U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry releases the 2012 International Religious Freedom Report at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2013. Photo courtesy State Department/Public Domain via Flickr (http://flic.kr/p/ekTg4V)

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But why, when it comes to protecting religious freedom abroad, is the State Department so hesitant to name names?

Watchdogs say the State Department missed a key opportunity to put teeth into its annual assessment of global religious freedom, which was released by Secretary of State John Kerry Monday (May 20).

Continuing a pattern begun under President George W. Bush, the report does not include a new list of “countries of particular concern,” or “CPCs” — the diplomatic term for countries that either actively suppress religious freedom or don’t do enough to protect it.

The list varies little from year to year — North Korea, Iran, China and a handful of others are routinely cited as the worst offenders. But the new report contains no worst-of-the-worst list that would single out offenders for sanctions or other punishment.

The lack of new CPC designations in the report is a big flaw, according to Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., the dean of religious liberty watchdogs on Capitol Hill.

“As religious freedom conditions continue to deteriorate globally, it is more important than ever that the State Department use this vital tool to press governments to end abuses, protect their citizens and respect this fundamental human right,” said Wolf and two other congressmen who fired off a letter to Kerry on Monday.

Their concern was echoed by others who monitor religious liberty abroad, including the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the independent body created by Congress that each year puts out its own list of worst violators.

Knox Thames, USCIRF’s director of policy and research, said the commission believes that the 1998 law that mandates the State Department report also requires new designations of CPCs annually. The current CPC list dates from 2011.

For years the annual report and the CPC designations were simultaneous; that changed late in the Bush administration and has been continued under Obama, Thames said. But the list of CPCs “is what gave all of this teeth,” he said.

The list prompts “countries to do things they don’t normally want to do.”

But Aaron Jensen, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor said the CPC designations can be made on a different schedule than the report’s release and “at any time as conditions warrant.”

He said he has no information as to when the State Department may release a new CPC list.

Thames said he’s hopeful that the new designations will come out this summer.

They work, he continued, offering Vietnam as an example of a country that bristled at its inclusion on the CPC list. But actual reforms, pressed by U.S. diplomats, resulted in a delisting in 2006.

USCIRF — which generally pushes the State Department to be more aggressive in insisting on religious freedom reforms in its diplomacy — in April recommended that all eight countries on the State Department’s current CPC list be redesignated: Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

USCIRF also wants an additional seven countries added to the CPC list: Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

It’s true, said Paul Marshall, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Hudson Institute who specializes in religious freedom, that the State Department’s CPC  list has been “very stable for a long time.”

And there are certainly some entrenched, authoritarian governments, such as North Korea’s, that don’t care if they make the list or not. But that doesn’t mean the CPC list and the report in general are not valuable, Marshall said.

Take CPC-designated Saudi Arabia, he said, where non-Muslim religious practice is still officially forbidden. The U.S. has pressed Saudi officials on the topic, and in recent years, the Saudis have said that they are not going out of their way to root out non-Muslim observances, though they still prosecute them when they see them.

And in Myanmar, a long-standing member of the CPC club, the religious freedom situation has been fluid, and is something we want our government to keep track of, Marshall said. So “the list is a good thing.”

Jamsheed K. Choksy, a professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University and an incoming USCIRF fellow, said the problem is actually larger than the report or whether the CPCs are included.

“What needs to happen is that the government of the United States needs to take these reports and make them central aspects of American policy and foreign relations,” he said.

Retired Ambassador Randolph Bell, who runs the First Freedom Center, a Virginia-based religious freedom watchdog group, took a similar view. The lack or inclusion of new CPCs isn’t as crucial as whether U.S. foreign policy is going to act on the information gathered by its own staff, and make religious freedom an organizing principle for U.S. bilateral and multilateral relations.

But in any case, Bell said, the U.S. needs to keep churning these reports out to keep attention focused on the cause of the repressed faithful.

“If they’re not there,” Bell said of the reports, “then wouldn’t people who are focused entirely on U.S. trade and economics, or people focused on some other aspect of global affairs, say climate change, just go about their business?”

