Olive trees of Gethsemane are among oldest in world, study says
Olive trees in the Jerusalem garden revered by Christians as the place where Jesus Christ prayed before he was crucified have been dated to at least 900 years old, a study showed.
The results of tests on trees in the Garden of Gethsemane have not settled the question of whether the gnarled trees are the very same which sheltered Jesus, where the Bible says he prayed and was later betrayed by Judas, because olive trees can grow back from roots after being cut down, researchers said.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that there was an intervention to rejuvenate them when they stopped being productive or dried out,” Chief Researcher Professor Antonio Cimato said at a presentation of the results in Rome on Friday.
“But let me say: plants of greater age than our olives are not cited in the scientific literature. Our olives are among the oldest broad-leaved trees in the world,” Cimato said.
Carbon dating showed that samples taken from the oldest part of the trunks of three of the eight trees came from the years 1092, 1166 and 1198, according to the study by the National Research Council of Italy Trees and Timber Institute and academics from five Italian universities.
The other five trees at Gethsemane – which means “oil press” in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus – could not be tested as they are so gnarled that their trunks have become hollowed out, with only newer growth remaining.
French plan to legalise gay marriage hits opposition and delays
Plans by France’s Socialist government to legalize same-sex marriage are proving harder to enact than first thought after faith leaders and conservatives mobilized against it even as left-wing deputies try to expand it.
With a solid majority it won last spring, the government originally only planned short parliamentary hearings and a debate early next year before voting on one of President Francois Hollande’s most divisive campaign promises and something he has framed as a trademark reform.
But as opposition has grown, it has put off issuing the draft text of the reform and scheduled longer parliamentary hearings. It has also put aside one demand, assisted procreation – or giving gay couples the right to have “test tube babies” – as too hot to handle for now.
Meat-loving Thais turn vegetarian for festival inspired by Chinese Buddhism
Thailand is not an easy country in which to be vegetarian. But once a year the country’s avid meat eaters lay down their spicy meat stir-fries in favour of vegetables and meat substitutes.
During the annual ten-day “Tesagin Kin Pak” vegetarian festival, yellow flags representing Buddhism and good moral conduct flutter in the wind above entire neighbourhoods, while tiny mobile street carts with a lone yellow flag advertise vegetarian-friendly food.
Glistening tofu, noodles with bean sprouts, desserts made with sesame and ginger and steaming hot vegetable broths abound.
U.S. Mormon feminists? Yes they exist — and they’re for Obama
One group was not surprised to hear Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s comments about “binders of women” at the presidential debate this week – Mormon feminists.
Yes, there are Mormon feminists, and no, they do not think it is impossible to believe in women’s rights and be devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion that once allowed polygamy and places a heavy emphasis on the role of women in the home.
But Romney’s phrase, delivered in the presidential debate on Tuesday and which quickly went viral on social media, underscored the tensions over the role of women in the church.
Mali Islamists bulldoze more Sufi tombs in Timbuktu
Heavily armed Islamists bulldozed the tombs of three local Sufi saints near Mali’s desert city of Timbuktu on Thursday, residents said, the latest in a series of attacks in the rebel-held north that critics say threaten its cultural heritage.
“They arrived aboard six or seven vehicles, heavily armed,” said Garba Maiga, a resident of Timbuktu, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site for its ancient shrines. “They flattened everything with a bulldozer and pulled up the skeletal remains.”
Residents said the tombs destroyed included those of local saints Cheick Nouh, Cheick Ousmane el Kabir, and Cheick Mohamed Foulani Macina, several kilometers (miles) outside of the city gates. They said the rebels were from Ansar Dine, one of a mixture of Islamist groups now in control of northern Mali.
Tweeting Turkish pianist Fazil Say denies religious insult charge
Turkish concert pianist Fazil Say’s exuberance has won him fans around the world, but it has also helped land him in court as a cause célèbre for those alarmed by Turkey’s creeping Islamic conservatism.
On trial for insulting religion in citing a thousand-year-old poem on his Twitter account, the 42-year-old performer and composer told a first brief hearing in Istanbul on Thursday that he denied the charge, which can carry an 18-month sentence.
As fellow artists crammed the courthouse in a show of support for Say, who performs with some of the world’s leading orchestras, the case was adjourned for four months.
Buddhist monks march in Myanmar and thwart OIC Islamic office plan
Thousands of Buddhist monks marched in Myanmar’s two biggest cities to protest against efforts by the world’s biggest Islamic body to help Rohingya Muslims involved in deadly communal clashes four months ago.
The monks, a potent political force in the predominantly Buddhist country, denounced plans by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to set up a liaison office in northwest Rakhine state, where violence erupted in June between ethnic Buddhist Rakhines and Rohingyas.
Just hours after the monks dispersed on Monday, President Thein Sein’s office announced it would not permit an OIC representation in Myanmar. It was not immediately clear if the announcement was linked to the protests or had been planned in advance.
Catholicism and sex shops: the struggle for Poland’s soul
At the sound of a bell from the altar, relayed over loud-speakers, about 50,000 people at an open-air mass last month in the Polish capital dropped down to kneel in the street.
It was a powerful symbol of Poland’s deeply felt Roman Catholicism, a reminder of the scenes in the 1980s when, inspired by Polish Pope John Paul II, people prayed in the streets and brought down Communist rule.
But modernity intruded on this recent moment of spiritual contemplation. The size of the crowd meant some worshippers, who arrived late, had to listen to the mass standing outside a sex shop with signs in the window offering “exotic dances”.
Curia Cardinal Turkson causes uproar showing Muslim scare video at Vatican
A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe.
The seven-minute clip, called “Muslim Demographics,” was the talk of an international gathering of bishops on Monday, two days after Cardinal Peter Turkson screened it during a free discussion period.
Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops over the clip.
Muslim states won’t seek worldwide blasphemy ban despite insults to Islam – OIC head
Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world’s top diplomat said.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam.
“We could not convince them,” said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy. “The European countries don’t vote with us, the United States doesn’t vote with us.”
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