The campaign “Climate Crisis” starts on Ash Wednesday (6th March) for the sixth time. At the initiative called by the Institute for Church and Society of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia (EKvW) under the motto “So much you need …” (Exodus 16), this year a total of eleven Protestant regional churches and three Catholic bishoprics are invited putting climate protection at the centre of our own Lent.

Everyone can take part in thinking about their own actions in everyday life, trying out new things and making changes together. “Limiting to Enough is Urgently Required,” Dr Irmgard Schwaetzer, President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Vice-President of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Dr. med. Karin Kortmann, in their joint greeting of the accompanying fasting booklet agree. In view of the “multiple transgressions of ecological boundaries and consequences,” they call for “a mindful and frugal way of life.” With the climate key, you can try out different steps for climate-friendly alternatives in your own everyday life. It is about practicing an ethics of enough, “Volker Rotthauwe, environmental pastor of EKvW and one of the” climate field “initiators, describes the goal of the action.

In a fast-paced booklet, the initiators provide suggestions and ideas for focus topics in the seven days of fasting: After a personal pause and the conscious perception of the self and the fellow creatures at the beginning of Lent, the following weeks are dedicated to concrete actions on the subject of “energy budget” – “mindful cooking and eat “-” fair consumption “-” be different on the way “and – new this year – the” plastic-free life.

In Egypt the process of “legalization” of Christian places of worship built in the past without the required permits, along with the granting of authorizations for the construction of new churches, continues at a rapid pace. The Egyptian Council of Ministers, chaired by Premier Mostafa Kamal Madbouly, approved last March 5 the report of the Committee for the regularization, restoration and construction of new churches, which formally attested the verification and the subsequent authorization to the legitimate use of 783 Christian places of worship subjected to ministerial controls.

Government and ecclesiastical sources, relaunched by the Egyptian media, expect that at the end of 2020 the controls and the consequent ministerial authorizations will be completed for more than 700 Christian places of worship awaiting regularization.

The churches submitted to the scrutiny of the ad hoc government commission are mainly those built before the new law on the construction of Christian buildings of worship came into force, approved by Parliament at the end of August 2016. The work of the government commission, consists in verifying if thousands of churches and Christian places of prayer built in the past without the required authorizations meet the standards established by the new law.

The clerical abuse scandal has caused everyone in the Catholic Church “pain and unbearable suffering,” Pope Francis said, but it also is a call to repentance and the renewal of the church.

“Our humble repentance, which remains silent between our tears for the monstrosity of sin and the unfathomable greatness of God’s forgiveness, this, this humble repentance is the beginning of our holiness,” the Pope told priests from the Diocese of Rome.

Pope Francis’ annual Lenten meeting with the priests on 7th March began with a penitential prayer service and individual confessions at the Basilica of St John Lateran, the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.

In a long, impromptu talk on priesthood and forgiveness, the Pope acknowledged the clerical sexual abuse crisis and the particular way it had impacted priests.

“Sin disfigures us,” he said, and it is “humiliating” when “we or one of our brother priests or bishops falls into the bottomless abyss of vice, corruption or, worse still, of a crime that destroys the lives of others,” like the sexual abuse of minors does.

Pope Francis said he is convinced the abuse scandal is ultimately the work of the devil.

God is working “to restore the beauty of his bride, surprised in flagrant adultery,” the Pope said.

In the United States and many other countries, religiously active people are less likely to drink alcohol than those who are not as religious. That may not be a surprise: Holy texts from the Christian New Testament to the Quran and the Hindu Dharmashastras warn against the dangers of excessive drinking and other potentially harmful “vices.” Many religious leaders, including the late Rev. Billy Graham, have urged followers to abstain from alcohol. Despite these teachings, the relationship between religion and alcohol consumption remains a nuanced one, and not all U.S. religious groups eschew alcohol to the same degree, according to a Pew Research Centre survey conducted in 2015.

Half of U.S. adults (51%) who say they attend religious services at least once a month report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days, according to the survey. That compares with roughly six-in-ten (62%) among people who attend worship services less often or not at all. Similarly, only 13% of monthly attenders engaged in recent binge drinking – defined as four or more drinks on a single occasion for women and five or more for men – compared with 21% of less frequent attenders.

Christianity played a large role in the U.S. temperance movement. Yet alcohol remains a prominent part of the Christian religion, from the Gospel account of Jesus turning water into wine, to present-day European monks who support themselves by brewing beer, to the use of wine in some contemporary communion services.

Among U.S. Christians, for example, Catholics are more likely than Protestants to say they’ve consumed alcohol in the past 30 days (60% vs. 51%). Adults who don’t belong to any religion, meanwhile, are more likely (24%) than both Catholics (17%) and Protestants (15%) to have engaged in binge drinking in the past month.