KRE/AMB END MARKOE

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NYPD logo by bitchcakes via Flickr http://bit.ly/116wGuu

The tornadoes that ripped through Oklahoma yesterday have inspired Twitter prayers from around the world for the nearly 100 people — including many children — killed in the disaster.

A new NYPD court filing shows the extent to which New York’s finest spied on Muslims. Reports the Associated Press:

The NYPD’s court papers also reveal for the first time the scope of the monitoring by its Demographics Unit, now called the Zone Assessment Unit. In the past three years, the unit has filed more than 4,200 reports, or about four per day.

Bigger. Better. Faster. Our own David Gibson compares this year’s “Nuns on the Bus” tour to last year’s.

Monday’s Milestone: The Church of Scotland’s General Assembly voted to allow actively gay men and lesbians to become ordained ministers. There’s an opt out provision for dissenting parishes.

Did Pope Francis perform an exorcism on Sunday? 

Laurie Goodstein at the NYT reports on a the newly-formed Catholic Whistleblowers, a group of priests and nuns that has charged itself to ferret out sexual abuse within the church and to support fellow whistle-blowers.

The Sistine Chapel has become a haven for pickpockets, who target upward-looking tourists mesmerized by Michelangelo’s work. The problem is getting so bad that guides have threatened a one-day strike to publicize the problem.

A good listen: NPR reporter Sylvia Poggioli’s piece on Pope Francis vs. the “cult of money.”

Methodists, you’re making me feel old. The Texas conference of the United Methodists is dissuading those 45 and older from seeking ordination.

Let’s talk about your clothes. In the wake the fire that killed more than 1,100 at Bangladeshi plant, a USA Today reporter explores both ends of the manufacturing chain — the Bangladeshi’s who make the garments, and the Americans who buy them.

The State Department released its global report on religious freedom Monday, and also announced Ira Forman as its top envoy to combat anti-Semitism. More on the religious freedom report from me later today at RNS.

Across town at the Supreme Court, the justices have agreed to take up a case which asks whether a New York state town can offer “inclusive prayers” before its public meetings.

And how about religious freedom on campus? The Freedom From Religion Foundation says Indiana’s Ball State University, a public institution, has crossed over the line with a cosmology course that promotes intelligent design and Christianity. University officials are investigating.

Karl Giberson, the science and religion prof, explains why evolution is not going to die in the culture wars.

THE DSM-5 ain’t the Bible, but it’s as close to psychiatric scripture as you can get. The new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders makes it easier to diagnose grief after the loss of a loved one as depression, as in depression that calls for treatment for which insurance companies will reimburse. Tim Townsend detects a rise in the tension between spiritual care and medical care.

Libby Phelps-Alvarez talks about how she escaped from her family’s notorious Westboro Baptist Church.

The funeral for Frances J. Monson, wife of LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson, is set for Thursday.

- Lauren Markoe

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Meeting in a row house three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, the group spanned the Christian spectrum, and included officials from liberal churches and the most conservative of interest groups.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori speaks during the April 10, 2013 meeting of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

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“The ground of our spiritual understanding is in treating other people as the image of God, treating people with respect,” said Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

“Faith leaders have a remarkable opportunity to shift the conversation, but it’s very challenging, particularly in a larger society that wants to understand everything as a battle, as engaging the enemy, rather than with someone who might have something to teach us,” she said.

Joining Jefferts Schori at the two-day meeting sponsored by the nonprofit Faith & Politics Institute were Kenda Bartlett, the executive director of Concerned Women for America; the Rev. Jeffery Cooper, general secretary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; and Sister Marge Clark of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, among others.

The “Faith, Politics and Our Better Angels: A Christian Dialogue to Promote Civility” forum convened for the first time last year.

As religious leaders, they agreed, they are called to move politicians, congregants and Americans in general to understand that mean-spirited debate makes it all the harder to solve the nation’s problems.

Sometimes, they said, that may mean calling out people – including themselves – who debate disrespectfully through name-calling or by questioning the motives of their political opponents.

“Everyone says they’re in favor of civil discourse, but the lack of civility seems to win elections,” said Ed Stetzer, vice president of research and ministry development at LifeWay Christian Resources.

