General

From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons.

Vatican City: Church abuse scandals in Germany have reached the older brother of Pope Benedict XVI and are creeping ever closer to the pontiff himself.

The Vatican is at the center of a gay sex scandal involving a young chorister who allegedly procured men, including at least one seminarian, for a lay member of one of Pope Benedict's inner circles.

A Shillong court issued an arrest warrant against a Delhi-based publisher on Tuesday who is allegedly responsible for printing school textbooks carrying an objectionable picture of Jesus Christ.

Shillong (Meghalaya): A convent school in Shillong filed an FIR against a Delhi-based publisher for publishing a picture of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer can on the other in its cursive writing textbook.

Two snapshots from a recent tourist trip to Europe: We are in Prague, the lovely and lively capital of the Czech Republic, where the bars and cafes are full, the glitzy crystal and art shops are busy, and the dozens of historic cathedrals and churches are largely empty — except for gawking tourists snapping photos. In The Prague Post, an English-language weekly newspaper, a front-page article reports, in titillating detail, how the city has become Europe's new capital for pornographic filmmaking, while an op-ed examines why only 19% of the people in this once-religious country believe that God exists.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel reports that the number of sexual abuse cases in Germany by Catholic clerics and laymen is much higher than was previously thought.

The Church in Kerala has been hit by yet another controversy, this time by allegations from a Class IX student about sexual abuse by priests in their hostel, two weeks after her sister died of suspected poisoning at their school run by the Orthodox church.

New Delhi: Weary of international scrutiny of troubled Kandhamal district in Orissa state, officials yesterday finally allowed delegates from the European Union (EU) to visit affected areas – as long as they do no fact-finding.

More than 200 people have been poisoned after drinking 'holy water' from wells during the religious ceremony of Epiphany here in east Siberia, a local consumer regulator said Monday.

The strength of authentic religion is in keeping its tenets and knowing the threats from the outside. If in ancient Rome the leaders of the then existing religions would have said that Christianity is the enemy of freedom of religion that is going to extirpate each religion, the Christians would have shammed the “martyrs”. In ancient Rome, there were only five per cent Christians when, backed by a Christian Emperor (Constantine), this organized criminal group raped 95 per cent of the Romans to accept Christianity. This is what the fake religion of Christians (now making 6 per cent of Indian population) is going to perpetrate in India after the so-called “Mother Theresa” played the Trojan Horse and Sonia Gandhi is ready to play “Emperor Constantine” for the criminal spread of Christianity in India. The desperate Pope had partly admitted the criminality of Christianity in March 2000 for the first time. Demonstrably, the Christians needed about two millennia to admit their crimes … partly!

Dindigul (Tamil Nadu): In a shocking case of caste discrimination, a dalit has alleged that he was forced to eat human faeces by a group of 'high caste Christians' for walking with chappals in their street in the district.

CATHOLIC Church authorities in the Dublin Archdiocese covered up allegations of child sexual abuse over many years in order to avoid scandal and to protect the good name and assets of the institution, the Murphy Commission has concluded. In a 720-page report, the Commission said the structure and rules of the Catholic Church had facilitated the failure of senior bishops to pass on details of such allegations to gardaí.

The Supreme Court Wednesday admitted yet another plea for according a Scheduled Caste status to Dalits embracing Christianity, entitling them to quota in state jobs and educational institutions.

Margao (Goa): Even as church bells rang in the liturgical celebrations to mark Christmas, the sparkling star, signaling the birth of Jesus Christ, lit up a few Hindu temples in the commercial town of Margao.