Church replaces ancient carvings with inspiring women sculptures

From BBC News:

A church is to replace its crumbling medieval carvings with sculptures of inspiring women to honour their "extraordinary" achievements.

Many of the stone sculptures at St Mary's Church in Beverley, East Yorkshire, are now unrecognisable.

Carvings of Queen Elizabeth II, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and nurse Mary Seacole are among the notable women set to replace them.

Rev Rebecca Lumley said they would "help to inspire the next generation".

Work to install characters from CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia on the outer wall of the church has recently been completed, with the same small team of sculptors used for the latest project.

Clay prototypes of the women are currently being created, with the church aiming for the stone versions to be ready for public viewing by November.

"Pioneering women" who worked in traditionally male-dominated arenas including maths, the sciences and engineering, were prioritised.

read more here @ BBC News

Unique Goddess Idol Unearthed In Dinajpur

An at least 800-years-old temple has been unearthed in Dinajpur’s Kaharol that has a unique architecture and includes a unique idol, that of the Vishnu avatar Mohini.

This goddess is well-known across South and West India, but the Kaharol temple is the first of its kind discovered in the eastern subcontinent. Experts say the implications of this finding may change predominant ideas about the region’s history and traditions.

Claudine Bautze-Picron, an expert of East Indian iconography, has identified the idol recovered from the eastern part of the temple as that of Mohini, the Vishnu Avatar, he said.

“According to her this is the first stone-made Mohini idol in the eastern subcontinent, which leads us to reconsider the history of this region.”

In Hindu mythology, Mohini is the only female Avatar of the god Vishnu, who appears in the Samudra Manthan myth. The goddess is worshiped widely in South and West India.

Read entire article @ Dhaka Tribune

Vestiges of the Vikings

Vestiges of the Vikings: Magic Buried in a Viking Woman's Grave | Ancient Origins

Murky, elusive and undefined, the religion of the pre-Christian Vikings has long been subject to debate. Contemporary texts of their spiritual worship do not survive, and the later records that do survive stem from Christian authors. Thus they are tainted with a Christian worldview and anti-pagan opinions. The magic of the Vikings, however, is somewhat a secondary field of interest. Though intricately linked with the pagan beliefs of the Norse, it is in many ways more undefined due to the ritual sacrifice of magical items.

In 1894, a curved metal rod was discovered in a 9th-10th century female grave in Romsdal, Norway. Scholars have debated its intention for years, shuffling between theories that it was a "fishing hook or a spit for roasting meat", before realizing in 2013 that it was likely a form of a magic wand. The bend toward the top of the wand was seemingly made just before the wand was laid to rest with the woman, as if to stem its magical properties. This particular wand fits the traditional mold of a seiðr wand based on previous discoveries dating from the 9th and 10th centuries. It is long (at 90cm), made of iron (consistent with the materials circulating of the Norse Iron Age) with "knobs attached to them" for the benefit of the wielder.

Read more at Ancient Origins

Australian Woman Head of Knighthood Order

The Record » First Australian woman installed as head of knighthood order

After 20 years as a dame of the Queensland chapter of the legendary Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, Dr Monica Thomson adds a black cape and a gold mantilla to her hooded robes to distinguish herself as the new chapter leader.

Her robes were blessed during the installation by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge. “I am very proud to be the first woman in Australia, and the seventh worldwide,” Dr Thomson, 65, mother of three sons and grandmother of eight, said. “I was one of the original members when our chapter was formed and I hope to carry on the good work during my term as lieutenant.”

Knights and dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre are devoted to building up the faith and practice among members, and sustaining the spiritual, charitable, and social works of the Church in the Holy Land including Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.

In 1888, Pope Leo XIII authorised the order to give women similar honours to men.

Read rest of article here at The Record

Archaeologists Discover: God's Wife?

From Yahoo News UK:

Female figurines and inscribed prayers to a "divine couple" found in temples in Israel suggest that the “one God” of the Bible may not have been entirely alone.

A recent excavation in Tel Motza, not far from Jerusalem, found what archaeologists believe to have been a ritual building - with clay figures of animals and men from the time of the First Temple, according to Israel's Haaretz news site.

The find suggests that Iron Age religion in the area around Jerusalem may not have been monotheistic just before the time the Hebrew Bible – the basis of the Old Testament - started to be written.

Now experts are increasingly suggesting that far from there being “one God”, there were many. 

One expert, Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou of the University of Exeter, says there is “increasing evidence” of Israelites worshipping several gods - including one who may have been seen as Yahweh’s “wife”.