“You need some voice to say, ‘OK, we get that it can win elections, but maybe that’s not the best course of action.’ Typically, we think of religious leaders as voices of conscience, calling people to a better way. So therein is the hope,” Stetzer said.

One idea the group is considering, Cooper said, is a national day of civil discourse — perhaps in January, as people are making New Year’s resolutions — when preachers across the country will ask their congregants to make respectful conversation a priority in their lives.

KRE/AMB END MARKOE

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Burning Fire by Prapann via Shutterstock http://shutr.bz/16aoiNg

Sorry to start off on such a hellish note, but Dan Brown’s widely-anticipated “Inferno” is released today, and booksellers expect it to be the best-selling title of 2013.

“I’m writing about Dante’s vision of hell,” Brown told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. “It wasn’t until the 1300s and this version of Inferno that it became terrifying. Dante has had enormous influence on the Christian view of hell.”

Alessandro Speciale feels the Roman Catholic Church’s center of gravity moving south. Vatican statistics show that gains in Asia and Africa are making up for losses in Europe among the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Our own Adelle Banks fills us in on church-affiliated alternatives to the Boy Scouts, and how some families – upset with the Boy Scouts’ more accepting attitude toward gay kids – may seek them out for their sons.

Minnesota’s Democratic governor will sign a bill into law today making his state the 12th in the nation to allow gay marriage.

Great fake story of the day has Michele Bachmann comparing Minneapolis and St. Paul to Sodom and Gomorrah. Not true, but still worth reading.

In Ohio, a local Catholic teachers’ union will not back gay teacher Carla Hale, who was fired from a Columbus Catholic high school after a parent read Hale’s mother’s obituary, which noted Hale’s female partner.

The Obama administration is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the morning-after pill must be made available to girls of any age without a prescription.

The National Cathedral, still recovering from the effects of a not insignificant earthquake in 2011, just won $100,000 to help with repairs.

Across the pond, another awe-inspiring cathedral is falling apart, but officials at Canterbury Cathedral say it will stay open despite missing out on $16 million in repair funds and subsequent rumors that it would close.

A jury found Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor, guilty of murdering three babies.

More news that shouldn’t be: An Orthodox former yeshiva teacher in New Jersey admitted sexually abusing a boy, and awaits sentencing.

Two men in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to prison time and hundreds of lashes for helping a woman convert to Christianity and to flee the country.

Some Muslims and other Virginians are upset that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, suspect in the Boston marathon bombing, was buried in their state. The Islamic Society of Greater Richmond  last week accepted the body and ended an uncle’s frustrating quest to find a burial ground for the nephew he called a “loser.”  But Imam Ammar Amonette of the Islamic Center of Virginia said:

“The whole Muslim community here is furious. Frankly, we are furious that we were never given any information. It was all done secretly behind our backs.”

But obviously, other Virginia Muslims thought it was the right thing to do.

R.G. Puckett, described by the Associated Baptist Press as the person who “worked as a Baptist journalist longer than any person in the 20th century,” has died.

If you haven’t yet read “Moozweek,” check out RNS blogger Omar Sacirbey’s weekly roundup of Muslim-related news . My favorite item from the latest edition told me about Kenneth Faried,

“a power forward who helped lead the Denver Nuggets to the playoffs this year . . .  who was raised by two gay Muslim moms, Waudda, and Sister Manasin.”

Here’s a public service announcement about smoke alarms. And yes, it does belong in the Religion News Roundup, because it comes from my buddy in Vermont, Howard Cohen, who is both a firefighter and a rabbi.

Rabbi/Firefighter Cohen says many of us have ionization smoke detectors. They do fine detecting smoke that comes from flames, but a poor job detecting smoke from a smoldering fire, which kills a lot of people. So get yourself photoelectric detectors to complement your ionization detectors, so an alarm will go off no matter what kind of smoke threatens. The National Fire Protection Association agrees that for the best protection, intall both types.

And for those of you who need a little spiritual push, Rabbi Cohen notes that the Torah requires us to keep our homes safe. “When you build a new house then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you shall not bring blood upon your house, if any one falls from it.” (Devarim 22:8), which Christians know as the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible.

