and the leader of the Anglican Church in North America, Archbishop Robert Duncan, was meeting in Bermuda as guests of the American businessman Emmanuel Kam­pouris.

Read it all.

A Chicago man will be allowed to take his 3-year-old daughter to Catholic Mass, despite protests from the girl’s Jewish mother, a Chicago judge ruled Tuesday (April 13).

The girl’s parents, Joseph Reyes and Rebecca Reyes, were married for six years before their marriage fell apart. Joseph Reyes had converted to Judaism when the child was born, and the parents agreed to raise the girl Jewish….

The judge ruled that evidence did not support the mother’s claim that “doctrinal differences” would confuse or harm her daughter.

Read it all.

Are you weighted down by your past? Anxious about tomorrow? Stewing over how to face today?

Stop. Drop those thoughts. Breathe. Be still. Just be.

Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle will tell you this is the ultimate path to inner peace, available to you any time. All you have to do is let go of all your thoughts.

Of course, that’s a lot trickier than it sounds. Hence, Tolle’s soaring popularity as a guide to living in the present un-tense.

His most recent book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, a sequel to his earlier best seller, The Power of Now, has sold 6 million copies. When Oprah Winfrey read it, she was so inspired that she invited him to co-host a 10-week set of Internet seminars on how to simply be. So far, 35 million people worldwide have viewed these “webinars.”

Read it all.

Let us sum up what we have reached so far. In the case of stones and trees and things of that sort, what we call the Laws of Nature may not be anything except a way of speaking. When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real-anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else-a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey.

–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

But even if you do suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

–1 Peter 3: 14-15

Persecution, political instability, secularism and violence are some of the challenges facing provinces in the Global South, according to a prayer guide prepared for the fourth Global South Encounter.

The Church of Uganda compiled the prayer guide for participants in the international gathering, scheduled for April 19-23 at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore.

Each of the 21 provinces lists items under the categories of “give thanks,” “commit to” or “pray for.” Even some of the “give thanks” items speak to struggles faced within the provinces.

Bishop Lawrence left for the meeting today–yours prayers are encouraged. Also, please read it all.

I have long felt that we Catholics will know that this crisis has finally been put behind us, at least in the United States, when the bishops, in one of their collective annual meetings, passes a resolution actually thanking those newspapers who revealed the slime and filth lurking inside the presbyterate of too many dioceses and the attempted cover-ups by too many chanceries. Please understand: I am not naïve about the secular media. But if the Hebrew prophets could see the hand of God at work in the attacks on ancient Israel from the Assyrian empire, then Catholics ought to be able to espy the workings of divine providence when the media bring to light crimes that should have been made public from the beginning.

I am of course referring to the revelations of the Long Lent of 2002. Recent reports by the U.S. media rehearsing those same and other American stories of the distant past in the wake of truly new revelations in Ireland and Germany, all in an effort to try to bring Pope Benedict down, are a different matter. But to explain this second wave of reports for what it is””fundamentally an anti-Catholic campaign””requires that we first recognize some fundamental rules for discerning spirits.

Read it carefully and read it all.

The media is alternately ecstatic and apoplectic over Pope Benedict’s choice for the city of Angels. Several news outlets, notably the LA Times, have already written several articles about what to expect from Archbishop Gomez and have even tried to send thinly-veiled warnings. But in most of the coverage, the media makes the same mistake that it always makes when it tries to cover religion like politics. They attempt to view all matters through the lens of politics and feel compelled to attempt to classify everything in terms of the modern political definitions of ”˜progressive’ or ”˜conservative.’…

They are perplexed. How can a Bishop be ”˜orthodox’””which in the mind of the media means ”˜conservative’ and uncaring””and still dedicated to the poor and the defenseless?

A one word answer: Catholic. What the media consistently does not get is that ”˜orthodoxy’ in a truly Catholic sense entails love for all the teachings of Jesus, as handed down through the Church including the command to love.

Read it all.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., demanded that CHA remove St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island from its membership rolls, calling its affiliation with CHA “embarrassing.”

In a March 29 letter to CHA President and Chief Executive Officer Sister Carol Keehan, Tobin said CHA had “misled the public and caused serious scandal for many members of the church.”

The CHA supported the health care bill, saying it would not increase public funding of abortion. The U.S. Catholic bishops disagreed, and urged the bill’s defeat. The bill passed on March 21, after President Obama promised to sign an executive order upholding a longstanding ban on federal funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and the poor health of the mother.

