Belfast is in many ways still a deeply divided city, but last week young people from Catholic and Protestant communities – who live apart and go to religiously segregated schools – played music together at Belfast Summer School of Traditional Music, as part of the week long Belfast TradFest. From the sound of bagpipes echoing Read more
Last June, Shashank Sharma embarked on a mission to visit the highest number of places of worship in a month. He successfully visited 76 sacred spaces, including Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples, Sikh gurdwaras, mosques, churches, and a Baha’i place of worship. In May of this year, Guinness World Records confirmed and certified his impressive Read more
The late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ‘walk of hope’ between the Anglican and Catholic churches in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen gave church leaders cause to reflect. The walk of hope was a simple street crossing: from the Protestant St Macartin’s Cathedral to the Catholic St Michael’s Church. It was an uncomplicated act with powerful Read more
A Manawatū District councillor is not backing down from his opinion about the use of non-Christian prayers at council meetings. Steve Bielski says he would not accept Muslims or any non-Christians praying at the council because they believed in different gods. Councillors were discussing a proposal to invite members of different faiths to open meetings Read more
A survey of 1000 New Zealanders was carried out to find what impact, if any, the terror attack in Christchurch had on people’s trust levels. There is no evidence in the results of local anti-Semitism or Islamophobia in the form of a trust deficit displayed towards Jews or Muslims compared to mainstream Christian denominations. But Read more
Last week the NZ Cartoon Archive at Wellington’s Alexander Turnbull Library published Mike Grimshaw’s Bishops, Boozers, Brethren & Burkas, which looks at religion in New Zealand through the eyes of the country’s cartoonists from the 1860s to the present day. Grimshaw’s book shows that the events of 15 March in Christchurch were not simply an Read more
Kmart is under fire for banning words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Church’ on their photo kiosks while ‘Islam’ and ‘Mosque’ are OK. Australian Kmart customers Anthony Dorsett and his wife, Marelynda, were attempting to print photographs for a church group in a kiosk at Kmart. They found that certain Christian-related words — including “God,” “church,” “Jesus,” “Jewish” Read more
Something’s not quite right here. The 21st-century buzzwords are diversity and inclusivity, but they seem to be applied very selectively. It seems we’re in favour of diversity and inclusivity if we’re talking about race, colour, gender and sexual identity, the latter two of which keep spinning off into ever-new permutations. But puzzlingly, we’re only partially Read more
Pope Francis’s meetings in Morocco have underlined the importance of religious liberty and its connection to the dignity and rights owed to every person, regardless of their religion. On Saturday, the first day of a two-day trip, he told Morocco’s Catholic community they should avoid attempting to convert Muslims. Instead, he suggested they should seek Read more
On the weekend, a Catholic school that lost one its old boys in the Christchurch mosque attack paid tribute by performing a haka and waiata. And on Wednesday At Al-Madinah School in Māngere, Auckland, a haka, prayer and waiata rang out at an assembly to remember those affected by the Christchurch mosque shootings. St Thomas of Read more