Obviously, we care for you more than just a little bit here at the roundup. So, nearing the close of our fundraiser to support this neatly-wrapped weekday parcel of religion news, please take a moment and give a little to ensure its future. Thanks.

- Lauren Markoe

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Notre Dame theologian Candida Moss has written a book calling out American and Western European Christians Christians for crying wolf about persecution — both in the early church and today. Photo courtesy Brian McConkey Photography

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Too many modern Christians invoke, to lamentable effect, an ancient history of persecution that didn’t exist, Moss argues in her newly published book, “The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented A Story of Martyrdom.” 

Although anti-Christian prejudice was fairly widespread in the church’s first 300 years, she writes, “the prosecution of Christians was rare, and the persecution of Christians was limited to no more than a handful of years.”

We asked Moss, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame, to talk about the travails of early Christians, and how they are misappropriated in the public sphere today. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You argue that modern myths of Christian persecution are rooted in an ancient myth, and you focus on Pliny, a first- and second-century Roman who governed what is now Turkey. Why should we know about him?

A: He’s the first Roman official to actually talk about Christians. He writes to the Emperor Trajan and says, “What am I supposed to do about them? They’re not doing anything wrong, but when they’re in the courtroom they’re very stubborn.” Those charges could get you killed in the Roman world. And Pliny has other concerns: Christians were not purchasing the meat associated with the Roman temples. And he thinks of Christians not as a religious group, but prone to superstition, which the Romans considered a kind of madness that could spread like a disease.

Pliny and Trajan agree that there will be no seeking out of Christians, but if they do end up in courtrooms and are stubborn, he will give them three chances to curse Christ and make a sacrifice in the Roman temple. If they don’t, they will be killed. I’m not saying what Pliny did was right, but it’s very far from the story I grew up with, about Christians being hunted down.

Q: Isn’t that persecution though? They’re not being sought out, but if they do wind up in court, there’s a decent chance they’re going to die.

A: Is it persecution? I’d say it comes fairly close to the line. I’m not saying it’s just. But it was illegal to be part of a secret club at the time. It was illegal to be stubborn toward a Roman judge. So it’s not that they’re being persecuted for having a Trinity. They are being executed for breaking the law.

I want to understand what, from the ancient Roman perspective, was the problem with Christians. The Romans tolerated lots of religious groups. They only really acted in situations where they thought the group was dangerous, and Christians talk about their new emperor Christ. They talk about how they cannot respect the Roman government. A lot of them say they won’t join the military. They’re very subversive. But this is a world where religious freedom isn’t a right; it just doesn’t exist as a concept yet.

Q: Critics of your book — even if they agree that there was no concerted, sustained campaign to root out and kill the early Christians — argue that this was nonetheless a dark and dangerous period for them. Doesn’t that count for something? 

A: The situation was terrible and we should be attentive to that, but distinctions need to be made. The Emperor Decius (who in the third century required everyone in the empire to make a sacrifice to his divine spirit) didn’t really know what his edict would mean for Christians and he wasn’t trying to attack them. He was basically trying to bolster the Roman Empire. 

In a contemporary discussion, Catholics feel very strongly about the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate. President Obama is not trying to harm Catholics or Christians generally; he is trying to provide health care. Catholics can disagree with him very strongly, but unless he’s trying to attack Catholics, as long as we believe he is interested in health care, we can continue to have a discussion with him.

There’s been a lot of back and forth between the Catholic bishops and the Obama administration. That’s a different situation than if we were in a country where legislation was passed that said “Christians can’t own Bibles” or “you can’t go to church.”

Q: Who is capitalizing on the myth of Christian persecution?

A: When people talk about being persecuted in modern America, I think it’s dangerous. I’m talking about everyone from Rick Santorum to Mitt Romney to Catholic bishops, and Bill O’Reilly talking about a war on Easter. The problem with this is that it destroys dialogue. Persecutors don’t have legitimate complaints so you can’t really have productive discussions.