Outrage Over Treatment of Violated Buddhist Nun

From the Times of India:

A 21-year-old Buddhist nun from Nepal, who was said to have "lost" her religion and become unfit to remain a nun after being gangraped, is now likely to be re-admitted to her nunnery, thanks to a growing outrage worldwide. The young woman, who is now battling for her sanity in a hospital in Kathmandu, can return to the Karma Samtenling Nunnery at Pharping after she recovers and is discharged from the hospital, an authoritative Buddhist body in Nepal said.

The Nepal Buddhist Federation distanced itself from a statement signed by over a dozen organisations, including one of its own officials, that had said the attack on the woman, while to be condemned, however had made her lose her "sheel" – religion as well as vows taken as a nun. It said the official's stand that the nun had become a "flawed vessel" was his personal view and not the official stand of the Federation.

"The Federation, in collaboration with our allied Association Tamang Lama Gedung Sangh and the concerned nunnery, is taking steps to accommodate her back into the nunnery when she recovers and discharged from the hospital," it said in a statement. "(It) will do everything in its power to help restore the dignity of the nun and continue to fight for justice."

The Bone Collector

From IOL News:

Like many Taiwanese teenage girls, Lee You-fang likes to sing pop songs and play with her pet dog, but she has an unusual job: working with the bones of the dead.

For five years, 19-year-old Lee has honed her craft as a “bone collector,” assisting her father in an ancient funerary rite that involves collecting, cleaning and arranging human skeletons for reburial.

She began working full-time after graduating from high school last year, following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather who started the family business eight decades ago.

Bone collecting is linked to a belief that the feng shui of ancestral graves will affect the lives of the descendants and that a reburial can help turn around luck in difficult times.

The Sisterhood of Avalon

From the Record:

The sisterhood, a Celtic tradition, is exclusive to women in which followers honour five goddesses who each represent a station in a cycle of healing.

The sisterhood is about “gathering the tools for self-empowerment,’’ said Lazic, a holistic therapist in private practice, who meditates several times a week and journeys to Avalon in her mind twice a month.

Pagan faiths, often described as earth-based religions, adhere to ritual practices and follow different mythologies including Celtic, Norse and ancient Greek traditions.

Some follow the phases the moon, celebrating equinoxes and solstices. They practice in groups, alone or today more commonly on the internet in covens, circles or hearths.

Common forms of paganism include Wicca and witchcraft. Paganism was a label European Christians gave to villagers who followed traditional folk practices outside the mainstream religions.

The Sisterhood of Avalon is a mix of Arthurian legend, folklore, stories passed on from the druids and goddess spirituality. It’s not known if Avalon really existed but its followers believe the spiritual energy of ancient times remains alive today.

Within history, Avalon is a place with pagan and Christian roots. According to Arthurian legend, a mortally wounded King Arthur was healed on Avalon and the island is his final resting place.

Legend also has it that Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus’ uncle, returned to Glastonbury after the death of Jesus to establish the first Christian church in the British Isles. It is said that Joseph brought Jesus with him on trips to the British Isles.

The Lady Chapel in Glastonbury is dedicated to Jesus’ mother Mary and still exists today. The tower of Saint Michael, that stands on Glastonbury Tor, is the remains of the second church built there in the 15th century.

Virgin Mary According to the Qu'ran

From Winnipeg Free Press:

One of the most intriguing and touching stories of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, is the story of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Mary is a highly revered figure in the Qur'an, not just because she was the mother of Jesus, but also on her own right as a woman of great devotion.

She is auspiciously referred to as chosen, purified and truthful. Mary is depicted in terms that transcend the confines of natural law and as a manifestation of God's blissful grace. Her story is vividly told in two chapters of the Qur'an; first chapter named after her family (Family of Imran) and the second named after Mary herself.

Women of the Wall: Kotel Services

From the Jerusalem Post:

Despite the raucous and sometimes violent uproar that has at times accompanied their previous gatherings inside the women’s section at the Western Wall, Women of the Wall, a group that promotes, “the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah at the Western Wall,” will hold their monthly Rosh Hodesh service at the holy site on Wednesday morning.

“On Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 7:00 a.m., Women of the Wall will return to the Western Wall (Kotel), with over one hundred women in attendance, for their regular monthly Rosh Hodesh services, to celebrate the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul 5770,” a statement released by the group on Tuesday read.

China: Female Imams Lead The Way

From KOSU:

It is 5:50 in the morning, and dark shadows scurry through narrow alleys to the mosque, as the call to prayer echoes from a minaret in Kaifeng. This city in central China’s Henan province has an Islamic enclave, where Muslims have lived for more than 1,000 years.