Read it all.

Praise the Lord. The investment arm of the country’s largest Anglican diocese has edged back into the black after a $160 million loss of faith in 2008.

But although a few extra prayers might have worked over the last 12 months, it appears the Sydney diocese’s Endowment Fund is still in financial purgatory. After all, the fund managed by the Glebe Administration Board suffered a decline in the value of its total assets over the year from $310 million to $290 million. Its total assets stood at $634 million two years ago.

But the 60,000-strong flock of the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, will be relieved to here that parish belt-tightening and a resurgent Australian sharemarket have helped the fund to post a profit of $11 million for the year to December 31.

Read it all.

When the pounds began to show, he turned them into a laugh line. Patting his midsection, he told audiences, “New York has grown on me.” And when the calorie-counting Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg scolded him ”” bluntly advising him to lose weight because “we’d like to keep you around for a while,” in Archbishop Dolan’s telling ”” the prelate burst into laughter and hugged him.

“Call me Timothy,” he said.

But Archbishop Dolan has some less palatable duties ahead of him. The recession has worsened a chronic budget squeeze in the archdiocese, increased demand for its frayed web of social service programs and added urgency to a long-planned realignment of resources.

The parishes and schools of the archdiocese needed an added $30 million infusion from headquarters in fiscal 2009 to meet expenses, officials said.

Whatever else it does, the good will he sows now among the archdiocese’s 2.5 million Catholics will help stem resentments when some of those places are closed, said Msgr. Thomas J. Bergin, a former vicar of archdiocesan education. “People have warmed to him,” he said. “He will need that.”

In interviews, Catholic leaders, scholars and lay people praised the friendly, politically moderate tone that Archbishop Dolan set in his first year….

Read it all.

Via email–KSH.

Today, the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the church property case appeal made by The Episcopal Church and Diocese of Virginia challenging the ruling of the Fairfax County Circuit Court. The Circuit Court ruled in favor of nine Anglican congregations in Virginia , under the umbrella of the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), confirming that the Anglican churches could keep their property.

Steffen Johnson, who argued the case on behalf of the Anglican District of Virginia churches, stated, “We are grateful for the opportunity to defend the appeals in the Virginia Supreme Court today. The argument went very well. It was a lively bench with good questions for both sides.
We continue to feel strong about the positions outlined in our briefs and developed in the extensive record in the trial court, and we look forward to the Court’s decision.”“Our church members are standing firm for the Gospel and will remain in prayer as the Virginia Supreme Court considers the oral arguments made today,” said Jim Oakes, chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia. “I am extremely confident in our case that was eloquently presented by our legal counsel. However, it’s unfortunate that this matter is being discussed in a court of law in the first place after our numerous attempts at amicable negotiations. I, like my fellow parishioners, look forward to and pray for a quick end to the litigation so that we can completely focus our time, money and energy on bringing new believers to Christ and helping those in need. Our doors remain open wide to all who wish to worship with us.”

Bishop David Bena, Contact Bishop for the Anglican District of Virginia, added, “Members of the Anglican District of Virginia have been in a period of intensive prayer and fasting leading up to and including today. As an ordained clergyman, I know that this court case is, as it has been from the beginning, in the Lord’s hands and the will of God will determine where ADV congregations worship in His name.”

The instruction to priests accompanying fleeing Burmese refugees was simple: go if you must, but do not contact us. Concerned about danger to themselves, the Anglican diocesan officers did not wish to risk the ire of Burma’s military government. An exception could be made if there were deaths, and then the bishop would come to bury the dead.

This play-it-safe approach was typical in the past of the Church of the Province of Myanmar (CPM), also known as Burma, according to the Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo, the current Anglican archbishop there.

“The church in Myanmar needs revival,” Than said. “In the past, we just emphasized what could be done with human means.”

Representing a church that had been effectively walled off from the rest of the world for decades, the Anglican Archbishop of Myanmar spoke this week at the New Wineskins for Global Mission conference in Ridgecrest, North Carolina.

Read it all.

When I asked John L Allen, the American Catholic commentator on the Vatican, why its media strategy was failing, he responded:

“As soon as I see that they have a strategy, I will answer you! The fact is, they don’t have one, and that is where they are going wrong.”

Indeed, the absence of a coherent media strategy is evident, as a variety of Vatican personalities take it upon themselves to respond publicly to the accusations.