But you can disagree with someone sharply on the basis of your religious beliefs without accusing them of persecution. When you say they’re persecuting you, you’re basically accusing them of acting with Satan.

Q: So how are you going to convince someone like Bill O’Reilly to quit claiming that American Christians are persecuted? 

A: What I try to do in the book is to not talk about the issues but to talk about the rhetoric. So I give examples of people from the religious left who are doing it. I’m critical of them, too.

We’ve all got to take a look at our own causes and say, “I’m not going to use this language. I’m going to see that other people have good intentions.” That’s how you really have productive discussions with people.

Q: But you believe there is real persecution of Christians in the world today?

A: Yes, there is. It’s a “boy who cried wolf” situation. One of the reasons we are not hearing about them is because of all of the cries of persecution here — and local cries about persecution overshadow the global ones. We do need to hear those stories about Christians in other parts of the world, but we need to make sure that instead of talking about the global war on Christianity — which a lot of Christian and Catholic reporters have done — that we tell the story in a way that doesn’t do violence to other persecuted groups.

Christians live in a very difficult situation in China, for example. But it’s not so much part of a global war on Christianity as it is the Chinese government’s treatment of the religious in general. If we make it just about the war on Christianity then we betray people like the Falun Gong, who are very persecuted in China.

Q: People use inflammatory rhetoric to score points all the time. Is there something worse about religiously inflammatory rhetoric than inflammatory rhetoric in general?

A: The problem with religious rhetoric, if we’re talking about a battle between God and Satan, is that the stakes are so much higher. If we’re talking about “God is demanding you to do this,” you can’t really have a conversation after that. Because religion is such a lightning rod, it means that whenever we use religious texts or religious language, we have to be especially sensitive to the power of those ideas.

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FBI image of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

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(RNS) An undisclosed community on Wednesday (May 8) accepted the body of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, which is now “entombed,” according to police in Worcester, Mass.

Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, found a funeral home in Worcester to handle the body, but had struggled to get a cemetery to accept it. The Boston Globe reported that the body is buried in a community outside Massachusetts.

“As a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased,” read a statement posted on the Worcester Police Department’s website.

Funeral director Peter Stefan of Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester had been searching for nearly a week for a burial site. Tsarnaev subscribed to a radical brand of Islam and at least one mosque had refused to accept the body.

Several cemeteries had also refused, raising questions about religious, moral and professional obligations to bury even the reviled dead.

In the statement, Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme thanked the police officers who had worked the security detail outside the funeral home, which had been picketed by people who were angry at Stefan for accepting the body. Stefan had explained that as a professional, he had taken an oath to assist any family that requested his services, and that he could not “separate the sin from the sinner.”

The police chief also thanked Stefan and Tsarni.

“Most importantly,” the statement continued, “we’d like to thank the community that provided the burial site.”

Tsarnaev, 26, is thought to be the mastermind of the April 15 bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, which killed three and injured more than 260 people. Four days later, he died in a firefight with police that his younger brother and suspected accomplice, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, survived.

The younger Tsarnaev is being held in a federal medical detention center outside Boston.

Several out-of-state cemeteries and a Yale Divinity School graduate who owns burial plots at the Mt. Carmel Burying Ground in Hamden, Conn., had offered a burial site for Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body, but it is not yet known if any of these offers were accepted. 

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Captive Flowers. Photo by Boris Drenec via Flickr.

Three Cleveland girls, now women, lived as sex slaves in a house of horrors for more than a decade.

All sorts of “love thy neighbor” and “brother’s keeper” questions emerge. Some neighbors who had seen or heard of the evil in the Castro brothers’ house called police, and didn’t do more when the police didn’t find anything amiss.

Others say they are ashamed because they didn’t have a clue.

Cathy Lynn Grossman writes about how prayer - “ceaseless prayer” – helped the women’s parents survive all these years without their daughters.

Elizabeth Smart, another survivor of abduction, said recently that her conservative religious upbringing intensified her feelings of worthlessness after she was raped by her captor and weakened her will to attempt escape.

Still missing: the kidnapped Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo. The Orthodox communities are postponing Easter celebrations this week and gathering instead to pray for their release.

