Creating Connections for faith groups and the media in Cardiff TODAY
Our Creating Connections event for faith groups and the media takes place in Cardiff today. The meeting opens with a presentation on the religious landscape of Wales. We will hear stories from faith based organisations including the Welsh Jewish Cultural Centre, the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK and the National Churches Trust. Journalists from ITV, Reach and the NUJ answer questions about their work. And a panel of teachers and academics discuss teaching Religion Values and Ethics in Welsh schools. Our hosts are Leo Devine, the Rev Glyn Wise and Emma Meese. It’s at the Temple of Peace from 2 – 6pm. Details here. We held a similar event in Bangor last Monday and here is our report.
Inter Faith Week starts with community events across Britain
Inter Faith Week started this weekend and a full programme of events is planned in towns and cities across the country. They are listed here on the Inter Faith Week website and the programme today includes a prayer breakfast in Scunthorpe, a prayer meditation in the Lake District led by a 97 year old retired priest, talks in schools, visits to places of worship, inter faith walks, a guide to conversations around death and dying and many inter faith community events. The full list of events and map showing locations is here.
Pope Leo calls for protection of people in poverty, on trip to South America
Pope Leo XIV is on day four of his 12 day trip to South America. Around 50,000 people attended mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, where the Pope said that “from the earliest days of the nation’s founding, Uruguay has been intimately linked to a Mother.” In his address, he called for greater solidarity with people in poverty. He moved on to Buenos Aires on Sunday and met President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, and said the economy must serve people, not the other way round, and called for greater protection of disadvantaged groups. He urged leaders to place the common good above immediate interests, to serve the entire community, strengthen democratic institutions, promote economic opportunities and ensure that growth benefits all sectors of society. His trip is the first papal visit to Argentina since John Paul II in 1987. Later he will move onto Peru, where he lived for two decades and where he has citizenship.
Debate on Russell Brand’s conversion and profession of faith
As Russell Brand waits to hear his sentence today, for rape and sexual assault, a debate has opened up on his conversion and public profession of faith. Bear Grylls, the explorer and Christian associated with Holy Trinity Brompton, who attended Russell Brand’s baptism in the Thames in April 2024, posted on X: “Brand’s faith seemed genuine to me at the time when I was a guest at his private baptism.. It is the sick that need healing. Judgement is for the courts and God”. In The Guardian, Chris Osuh and Aamna Mohdin pose the question as to whether Brand “wore his new found faith as a cloak in an effort to deflect and distract from the seriousness of the allegations against him. Or whether his conversion is a profound and sincere one – a spiritual crutch he may need in the coming years”. They conclude that only Brand can answer that. The Religion News Service reports on support for Brand, after his arrest, from prominent Christian leaders including Bishop Robert Barron and Carl Lentz, formerly of Hillsong, and asks why they continued to support him at that point. Natalie Collins, who campaigns for survivors of abuse, told the Sunday programme on BBC Radio 4, that women needs to be confident that their church is a place of safety.
Starvation cult leader in Kenya sentenced to 200 years
Paul Mackenzie, the leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult, has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murder of 190 children and one adult, after he ordered hundreds of followers to starve themselves and their children to death so they could “meet Jesus” before the world ended. He was a taxi driver turned preacher, who founded his Good News International Church in 2003, and set up churches along the coast and eventually the Shakahola forest, where police found more than 400 bodies, some of them buried alive, of which only 26 could be identified. Police investigated after a relative of one of the victims contacted them. Mackenzie was convicted along with 28 co-accused, who helped enforce his instructions through threats and violence. All had pleaded not guilty. Investigations into more than 200 other deaths are continuing. The case has prompted calls for tougher regulation of religious organisations.
Faith groups press for climate justice at COP31
Faith groups are organising a schedule of meetings at COP31 in Antalya, a Mediterranean resort in Turkey. There is no central “Faith Pavilion”, as there has been before, but sessions are being organised across the side events programme. The World Council of Churches is listing several sessions including an ecumenical service, and meetings where faith groups from different nations talk to each other about the ethical, financial and practical concerns in climate justice.
Chalice of peace from Falklands war scrap
The Argentine silversmith Juan Carlos Pallarols has made a Chalice of Peace for the Pope, using metal from objects left after the 1982 Falklands war – melted ammunition, rings, bracelets and other personal items donated by veterans. It is intended as a symbol of reconciliation and peace. Control of the Falklands is a highly emotive issue in Argentina, even though the islanders themselves voted overwhelmingly in 2013 to remain British. The 10-week war claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 British troops. Mr Pallarols told the press agency AFP : “My family has made a chalice for every pope there has been over the last 150 years up to today”.
Diwali festival lights up Leicester
The Diwali celebration in Leicester once more attracted thousands this weekend, with lights, a laser show, a funfair and entertainment along “The Golen Mile”, Belgrave Road. The festival is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains and attracts people of all faiths. A religious ceremony was led by the Leicester Hindu Festival Council, and entertainment laid on including Bollywood dancers, musicians form the Philharmonia orchestra and aerial acrobatics. Other Diwali events were held at Neasden Temple in London, and in Dudley, Coventry and Leeds.
