The NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, made it clear where he stood on Islamic law as practised in Australia. ”When it comes to sharia ”¦ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is no place in Australia for sharia law, full stop,” he said.

But the reality for Muslims might not be so clear cut. From the religious requirements for divorce to issues around seeking a loan, the detailed religious regulatory system of all aspects of life is practised by many in the diverse Islamic community.

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Give unto us, O Lord our God, the spirit of courage. Let no shadow oppress our spirit, lest our gloom should darken the light by which others have to live. Remove from our inmost souls all fear and distrust, and fill us daily more completely with thy love and power; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attali’a; and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. And when they arrived, they gathered the church together and declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples.

–Acts 14:25-28

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On June 28, Pope Benedict XVI named the 69-year-old Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, as the new Archbishop of Milan.

At one level, it’s tempting to read this as a lateral move. Venice actually produced three popes in the 20th century (Pius X, John XXIII, and John Paul I) to Milan’s two (Pius XI and Paul VI), so it’s not like Scola’s transfer to the See of Ambrose lifts him out of obscurity. Among insiders, he was already considered an ecclesial heavyweight and top-tier future prospect….

…Milan isn’t just a job — it’s a unique vote of papal confidence, and a platform for global leadership. Church-watchers usually assume that when a pope sends someone to Milan, he’s pointing him out as a possible successor. Benedict XVI is no naïf; he’s aware of that calculus, which means that at a minimum, he has enough confidence in Scola to put him in a place where the papacy is a live possibility.

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The new “Law on the Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion, and on Churches, Religions and Religious Communities” was enacted July 12 with backing from Hungary’s governing center-right Fidesz party.

Under the law, only 14 of 358 registered churches and religious associations will be granted legal recognition, while others will have to reapply for legal registration after two-thirds approval in parliament.

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According to a copy of the plan, obtained by POLITICO, the group would impose a two-step legislative process that would make $500 billion worth of cuts immediately followed by a second bill to create a “fast-track process” that would propose a comprehensive bill aimed at dramatically restructuring tax and spending programs. The plan calls for changes to Social Security to move on a separate track, and establishes an elaborate procedure for considering the measures on the floor.

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Paganism, a centuries-old faith, has just been officially established as a religion in England. Dating back to pre-Christian times, followers worship the land, animals, spirits and ancient gods and it’s been growing in popularity in recent years.

Its estimated that around 250,000 Brits now claim to be Pagans.

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The Episcopal Church, which has been strained by gay-rights issues since the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire eight years ago, is now divided over how to respond to the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York.

As a result, gay and lesbian Episcopalians will be allowed on Sunday to get married by priests in Brooklyn and Queens, but not in the Bronx or Manhattan or on Staten Island; in Syracuse but not in Albany.

That is because the church has not taken a firm position nationally on same-sex marriage, leaving local bishops with wide latitude to decide what priests may do when the law takes effect in New York State. In the state, with six Episcopal dioceses, the bishops are split: two have given the green light for priests to officiate at same-sex marriages, one has said absolutely not, two are undecided and one has staked out a middle ground, allowing priests to bless, but not officiate at, weddings of gay men and lesbians.

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The current crisis at News International and deep within the British establishment is much more than the presenting issue of phone hacking. I almost want to say that it’s become a theological issue in so far as it’s become a properly basic question about who gets to wield judgment within our society.

Last Friday the Times headline referred to Rupert Murdoch’s apology as constituting a Day of Atonement. But those who know the Jewish calendar will know that Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment, comes before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In other words, judgment comes first, then atonement. And so it is that those media titans who have wielded so much judgment in our society are now to present themselves to the scrutiny of the House of Commons later on today. Those who have judged others will now themselves be subject to judgment.

Read it all or you may find the audio there.

The study linked these disciplinary actions to lower rates of graduation and higher rates of later criminal activity and found that minority students were more likely than whites to face the more severe punishments.

“In the last 20 to 25 years, there have been dramatic increases in the number of suspensions and expulsions,” said Michael Thompson, who headed the study as director of the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan group. “This quantifies how you’re in the minority if you have not been removed from the classroom at least once. This is not just being sent to the principal’s office, and it’s not after-school detention or weekend detention or extra homework. This is in the student’s record.”