Delaware Tuesday became the 11th state to allow same-sex marriage after two state senators — one Democrat and one Republican — moved to the “yes” column. Next up, Minnesota.

VP Joe Biden asks faith leaders to pressure lawmakers on comprehensive background checks for gun buyers – which failed in the Senate last month but could revive.

Former S.C. governor Mark Sanford, of Appalachian trail fame, beat Steven Colbert’s sister for a seat in Congress. Our friend Robert Jones at the Public Religion Research Institute writes about the disgraced guv’s political redemption.

RNS blogger Mark Silk asks what will happen to Tsarnaev’s corpse.

And so we find ourselves at an impasse regarding Tsarnaev’s remains. A public that does not want them to remain, and a religious tradition that says they must remain, even if not in holy ground.

Billy Graham, 95, will tape a message as part of a home video evangelism program to be released this fall by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is billing it as his last crusade.

A Texas school superintendent says the high school runner broke the rule against over-celebrating athletic victories and his team can’t go to the state championships. The student’s father says he was just trying to praise God.

The Tony-nominated “Testament of Mary” ended its Broadway run after two weeks. David Gibson asks whether blasphemy had anything to do with it.

David Gibson also writes about the resignation of the  priest who led a leading treatment center for clergy suffering from emotional, sexual and addiction problems. The former head of the Saint Luke Institute is accused of misusing funds in his home diocese and engaging in an “inappropriate adult relationship.”

I saw the Dalai Lama yesterday. His English is shaky, his glasses couldn’t be more out of fashion, and he delivered his speech wearing a dorky University of Maryland visor. But to the 15,000 mostly young people who packed the arena, he’s one of the coolest people on the planet. Here’s what he had to say about non-believers, the moral education of children and finding inner peace.

One of the things I didn’t know about the Dalai Lama is that he he has an easy, infectious laugh, and that his humor is often directed at himself. Cathleen Falsani writes on the same theme: “God won’t mind if we laugh at ourselves.”

Israel detained, and then released the the mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein — the top Muslim cleric in the Holy Land – after several hours of questioning over disturbances at the Temple Mount.

The ultra-Orthodox community in Israel is reeling today after the nation’s attorney general said that religion is no excuse for denying equal opportunities to women on buses, on the soccer field, and basically every other place in the public sphere.

The World Jewish Congress convened Tuesday in Hungary, a country where the far-right Jobbik party engages in anti-Semitic behavior with few consequences. Jewish leaders sought stronger reactions to Jobbik and other increasingly vocal, like-minded pro-bigotry parties across Europe.

A sad tweet from Dallas Willard announces the Christian thinker has stage 4 cancer.

This roundup is a free, weekday summary of religion news from around the nation and the world from Religion News Service, a non-profit. We aim to make it informative, entertaining and thought provoking. If you rely on or simply enjoy the roundup, please consider making a contribution to support it. Thanks.

- Lauren Markoe

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The Dalai Lama sports a University of Maryland visor as he delivers the annual Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace at the university. RNS photo by Lauren Markoe

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COLLEGE PARK, Md. (RNS) His English was terribly broken, and punctuated by sudden fits of giggles. But for nearly an hour, the Dalai Lama entranced an arena full of admirers, who said his message came across just fine.

The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, speaking to an audience of 15,000 at the University of Maryland Tuesday (May 7), described himself as “a simple Buddhist monk” with a simple message: We are all human beings and should be good to one another.

“I look at you,” he said, surveying the crowd, a University of Maryland visor crowning his head. “All human beings. No differences.”

Who could disagree? But somehow, said those who had skipped class or work and endured long lines in the rain to hear him, the Dalai Lama delivered this stripped-down philosophy in a way that would stick with them, perhaps even change their lives.

The Dalai Lama imagined for the crowd a demilitarized world by the end of this century, said Edward Bartlett, a Baltimore real estate investor who was raised in the Baha’i faith and takes an interest in Buddhism.

“He’s just a simple Buddhist monk but in his presence I feel that contagious energy,” said Bartlett, 29. “I feel a world of peace, of compassion, is possible.”