Read it all.

From here:

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Virginia has declined to consent to the election of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Los Angeles because, in the view of a majority of the Committee, her election is inconsistent with the moratorium agreed to by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. That majority believes that, at this time, failure by individual dioceses to respect the Church’s agreement to the moratorium would be detrimental to the good order of our Church and bring into question its reliability as an institution. The committee found no other reason to withhold its consent to the election of Canon Glasspool.

The painful irony is that TEC’s decision to reject the authority of God’s Word has been gravely injurious, and has itself caused the very division that TEC’s leaders claimed they sought to avoid. Once someone rejects Scripture, then they reject Jesus Christ and Christianity as a whole. It’s as simple as that. We could not follow a national body that rejected the very Word of God.

Our Anglican churches (under the umbrella of the Anglican District of Virginia) attempted to resolve matters with the diocese and TEC graciously and out of court, following a process that we spent almost a year developing with diocesan representatives. But the diocese and TEC abruptly broke off discussion of settlement and instead launched a legal confrontation. They sued not only our churches, but also almost 200 individual clergy and volunteer board members.

The diocese and TEC have spent millions of dollars making this legal attack against our churches. And this has forced our churches to devote time, effort, and energy to raise millions of dollars for our legal defense — all of which could and should have been used for spreading the love of God to our communities.

Read it all.

“I write everything as a wake-up call,” she says. “To myself and others, to anyone who may have gotten tired of hitting the snooze button.” Imperfect Birds is a well-informed wake-up call. Lamott is a recovering alcoholic, sober since 1986, and has just ushered her son Sam through his high school years in a bohemian enclave of Marin where drugs are there for the asking. Kids who remind her of Rosie are everywhere she turns. On this Sunday morning, she has just returned from a hike to the ocean, where she watched a search-and-rescue team look for a 17-year-old girl from Mill Valley who disappeared during an overnight party with her friends. Inside St. Andrew, Lamott’s beloved church, she offers prayers for the search. Later that day, the girl is found in the Pacific, dead.

Read it all.

For readers who do not know, I am a former Episcopalian. My personal history of religious affiliation goes something like the following. I was baptized Catholic but raised in the Episcopal church until my teen years. From then I’d attend the Episcopal church on Sunday and then Calvary Chapel for “Bible study” on Friday evenings with their youth group. This was on account of a number of reasons, not the least of which was that the youth group at the Episcopal church voted that I should leave since I wanted to read the Bible and not have pizza parties and such. The youth directors agreed given that the kinds of questions I was asking really required a “professional” response. This was after I became exasperated with the whole approach of, let’s sit in a circle and go around the room asking what each person thinks such and so verse means “to me.” At the ripe old age of 13 I blurted out, “I don’t care what it means to me, I just want to know what it means!”

Read it all.

Read it all.

From here:

After balloting concluded at the 35th convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska, the eighth bishop of the diocese was elected. The Very Rev. Mark Lattime was elected after delegates from around the state of Alaska prayerfully considered five candidates at their annual convention, held April 8-11, 2010. Ninety-seven delegates met at the Meier Lake Conference Center in Wasilla, Alaska for the electing convention.

From here:

Harv’s Metro Car Wash owner Aaron Zeff was handed a tax bill that was originally four cents but was shocked to see that the bill increased by more than 5,000 times to $202.35, according to CBS News. The tax bill dated back from 2006 and the four cents grew by that much in four years….The Sacramento Bee reports that IRS spokesperson Jesse Walker is not commenting on the case, citing privacy laws.

The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has said that the US still faces “difficult choices” in cutting the country’s deficit.

In prepared comments to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, he said that action could not be delayed.

Mr Bernanke added that weakness in the construction sector was still weighing on the economy.

His cautious comments about the recovery come despite data showing a 1.6% increase in March retail sales.

“Addressing the country’s fiscal problems will require difficult choices, but postponing them will only make them more difficult,” Mr Bernanke said.

Read it all.

On April 13, the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a property case that pitted nine churches in Loudoun and Fairfax counties against the Episcopalian Diocese of Virginia. The final decision will be made June 10 or June 11.

The Church of Our Saviour, on Oatlands Mill Road south of Leesburg, is one of the churches involved.

After the nine churches left the diocese in 2006 to join the Anglican District of Virginia, the diocese argued that the churches had forfeited the right to the properties upon which their church buildings are built. In 2008, the Fairfax County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the breakaway churches, citing section 57-9a of Virginia law.