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There’s no tally of how many churches, synagogues and mosques convert public school spaces into prayer places for the nominal cost of permits and promises to make no permanent changes in the school setting. What’s clear is that there has been a steady rise in numbers as congregations find schools are available, affordable and accessible to families they want to reach.

Critics, including some courts, are concerned that these arrangements are an unconstitutional entanglement of church and state. They say these bargain permits effectively subsidize religious congregations who would have to pay steeply higher prices on the open market. They also note that the practice appears to favor Christian groups, which worship on Sundays ”” when school spaces are most often available.

Caught in the middle: churches such as Forest Hills, which spent $3,000 for a permit to use P.S. 144 from February through June and just renewed for July and August. For September and beyond, however, nothing is certain.

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Baby boomers say their biggest health fear is cancer. Given their waistlines, heart disease and diabetes should be atop that list, too.

Boomers are more obese than other generations, a new poll finds, setting them up for unhealthy senior years.

And for all the talk of “60 is the new 50” and active aging, even those who aren’t obese need to do more to stay fit, according to the Associated Press-LifeGoes Strong.com poll.

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International soccer authorities and law enforcement officials are struggling to combat rampant game fixing by what they describe as sprawling networks of organized crime, a problem that has plagued the sport for decades but appears to have intensified recently.

Game-fixing scandals are engulfing men’s professional leagues around the world, from Turkey, whose top officials are meeting this week to determine whether the coming season will have to be delayed pending an investigation, to South Korea, where dozens of players have been indicted over the past several weeks. Authorities attribute the apparent burst of fixing cases to sophisticated criminal operations based in Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

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It’s not that Republicans needed to tug their forelock and go along with whatever grand bargain the White House whipped up. But to win the endgame, they needed something they were willing to concede, something they could tout in public as an example of meeting the Democrats partway.

Their inability to make even symbolic concessions has turned a winning hand into a losing one. A majority of Americans want to close the deficit primarily with spending cuts ”” which is to say, they’re primed to side with conservatives in the debt-ceiling debate. But in trying to turn that “primarily” into a “completely,” the right has squandered this advantage….

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In February, President Obama submitted his budget. The CBO reported that it would steeply boost the national debt.

In April, the president released a revised deficit-reduction plan so short on detail that the CBO deemed it too vague to evaluate.

Also in April, the Senate unanimously rejected the president’s February budget. Since then, the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the White House have put forward no clear budget approach….

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England is also the scene of a vigorous dispute over euthanasia. In June the BBC broadcast a documentary made by author Terry Pratchett. He suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and has been campaigning for a change in the law regarding assisted suicide….

The program comes at a time when a privately sponsored commission — the Commission on Assisted Dying — is holding an inquiry into assisted suicide.
It is headed by a former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer. Funding comes from Terry Pratchett and businessman Bernard Lewis, the Guardian newspaper reported last Nov. 30.
Critics have pointed out that it is hardly likely to be impartial, given Pratchett’s involvement as an active campaigner in favor of assisted suicide….

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“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, a member of the Church of Scotland that has Presbyterian roots, initially avoided talking explicitly about her faith. “To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious,” Ms. Rowling said in 2007. “But I never wanted to talk too openly about it, because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going.”

Ms. Rowling is hardly the first author to face misunderstanding from a religious audience. Before C.S. Lewis became well known as a Christian, he noted that most British reviewers missed the underlying theology in his science fiction “Space” trilogy. Christian writer Madeleine L’Engle was criticized by some for the magic elements in “A Wrinkle in Time.” On the other hand, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” appeared to escape similar scrutiny despite his characters’ use of magic.

Since the seventh Potter book came out in 2007, Ms. Rowling””who acknowledged the influence of Tolkien and Lewis on her work””has drawn more explicit religious parallels. She suggested that the two Bible verses found on tombstones in the final book almost epitomized the whole series: “And the last enemy that shall be defeated is death” and “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

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Merciful God, who didst call thy servant Macrina to reveal in her life and her teaching the riches of thy grace and truth: Mercifully grant that we, following her example, may seek after thy wisdom and live according to her way; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

We give thee humble and hearty thanks, O most merciful Father, for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men, for the blessings of this life and for the promise of everlasting happiness. And as we are bound, we especially thank thee for the mercies which we have received: for health and strength and the manifold enjoyments of our daily life; for the opportunities of learning, for the knowledge of thy will, for the means of serving thee in thy Church, and for the love thou hast revealed to us in thy Son, our Saviour; to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit be praise and glory for ever and ever.