In an alleyway called Wangjia hutong, women go to their own mosque, where Yao Baoxia leads prayers. For 14 years, Yao has been a female imam, or ahong as they are called here, a word derived from Persian.

As she leads the service, Yao stands alongside the other women, not in front of them as a male imam would. But she says her role is the same as a male imam.

“The status is the same,” Yao says confidently. “Men and women are equal here, maybe because we are a socialist country.”

China has an estimated 21 million Muslims, who have developed their own set of Islamic practices with Chinese characteristics. The biggest difference is the development of independent women’s mosques with female imams, something scholars who have researched the issue say is unique to China.

England: Tension Over Female Bishops Continues

From the Catholic News Agency:

As the Church of England’s General Synod begins, some Anglo-Catholic leaders have said if their concerns about the introduction of women bishops are not addressed they will withdraw their resources from the Anglican Church and focus them on ministries outside the formal church structure.

The Church of England introduced women to its priesthood in 1994. It is committed to the consecration of female bishops as well, The Telegraph reports, but controversy continues about the implementation.

Many of those who favor female bishops argue they should be introduced on the same basis and with the same powers as men. They fear the development of a two-tier system.

Those who oppose female bishops argue they had been assured that provisions would be made for them. They point to the current “flying bishops” arrangement for parishes that cannot accept the oversight of female vicars and so have bishops from other regions as their overseers.

Women of the Wall

From JNET News:

The campaign against Women of the Wall steps up. Yet learned that chairman of the feminist Jewish worship group, Anat Hoffman, was investigated Wednesday by the police on suspicions of violating a legal directive and of rebellion following a minyan - or prayer quorum - she and her colleagues held three weeks ago – the start of the Hebrew month of Tevet – in the Western Wall pavilion.

The police reported that Hoffman was investigated at the Merhav David Station after the events at the Western Wall on the grounds that she disrupted the status quo at the site. Hoffman was questioned about her role in organizing the prayer service and the clashes that ensued. She was reportedly asked to give her finger prints. At the end of the investigation, she was released to go home.

The Women of the Wall chairwoman claimed that most of the group's members are Orthodox and that the prayer services they hold are conducted according to halacha. She also said that their consistent attendance for more than 20 years makes their monthly minyan a Western Wall custom, such that it must not be viewed as a one-off provocation.

The Sarum Rite

From the Catholic Transcript:

Before the Protestant Reformation and King Henry VIII’s break with Roman Catholicism, the Sarum Rite was used in parts of England and Wales, as well as in Scotland and Ireland.

“Sarum” is the old English variant of the Latin Sarisburia; “Salisbury” in modern English. Salisbury is the site of the famed cathedral in which the Sarum Rite was observed. The Rite (i.e., manner of conducting the Liturgy and various ceremonies of worship) developed in Britain after the Norman Conquest. Efforts to revise the sacramentaries and ceremonials followed closely upon William the Conqueror’s Norman stamp on customs and practices. According to some historians, the changeover was especially evident from the time of St. Osmund, the second bishop of Salisbury (1077-99).

Father Joseph A. Jungmann, one of the greatest scholars of the history of the Roman Rite, notes in his opus magnum that following the Norman Conquest, “the Rite of Salisbury or Sarum was gradually developed as a distinct and, up to the Reformation, an essentially conservative and fixed arrangement, both for the entire service and more especially for the Mass. It was the standard not only in a great portion of the English Church but also here and there on the Continent.” (The Mass of the Roman Rite, 1949; English ed., 1959)

Now, of course, the Holy Father has elected to open up the doors of Catholicism to Anglicans not by establishing a new Rite, or by reviving the Sarum Rite, but rather by instituting a fresh structure within the Latin Rite in whole or in part, that of “personal ordinariates.”

However, in the authentic documents relating to these “personal odinariates,” reference is made to accommodating Anglicans desirous of embracing Rome by liturgical adaptations reflecting their own customs, some of which apparently do reflect the medieval English Sarum Rite.

Peters Pence - Orgins

Did you know:

"By the end of the eighth century the Anglo-Saxons felt so closely linked to the Bishop of Rome that they decided to send a regular annual contribution to the Holy Father. It was thus that the Denarius Sancti Petri (Alms of Saint Peter) originated and spread throughout Europe."

Source: Vatican website

Israel: Transportation Segredation

From JTA:

Three years ago, a 57-year-old grandmother got on a bus in Israel departing Rechovot for Givat Shmuel and sat in a vacant seat in the front.

Shortly after taking her seat, the woman was approached by a fervently Orthodox man who demanded she move to the back of the bus with the rest of the women.