(The survey did not include enough Mormon or Muslim respondents to analyze separately, but both of these religious groups teach their followers to abstain from alcohol).

To be effective teachers of the faith, Catholics must be cognizant of their own sins and shortcomings when giving correction and guide to others, Pope Francis said on March 3.

“So many times, we all know, it is easier or more convenient to discern and condemn the defects and sins of others, without being able to see our own with just as much clarity,” the Pope said before the Angelus on 3rd March. People want to hide their own defects and even themselves, he said. “The temptation is to be indulgent with one’s self … and hard with others.”

This teaching is illustrated in Scripture, Francis said, when Jesus says: “how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye?’”

He explained that it is good to give counsel to a neighbour, but to do so while imagining one’s self to be faultless is wrong.

“If I believe I do not have [defects], I cannot condemn or correct others,” the Pope said. “We all have flaws: everyone.” To correct others with credibility, and “with humility, witnessing to charity,” requires looking inside one’s self and acknowledging personal sin and failure.

The line about the splinter and the beam, and others from the day’s Gospel, are short parables Jesus tells in order to teach His followers “not to be presumptuous and hypocritical,” Pope Francis said.

Further illustrating the point, Jesus asks His disciples: “Can a blind person guide a blind person?”

The Pope explained that “Jesus wants to point out to His disciples the way to go in order to live wisely. He wants to underline that a guide cannot be blind, but must see well, that is, he must possess wisdom, to guide wisely, otherwise he risks causing damage to people who rely on him.”

This is especially true, He continued, for those who have educational and leadership responsibilities, like priests, politicians, teachers, and parents. These people need the gift of wisdom in order to be good guides and to discern “the right path on which to lead people,” he said.

French monitoring groups have cited an increase in attacks on churches and religious sites, with a record 47 documented in February, despite appeals for better protection from the country’s Catholic bishops.

The groups’ report said 15 vandalism attacks had been registered nationwide during the month, along with 15 robberies, 10 acts of profanation and one torching incident. It added that the worst had occurred at the gothic cathedral of Saint-Denis, near Paris, the historic burial place of French monarchs, which assailants had entered by smashing a historic stained-glass window, before wrecking the organ and choir-stalls.

The report follows growing concern over anti-clerical incidents in France, where Catholics nominally make up around 54% of the population of 67 million, according to surveys, but with only a small proportion attending Mass.

In February, Archbishop Roland Minnerath of Dijon held a Mass of reparation at his city’s Notre Dame Church, two days after its tabernacle was forced open and consecrated hosts scattered.

As the Catholic Church responds to more allegations of sexual abuse of young people by priests, an increasing percentage of Catho-lics are re-examining their commitment to the religion. 37% of U.S. Catholics, up from 22% in 2002, say news of the abuse has led them to question whether they would remain in the church.

As a result of the recent news about sexual abuse of young people by priests, have you, personally, questioned whether you would remain in the Catholic Church, or not?

These results are based on interviews with 581 U.S. Catholics who participated in Gallup polls Jan. 21-27 and Feb. 12-28. While the polling was being conducted, Pope Francis met with Catholic leaders from around the world at the Vatican to respond to a new wave of sex abuse allegations in numerous countries. The church dealt with a similar crisis in the U.S. in 2002, the last time Gallup polled about this. That polling came after The Boston Globe reported on wide-spread abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston area and church leaders’ efforts to prevent the abuse from becoming public knowledge.

Gallup’s latest findings show that the current scandal is affecting U.S. Catholics more than the one in 2002 did, in terms of their feelings about the church. However, it is unclear whether Catholics who are questioning their church membership will actually decide to leave the church. Many Catholics may consider leaving the church but ultimately decide not to do so, or they may have no intention of leaving but simply be responding to this question as a way to express their frustration with the way the church has handled the problem.

Substantial minorities of both practicing and nonpracticing Catholics say they are questioning their commitment to the church — but, as might be expected, those less committed to their religion are more likely to be questioning it. Whereas 46% of Catho-lics who seldom or never attend church say they have questioned whether they would remain in the faith, 37% of those who attend church on a monthly basis and 22% who attend weekly say the same.

The same pattern existed in 2002, although both practicing and nonpracticing Catholics are more likely now than in 2002 to be questioning their place in the church. Seventeen years ago, only one in eight weekly churchgoers were re-examining their mem-bership, as were 24% of semi-regular church- goers and 29% of infrequent ones.

Practicing Catholics Less Likely to Question Their Membership in the Church