Representatives of the United Left (Izquierda Unida Republicana) of Asturias released a public announcement where they condemned the participation of civil servants in the funeral in Madrid by „not being able to distinguish public functions from private life.“ They requested that a laity protocol be applied in the future.
The International Atheist Federation complained to President Rodriguez Zapatero requesting the immediate ending of the announcement of Roman Catholic services at Barajas airport, in Madrid.
Education Minister Caitriona Ruane, a member of the Sinn Fein Party, is importing school uniform policies from London which led to schools being able to ban students from wearing crucifixes and Sikh religious bangles.
The Christian Youth Festival “Christival” experienced tremendous opposition on site. 15.000 peaceful youth disturb by socalled “anti-sexistic alliance” under the name of “No Christival” shouting slogans such as “Masturbation instead of Evangelization” or “Never again Jesus”.
The City Hall of Sevilla, run by the PSOE socialist party, has announced its intention to change the names of some streets associated with Franco and his regime. The proposal is a consequence of the Historical Memory Law that allows the removal of names and signs related to Franco's times. One of them is now considered to be Pope Pius XII and a street named after him. In the PSOE words, the Pope is a "francoist character", well-known as the "Nazi Pope".
EastEnders, a BBC soap opera based on the life of Lucas Aaron Johnson, a pastor played by Don Giler, portrays Johnson as a twisted Christian preacher with strong religious convictions committing terrible crimes. The executive producer Diederick Santer said about the character: "Lucas is doing the Lord's work".
An Italian pro-life politician was pelted with eggs and bottles during an April 2 campaign appearance in Bologna. At least 15 people were injured.
Pentecostal service stormed by perpetrators, pastor beaten, parishioners threatened with pistols held to their heads.
In a newsletter Austrian "Aktion Kritischer Schüler" (Socialist Pupils Association) encourages members to take the occasion of the international day against racism (March 21st) to vandalize churches.
January/March 2008: “Christival” – a large Christian youth festival is protested by “anti-sexistic forces” due to its “conservative” contents such as its opositon to pre-marital sex and abortion. Organisers currently discuss with police how to protect participants and the festival.
The Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich withdraws recognition from "Management Ethics on a Christian Foundation" seminar because of its Christian content. It is said to violate “political correctness” and to have too little reference to the curriculum of business and administration ethics.
Anglican priest, Canon Michael Ainsworth, beaten up and insulted in 'faith hate' incident in his own churchyard by Asian youths.
The Catholic Bishop of Lancaster UK today gave a spirited response to accusations by secularist MPs in a Commons Committee who accused him of trying to establish religious "fundamentalism" in his schools. Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue told the Committee that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise and that this constituted neither "proselytism" nor "fundamentalism".
The Observatory for the Freedom of Religion and Conscience (OLRC) issued a report quoting “100 reasons to be alert” about the attacks against Christianity by Spanish officials. The author affirms that the increasing hostility against Christians aims to eliminate religious expressions from the public square.
A police community support officer (PCSO) told two church workers in Birmingham, “You can’t preach here, this is a Muslim area”. The incident happened as Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham handed out Christian tracts on Alum Rock Road.
A Christian magistrate lost his second and final appeal in a suit in which he claimed his employer had discriminated against him because of his religious conviction that adoptive children ought not to be placed with homosexuals.
The Anglican bishop of Hereford has been ordered by a court to undergo "equal opportunities training" and pay a fine of £47,345.00, the equivalent of about Euro 63,540.00, for refusing to hire an active homosexual for a position of trust with young people. The ruling also stated that Hereford diocese staff "involved in recruitment should receive equal opportunities training". "The respondents discriminated against the claimant on the grounds of sexual orientation," said the ruling from the Cardiff Employment Tribunal.
As a result of refusing by the Earl of Devon to allow a homosexual couple to hold a civil partnership ceremony, the local Council revoked the licence for hosting all civil ceremonies in the Castle. The Earl of Devon is a devout Christian, who lives with his family in the event location at stake in Powderham Castle.
Molleindustra, Italian artists and engineers, designes video games fostering hatred of Christians and religion in general. User says: Religious hate has never been so much fun.
Pope's visit to University La Sapienzia was cancelled because of anti-Catholic protests and false accusations that the Pope is not supportive of scientific discovery
Spanish socialists lashing out at the Catholic Church, accusing it of hypocrisy and of attempting to intervene in the political process.
A Greek Orthodox priest was given a suspended 70-day sentence after residents complained he rang his church bell too loudly and too often.
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead displays statue of Christ with erect penis by gay Chinese-born artist Koh.
In Austria two individual incidents were reported in January in which a Roman Catholic Parish Priest was attacked, brutally beaten and robbed. It is unknown if the perpetrators picked the priests as victims on grounds of their faith.
On a website for pledge exchange a members offers the following: "I will post the next public person to bang on about "Christianophobia" a couple of planks of wood and a packet of nails but only if 20 other people will do the same."