Unbeknownst to the woman, who asked JTA to be identified only as H., she had boarded one of the so-called mehadrin (super kosher) bus lines, on which the predominantly ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, ridership imposes sex-segregated seating. The man told H. that segregated seating had been sanctioned by the rabbis and by Egged, the state-owned bus company that operates the line.

H., who is herself religious, refused, prompting a barrage of verbal abuse from the man.

The man harassed her for the entire ride. Nobody, including the driver, came to her aid.

H. is among a group of women who filed affidavits as part of a petition to Israel’s Supreme Court to ban gender-based segregation on Israeli public buses. The petition was filed by the Israel Religious Action Center, which is associated with the Reform movement.

Before issuing any ruling, the court referred the matter to Israel’s Transportation Ministry. In January, more than three years since the IRAC petition was filed, Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz is expected to issue the government's official position.

Some haredi passengers defend sex segregation, saying it upholds Jewish rules concerning sexual modesty. On mehadrin lines, women sit in the back and men in the front in order to avoid physical contact. Drivers do not enforce this code, but the IRAC considers such practices on public buses to be a fundamental violation of women's rights. It also says the practice has no basis in Jewish law, or halachah.

Israel: Women Arrested At Wall

From Reuters:

In a motion read by Ms Safina Kwekwe Tsungu, an Eala member from Kenya, the legislators further urged EAC member countries to ensure that women get comprehensive and accessible health services and programmes.

They expressed deep concerns on the plight of women in refugee camps and those internally displaced by armed conflicts in their home countries, saying they were chief targets of organised violence.

After a protest by Orthodox worshippers who spotted her, police escorted her to a police post and detained her for two hours before releasing her and ordering her to stay away from the holy site for 15 days, a spokeswoman said.

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said Frankel was detained on suspicion of wearing a prayer shawl in violation of an Israeli high court ruling stating that women cannot wear religious garments at the site, in keeping with Orthodox rules. "Tensions flared, there was pushing and shouting and police intervened to prevent violence," Rosenfeld said. There were no other arrests and nobody was hurt, he added.

Frankel may face charges of performing a religious act that offends others, a statute that mandates a maximum six month jail term and a 10,000 shekel ($2,000) fine, said Anat Hoffman, director of a group that sponsors "Women of the Wall".

Ireland: Magdalen Women

From the Irish Times:

Five women who had been in Magdalen laundries met the secretary general of the Department of Justice Sean Aylward and assistant secretary James Martin for a two-hour meeting today. Compensation for the women and a State apology were among topics discussed.

Mary Smith (57), Marina Gambold (nee Fitzgerald) (74), Maureen Sullivan (62), Maureen Taylor (57), and Kathleen Legg (74) were accompanied by Steven O’Riordan, director of the film `The Forgotten Maggies’. It was shown last July at the Galway Film Fleadh and at up to 15 other venue around Ireland since then.

Another meeting between the officials and the women is to take place in two to three weeks' time.

Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services

From Medill Reports, Chicago:

Hamdard has become an indispensable force in the American Muslim community, attracting women across the country. Such culturally tailored shelters are rare nationwide, and with just 11 beds, the Hamdard Center turned away 859 women and children this past year.

Activists are using the occasion of Domestic Violence Awareness month to highlight the need for improved advocacy among abused Muslim females. The community, however, is beset by unique cultural challenges.

Though domestic violence occurs among American Muslims at the same rate as other groups, it has become an increasingly sensitive topic for Muslims. To some, in a post 9/11 world, speaking out means feeding the stereotypes demonizing Islam.

One vocal cleric is Imam Muhammad Magid, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America. He advocates discussion of domestic abuse during marriage counseling sessions at mosques.

“Violence against women is real and cannot be ignored,” said Magid, who leads seven mosques in Virginia. "In no way does Allah sanction these acts."

Battle Over Mother Teresa

From BBC News:

India has rejected a demand by the Albanian government for the return of the remains of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, buried in the city of Calcutta.

"Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and she is resting in her own country, her own land," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.

A spokeswoman for the nun's Missionaries of Charity described the Albanian request as "absurd".

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje, now part of Macedonia.

Correspondents say that the row over her resting place could develop into an ugly three-way squabble between India, where she worked most of her life, Albania where her parents came from and Macedonia where she lived the first 18 years of her life.

The row is expected to intensify by August next year - the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth - by which time many commentators expect her to have been canonised as a saint.

The ethnic Albanian nun, who was known as the "Saint of the Gutters" for her work among the poor of Calcutta, was given Indian citizenship in 1951.

Mother Teresa once said: "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world."