The Hobby Horses of Belief (and assorted hazards)

The Roman Catholic diocese of Catania enacted a three-year ban on the ancient tradition of naming godparents at baptisms and christenings. Church officials argue that the once-essential figure in a child’s Catholic education has lost all spiritual significance. Instead, they say, it has become a networking opportunity for families looking to improve their fortunes, secure endowments of gold necklaces and make advantageous connections, sometimes with local power brokers who have dozens of godchildren.

God parenting, church officials say, has fallen to earth as a secular custom between relatives or neighbours – many deficient in faith or living in sin, and was now a mere method of strengthening family ties.

And sometimes mob ties, too.

In 2014, Archbishop Giuseppe Fiorini Morosini of Reggio Calabria, where the ’Ndrangheta mob is rooted, proposed a 10-year stop on godfathers, arguing in a letter to Pope Francis that a secular society had spiritually gutted the figure. That, he says, also made it ripe for exploitation by mobsters.

Morosini says that a top Vatican official, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who is now on trial in the Vatican on money laundering charges, responded that all of Calabria’s bishops needed to agree before moving ahead. They did not.

Salvatore Cuffaro, a former president of Sicily, says that he did not have many baptismal godchildren, “just about 20,” agreeing to only about 5 per cent of requests. He was sought after, he says, for his “Christian principles,” demonstrated over decades of political life.

“Despite what some priests think, I paid attention to all of my baptismal godchildren” and instructed them to go to Catholic school, he says.

Cuffaro, nicknamed “Kiss Kiss” for his tendency to kiss everyone, served nearly five years in prison for helping alert a Mafia boss that he was being wiretapped. He denied those charges, and denied that a Mafioso had ever served as godfather to anyone on the island.

“At least in Sicily, where I have lived, this doesn’t exist,” he says. “It’s only a religious bond; there are no bonds of illegality.”

Four siblings have begun a civil action against the National University of Ireland, Galway claiming they were discriminated against and victimised by college authorities because of their religious beliefs seven years ago.

Brothers Isaac and Enoch Burke and their sisters Kezia and Ammi, from Co Mayo, were all students at NUI Galway when they claim they were banned for life in November 2014 from being members of the college student societies.

All four are members of the Christian Union Society, which promotes Christian beliefs based on the authority of the scriptures. The society held meetings and events at the college and had 127 members in 2014.

The four were also committee members of the Life Society at the college, which promoted a pro-life message.

The case is being heard before Judge Raymond Groarke at Loughrea Circuit Court.

In his evidence, Isaac Burke said he received an email from the USCG, the university society co-ordination group that deals with the governance of college societies, on 10 November 2014 informing him he was barred from active membership of all societies at NUI Galway. His siblings received similar emails.

Prior to this, he said, they had had a difficult year in which their posters had been ripped down at various locations around the campus.

NUI Galway denies the claims and cannot accept the four were banned for life or that it had anything to do with their religious beliefs.

The court was told they were barred for four-and-a-half years, which was imposed for alleged misappropriation of university funds and benefits.

The proceedings, in which the four siblings are representing themselves, are due to continue for three days.

The Hindu nationalist party of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has banned the street sale of all non-vegetarian fare, including eggs and fish, in four major cities in his western home state of Gujarat as it “offended” Hindu religious sentiments.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-run municipal corporations in Gujarat’s largest city of Ahmedabad imposed the restrictions this week, following those similarly enforced in nearby Bhavnagar, Rajkot and Vadodara, which ordered the removal of non-vegetarian food carts along all major roads.

The embargo also prevents vendors from selling their merchandise within 100m of all religious places, parks and educational institutions in these cities, with local BJP councillors stating that such food had a negative impact on people’s minds, particularly children.

Since the BJP assumed federal power in 2014, it has made India’s food habits an integral part of its politics, by imposing complex bans on individual beef consumption and outlawing cow slaughter, as the animals were considered holy by India’s majority Hindu community.

Thereafter, the BJP has gradually extended this beef ban to include all other non-vegetarian fare, and over the past seven years has often proscribed its consumption during Hindu religious festivals in several states ruled by them.

In August, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh state north of Delhi completely banned the sale of meat in the temple town of Mathura, which lies some 180km from the federal capital, with a population of more than 2.6 million. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath said the restriction was being imposed at the behest of local Hindu priests.

Gujarat opposition Congress Party leader Manish Doshi declared that the ban on non-vegetarian food carts was a “diversionary tactic” by the BJP to deflect attention from more serious issues like galloping unemployment, inflation and rising fuel prices.

Other analysts said the veto on the food carts was a calculated BJP move to harass Muslims, who largely control India’s meat trade.

A little known sect led by a pastor who pokes eyes to heal is at the centre of a Covid-19 outbreak in South Korea, as the country reported a new daily record of 4,116 cases and battles a spike in serious cases straining hospitals.

In a tiny rural church in a town of 427 residents in Cheonan city, south of Seoul, at least 241 people linked to the religious community had tested positive for coronavirus, a city official said.

Many of the congregation were aged in their 60s and above and were unvaccinated, the official said. Just 17 out of the 241 confirmed cases had been vaccinated.

"I believe it's the church's anti-government beliefs that refrained the believers to get the vaccine," the official said, adding that the town was put under a lockdown.

A Roman Catholic diocese in Sicily has apologised to parents after its bishop reportedly told a group of children that Santa Claus did not exist.

At a religious event last week, Bishop Antonio Staglianò also said Santa's red costume had been chosen by Coca-Cola for publicity, Italian media report.

The comments infuriated parents.

In an apology, Rev Alessandro Paolino, from the diocese of Noto, said the bishop had tried to underline the true meaning of Christmas.

He also said the comments had been aimed at highlighting the story of Saint Nicholas, the initial inspiration for the figure of Santa Claus and known for giving gifts to the poor.

"First of all, on behalf of the bishop, I express my sorrow for this declaration, which has created disappointment in the little ones, and want to specify that Monsignor Stagliano's intentions were quite different," Rev Paolino said in a post on the diocesan Facebook page.

Rev Paolino, who is the communications director for the diocese of Noto, said the bishop had wanted the children to "reflect about the meaning of Christmas", saying that the date had become known for consumerism.

"If we can all draw a lesson, young or old, from the figure of Santa Claus... it is this: fewer gifts to 'create' and 'consume' and more 'gifts' to share," the statement said.

In an interview with newspaper La Repubblica, the bishop said he had not told the children that Santa did not exist but that there was a need to "distinguish what is real from what is not".

"A real fact has emerged, namely that Christmas no longer belongs to Christians," he said (in Italian). "The Christmas atmosphere between lights and shopping has taken the place of Christmas."

According to El Mundo newspaper, Mr [ex-bishop] Novell, an agricultural engineer, is now working for an international firm which specialises in the preparation of doses for artificial swine insemination.