A group of Hindus can sue an Edison restaurant for money to travel to India, where they say they must purify their souls after eating meat, a state appellate court panel ruled Monday (July 18).

The decision reinstates a lawsuit filed against Moghul Express, the restaurant that admitted it accidentally served meat-filled pastries to 16 Hindus whose religion forbids them from eating nonvegetarian food.

The diners said the mix-up has harmed them spiritually and monetarily, and that to cleanse themselves of their sin””even though it was committed unknowingly””they must participate in a purification ritual in the Ganges River.

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When students and professors return to budget-slashing colleges this fall, they might notice things missing, such as limitless piles of food on their plates, land-line phones and trash pickup.

At Penn State University, “all you can eat” meals have been slimmed down to “all you care to eat,” and two fewer dining halls offer them, spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz says. The marketing change is to encourage gastronomic restraint.

It may be hard to swallow, but budget-cutting is the new normal at the nation’s 6,700-plus post-secondary schools.

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The segment description is as follows:

A joint conference of Catholic and Anglican experts on the Middle East, taking place at Lambeth Palace in London, has been hearing first hand accounts of the struggles of the Christian community in the Holy Land today. The two day meeting, organised by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols aims to raise greater awareness of the difficulties facing the minority Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories and find practical ways of supporting the Churches there. At the opening of the meeting on Monday, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal and his Anglican counterpart Bishop Suheil Dawani joined some young Palestinian Christians in speaking of the human face of the continuing conflict and occupation. Philippa Hitchen spoke to Patriarch Twal to find out what he hopes this conference can achieve

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Religious history has been made with the first ordination of a former Anglican clergyman in Scotland into the Catholic priesthood.

Father Len Black, 61 and a grandfather of two, was ordained into the priesthood this weekend, at a ceremony at St Mary’s Church in Greenock performed by Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley.

Father Black was an Episcopal minister for 30 years before converting to Catholicism. Until recently he was the minister at St Michael and All Angels in Inverness and was also the regional dean of Forward in Faith, the leading group of traditionalist Anglicans.

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For a man who wrote a seminal book on the shadowy nature of public relations entitled The Death of Spin, there is something rather ironic about the fact that George Pitcher ”“ the Archbishop of Canterbury’s public affairs secretary ”“ has been dismissed for what appears to have been a spin too far.

Mr Pitcher, a former industrial correspondent turned Anglican priest who styles himself as the vicar of Fleet Street, is to leave his post as Rowan Williams’ chief spin doctor after just nine months in the job.

The official reason given by Lambeth Palace is the termination of what was only ever a year-long contract. But sources within the Church of England and Westminster say Mr Pitcher’s departure was the endgame of a political fallout that began with Archbishop Williams’ damning critique of the Government’s cuts and ended with an offhand joke about canapés

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Marriage is very difficult. It’s like a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle, all sky.

–Cathy Ladman, as cited in Reader’s Digest, August 2011 edition, page 173

Though we retain the potential and many of the assets necessary to operate as a global power, a number of the enablers that we depend upon to project and sustain that influence are being eroded away, if not deleted outright. At the heart of the problem is the fact that the UK does not possess a proper national strategy, and has not done so since at least 1989.

National strategy is what enables a country to have real direction and strength. National strategy seeks to further the national interest through the effective coordination of all instruments of power, be they economic, political, cultural, military or diplomatic. It is guided by a clear understanding of what the country stands for, what sort of power it wants to be in the world, and what it understands about the geopolitical environment in which it operates….

The government will claim it has a national strategy, the National Security Strategy (NSS) released in October 2010, but that does not constitute a real national strategy, and nor can it.

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The following speeches are a selection of those made on the second day of the Conference on Christians in the Holy Land, and include an audio recording of the Archbishops’ comments at the concluding press conference.

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“This is the happiest day of my life!” So says Maci Bookout, according to a recent cover of OK! magazine, where the 19-year-old Teen Mom star and rumored bride-to-be flashes a beauty-queen smile. Sharing cover space with Bookout ”” and sporting a bikini, plus a baby on each hip ”” is Leah Messer, 19, whose dream wedding was featured in last spring’s season finale of Teen Mom 2. (One month later, she filed for divorce.) Elsewhere in the celebrity mediasphere, one might find Teen Mom’s Farrah Abraham, 20, staging a photo op for paparazzi on a Florida beach, or Abraham’s castmate Amber Portwood, 21, posing for photographers outside her latest court hearing; she was recently sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to felony domestic battery against the father of her child.

A spin-off of MTV’s popular reality series 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom recently entered its third season. With more than 3 million viewers each week, it’s the network’s top-rated show after Jersey Shore, and its subjects provide endless fodder for the tabloids.

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The following speeches are a selection of those made on the first day of the Conference on Christians in the Holy Land, hosted by Archbishop Rowan Williams and Archbishop Vincent Nichols.

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Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, is at 18.3% in mid-July — precisely the same as at the end of June and in mid-July 2010.

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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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