This statute, known as the division statute, says if there is a split in a church or religious organization, a congregation may decide which branch of the church it will go to, and it may retain its property.

Read it all.

Among other things, a lawyer for the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia told the justices that the 2008 ruling relied on an 1867 state law he contends improperly favors church governance by congregation over governance by hierarchy.

At stake, say the churches, is $30 million to $40 million in buildings and other property. The hearing was packed and broadcast via a closed-circuit television to two nearby rooms to accommodate everyone wishing to attend.

After the hearing, Henry D.W. Burt II, the secretary and chief of staff for the diocese, said: “Today was simply the next step in our journey to return faithful Episcopalians to their church homes.”

Steffen N. Johnson, a lawyer for the departed churches, which formed the Anglican District of Virginia, said “the argument went very well. It was a lively bench with good questions for both sides . . . and we look forward to the court’s decision.”

Read it all.

A group of conservative former Episcopal churches tangled with the Episcopal Church and its Diocese of Virginia before the Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday over a unique state law that awards property to congregations that bolt their parent denomination.

The 90-minute session before a packed courtroom of 140 onlookers, plus more outside, appealed a Fairfax Circuit Court verdict that awarded about $30 million worth of historic property to the 11 churches that broke away from the diocese three years ago.

Five justices ”” three others had recused themselves from the case ”” grilled lawyers about the meaning and constitutionality of the state’s division statute. The 1867 law allowed congregations ”” many of which had differed with their denominations over slavery ”” to leave with their property.

Read it all.

Can a public law school exclude a Christian student group from recognition because the group’s rules forbid gays and non-Christians as members in violation of the school’s anti-discrimination code?

The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh constitutional questions around universities and religious rights when it hears arguments next Monday (April 19) in a case centered on the University of California’s law school in San Francisco.

The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, pits a campus chapter of a Christian legal group against the Hastings College of the Law and its 20-year-old nondiscrimination policy.

“Our main argument is that Christian student groups shouldn’t be forced to deny their faith in order to receive equal treatment on campus,” said Gregory Baylor, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is helping represent the CLS chapter before the high court.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church on Tuesday asked Virginia’s highest court to overturn a judge’s decision allowing nine breakaway congregations to keep church property worth an estimated $30 million to $40 million.

The northern Virginia congregations split from the Episcopal Church in a disagreement over acceptance of gays, the ordination of female clergy and theological issues. They aligned with the more conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America, which like the Episcopal Church falls under the umbrella of the Anglican Communion.

The Virginia Supreme Court could rule on the property dispute as early as June.

Lawyers for the Episcopal Church told the court that a Fairfax County judge erred in ruling that an 1867 law unique to Virginia allows the breakaway congregations to retain church buildings and other property. They also claimed the so-called “division statute” is unconstitutional because it allows the state to meddle in religious matters.

Read it all.

The proverb says: “If it’s windy on St Prudence Day, the silly sheep will dance away.” Or so it is in France at least. The feast of St Prudence is May 6, which Gordon Brown might not have known when he called the election.

Prudence is not a virtue Mr Brown speaks of much these days. He never did exemplify its classical meaning, for prudence, one of the four cardinal virtues (with fortitude, temperence and justice), is not about caution. In its true sense it might lead you to action which risks your own life.

So degraded has it become, that it might be better to call it by a different name. Ancient Greeks called it phronesis. Herbert McCabe, a 20th-century philosopher skilled in using the scalpel of intellect, preferred prudentia, the Latin term, in English “good sense”. Prudentia personified held a mirror for self-awareness (which we call “conscience”) and a serpent for wisdom, as in the painting (below) in the Uffizi, Florence.

Read it all.

The Rev. Tong himself struggled with the need for the law in his teenage years. In his talk, he expressed he had wondered why he needed to pray ”˜The Prayer of Humble Access’ during Holy Communion.

The prayer taught that Christians “do not presume” to go to the table. In addition, they “are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs” under it. At the same time he had been taught that Christians were children of God.

If Christians are tested by the message of grace, they may also be emotionally ”˜torn down’ by the law.

But obedience is not a matter of reward and punishment, the Chapel of the Resurrection vicar argued.

It is about the renewal of minds, transformation of lives and the formation of a community of service. Christians are called to put aside idolatry, overworking, immorality, dishonesty, despair and embrace a better mode of living.

Read it all.