–B. F. Westcott (1825-1901)

Then Ab’igail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two skins of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched grain, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. And as she rode on the ass, and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them. Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good. God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”

–1 Samuel 25:18-22

Libyan rebels say they are largely in control of the key eastern town of Brega, after close fighting in residential areas.

Rebels say forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi are retreating west towards Ras Lanuf.

The Libyan government denies the claims, insisting it is still in full control of Brega and has killed more than 500 rebels there.

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The district of Mayfair offers a keen example of the pastoral problems that crop up in a complex city like London. Christ Church, a nondescript edifice, was built in 1865 to accommodate servants of parishioners worshiping at nearby St. George’s Hanover Square.

In the 1980s the local residential population amounted to little more than a few hundred. Sunday worship gradually fizzled out. For some years the building was used on Friday lunchtimes by a group called Christians in Property, Mayfair being an important location for London property businesses. For all sorts of reasons Christ Church proved to be one of those pieces of church property that proved impossible to redevelop or sell off.

Yet contrary to every expectation, today a thriving congregation meets at Christ Church. There are three clergy and a women’s worker, two lay workers and an administrator. It runs an apprenticeship scheme for people who want to gain experience in full-time ministry. It supports several people engaged in international mission.

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Dr Rowan Williams is understood to have lost confidence in the Rev George Pitcher, his public affairs secretary, and agreed that he should leave his post at the end of the summer.

It is understood the situation came to a head when Mr Pitcher made a crude joke about the Archbishop in the Daily Telegraph’s diary column following criticism of Dr Williams’ attacks on the coalition.

Previously Mr Pitcher had played a key part in arranging the Archbishop’s guest editorship of the New Statesman magazine last month, which Dr Williams used to launch a strident critique of David Cameron’s policies.

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Over the past half-century, Fidel and Raul Castro have ensured ”” through exile, purges and execution ”” that no political figure or generation has emerged as their obvious successors. Time and again, the brothers have stacked the ruling Cuban Communist Party with gray hard-liners nearly as old as they are, determined to preserve their revolutionary legacy.

Given this reality, post-Castro Cuba will need someone trusted by all segments of society to help shepherd this nation into a new era, without bloodshed or upheaval. Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana, is that man. The son of a sugar mill worker, Ortega is uniquely equipped to fill any power vacuum.

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The financial markets see the Italian premier as a burden on Italy and, by remaining in office, he is unsettling investors, writes the Financial Times. Some of Berlusconi’s own supporters now fear that the prime minister and his scandals could irretrievably drive the country into a debt spiral. “Everyone is afraid of the contradictions between what Berlusconi needs for political survival and what the markets need,” says columnist Francesco Sisci.

“Your government is harming Italy,” opposition politician Anna Finocchiaro told the premier last Thursday. “This great country would be much better off without you.”

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Five years ago, I was among those who argued that the probability of a collapse of the eurozone was close to zero. Last year, I wrote it was no longer trivial, but small. The odds have risen steadily since, not because of the crisis itself, but the political response. I now would put the odds of a break-up of the eurozone at 50:50. This is not because I doubt the pledge by the European Council to do whatever it takes to save the euro but because I fear it has left things too late. The council may be willing but it will not be able to deliver. As I argued last week, a eurozone bond is the only solution to the crisis. But this gets progressively more expensive, and politically less realistic, once bond spreads of large countries widen.

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Psychology experiments showed that people presented with difficult questions began to think of computers.

When participants knew that facts would be available on a computer later, they had poor recall of answers but enhanced recall of where they were stored.

The researchers say the internet acts as a “transactive memory” that we depend upon to remember for us.

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Are they ‘Generation Y Bother’ ”” or are they smarter than their parents?

Members of Generation Y are living with their folks longer and delaying such rites of adulthood as marriage and children, new data show.

One prominent economist said that, far from describing a generation of slackers, the data actually signify how “frighteningly calculating” this current cohort of young adults is.

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