Most expensive Turkish TV series ever produced now shown in cinemas. The "bad guy" is Christian.
In 2007 one out of every three Anglican churches suffered a vandal attack at some point during the year. Theft, arson and malicious damage is a problem for churches. Claims cost £1.8 million in total, a significant amount for petty crime. The average cost of these claims was around £900. These statistics don’t even take into account the smaller attacks which churches don’t report to their insurer because the damage is minor. It is therefore likely that many more thousands of churches suffer malicious damage every year.
Many acts of vandalism have occured in France in 2007. Please find here a list of examples of various incidents against Christian sites.
An attack on an Orthodox priest was foiled by Turkish police. The suspect confessed that he had been influenced by the portrayal of Christian missionaries in the TV series “The Valley of the Wolves”, where young Turkish people were depicted as being deceived and bribed for converting to Christianity.
Intentional fire was set at a Catholic chapel in the Cossack village of Leningradskaya, the Krasnodar Region. The motivation of the attack and its perpetrators remain unknown but it could be religious hate.
The war on Christian Christmas symbols wages in many countries. Interestingly, it seems not to be about religion in general. It seems to be against Christian symbols. Find here a collection of cases from the United States.
Catholic League in the U.S. collected several instances of where Christmas symbols were banned, removed or mistreated in the United States. In Europe, similar instances took place.
A Catholic priest was hospitalized Sunday after being stabbed, the latest in a string of attacks on Christians in Turkey. Police said they had detained the suspected attacker.
German "Black Attakk" CEO Karsten Jakob sells four CDs on Ebay which contain hateful language against Christ.
Prolife sidewalk counsellors praying in front of an abortion clinic were violently harrassed and sexually assaulted by people allegedly hired by the owner of the clinic, Dr. Christian Fiala, in Vienna, Austria.
A 36 year old man, wearing a clown costume, entered into the Corpus Christi Parish in Granada during mass and interrupted it. Right after, he destroyed the Baptismal Font with a wrench. The media reported that regulars to the parish had noticed the aggressor in the adjacent areas of the church in the days before the attack.
The Sevilla Biennale of Contemporary Art presented an artwork of German-born Josephine Meckseper intended to merge the concepts of sex and the religious symbolism of Holy Week. Meckseper displays Jesus Christ hanging from lingerie. Christians were offended, but Pablo Suarez, the Museums General Director in Andalucia highlighted freedom of expression without censorship. The Biennale is mostly funded with taxpayers' money.
The Parliament of Catalonia has passed a new law that increases the power of the government over religious organizations. Catholic and Evangelical churches, among others, have raised some concerns about the role of the state regulating activities that belong, originally, to religious organization. Under the new law, and from now on, a permit issued by the local City Hall is needed to carry out any religious activity, and the permit could be denied for security and health issues.
The word "Lord" was removed from a primary school grace before meals after one parent complained the mention was offensive. Contrary complaints of other parents lead to a subsequent reinstatement of the term.
The Czech Constitutional Court dismissed the proposal by a group of senators to abolish a controversial amendment to the church law that churches say limits their rights.
"Humo", a Belgian Dutch-speaking weekly that is known for its liberal and satirical opinions, published a representation of a man urinating in a chalice with the accompanying text: "And Jesus changed wine into urine". Our sources report that this was not the first time "Humo" published blasphemous representations.
Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations, says a report of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a Labour Think Tank.
A priest from the Syriac Christian community has been kidnapped in southeast Turkey.
Local authorities prohibited the ringing of church bells for noise reasons in Tilburg, Holland. A court verdict annihilated the decision in November.
Manchester, England - A Catholic airport worker was suspended for displaying an image of Jesus on a staff room wall after a Muslim colleague made a complaint against him.
A Christian couple was being forced to retire from fostering needy children on conscientious grounds after the local council imposed rules requiring them to discuss homosexuality with the children.
The European Court for Human Rights requested Turkey to bring its education system and domestic legislation into line with Article 2 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR. What triggered this decision was the discovery that religious culture and ethics classes, mandatory in primary and secondary schools, provided exclusively specific instruction in the guiding principles of the Muslim faith and its rites.
The art exhibition "Vamos a Ibiza" (Let's go to Ibiza) by artist Ivo Hendriks shows John Paul II having passive homosexual sex, and Jesus Christ on the way of the cross while a character – half man, half woman - holds a penis to his mouth. The exhibition was authorized and funded by the Ibiza local authorities, and it took place inside the former L'Hospitalet church.
Madrid City Hall and Madrid Community co-sponsored a comic exhibition which shows the Pope consuming pornography, having sex with nuns, and sheep, produced by Italian artist Federico Solmi. Madrid’s mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón is the chairman of the exhibition. The general coordinator, Armando Unsaín, said that "it might be possible that the content of the exhibition offended a minority, but no further consideration should be given to the complaints. We live in a democratic society, and the Church has not been unpolluted to deserve no criticisms."
The Holy See reported one case of verbal assault in Hungary on 14 September 2007.