The Dalai Lama also spoke about tolerance toward nonbelievers, and advocated for a secular ethics class for schoolchildren everywhere.

Real estate investor Edward Bartlett of Baltimore said the Dalai Lama made him think a peaceful world is actually possible. RNS photo by Lauren Markoe

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Scientists, philosophers and educators are already working on such a program, he said, noting that in the U.S., “secular” can have negative connotations.

But where he lives, “secular means respect all religions and also respect nonbeliever,” said the Dalai Lama, who came to Maryland to deliver the annual Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace, named for the Egyptian leader who made peace with Israel in 1979, and was killed by Islamic militants in 1981.

Sadat’s widow, Jehan Sadat, co-hosted the lecture and sat near the Dalai Lama, who praised her husband’s courage. Both Anwar Sadat and the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize — Sadat, with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in 1978; the Dalai Lama in 1989.

The Dalai Lama, whose name is Tenzin Gyatso, is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, who held the position before him. He was born in a poor Tibetan village and has lived most of his 77 years in exile in India, where until two years ago he was head of the Tibetan government in exile.

Since the communist invasion in 1950, China has ruled Tibet. In the past few years, protests against Chinese rule have escalated, including the self-immolation of more than 100 Buddhist monks — acts the Dalai Lama has tried to discourage.

The Dalai Lama came to Maryland as part of a six-city U.S. tour that will also bring him to Portland and Eugene, Ore.; Louisville; New Orleans; and Madison, Wis.

To the Maryland crowd, he spoke of fighting between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and prescribed compassion and forgiveness as the cure for conflict.

“All religious traditions carry same message, message of love, message of compassion, forgiveness … that is the basis to develop mutual respect,” said the Dalai Lama, who called himself a student of all traditions.

Olka Forster, a senior at nearby Towson University who calls herself spiritual but doesn’t follow any particular religious tradition, said she appreciated that message, particularly the part about forgiveness.

“So much strife is caused when people just hold on to things,” she said. “It’s so important to let go of them.”

Towson University senior Olka Forster said she appreciated the Dalai Lama’s message of forgiveness. RNS photo by Lauren Markoe

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The Dalai Lama demonstrated such magnanimity when his academic hood, draped over him by the university’s marshal after he was presented an honorary doctorate, kept slipping from his shoulders. Some in the crowd laughed — with him? At him? It seemed unclear.

But the Dalai Lama stole the joke for himself. “Too loose!” he cried, adjusting the unruly hood, and bursting into laughter so infectious that the whole arena erupted.

Equally composed was Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, in a post-speech receiving line, when the Dalai Lama suggested they rub noses. Magnified on giant screens throughout the arena, the governor smiled and leaned in for the nose-to-nose greeting.

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Going for enlightenment, or yoga butt? Or both? Photo by Alexander Yakovlev via Shutterstock

Several cemeteries have refused to accept the body of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and the funeral director at Graham, Putnum & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass. is weathering fierce criticism for working with the bombers’ uncle, who is giving his nephew a traditional Islamic burial. Said funeral director Peter Stefan:

“We take an oath to do this. Can I pick and choose? No. Can I separate the sins from the sinners? No,” Stefan said. “We are burying a dead body. That’s what we do.”

Mark Sanford is in a too-tight-to call race with Elizabeth Colbert Busch for the Charleston-area seat in Congress, and Sanford. Polls open tomorrow. The former S.C. guv, who resigned after running off with his mistress and lying about it, says: “I’m just starting to preach!”

But Sanford should feel lucky he’s not running for chief Ashkenazi rabbi in Israel, a race that  seems even more contentious.

The jury today continues to deliberate in the trial of the Philadelphia abortion doctor, a case which could have national implications, the AP tells us.

Rhode Island just became the 10th state to opt for gay marriage and the Delaware legislature holds a key vote on the subject Thursday. But some anti-same sex marriage conservatives say they’re not worried because this is a deep blue state trend.

John Blake considers the Family Research Council’s assertion that it’s easier for a gay person to come out than Christians to come out of the closet about their belief that homosexuality it condemned by the Bible.

A father is suing the Diocese of Evansville, Ind. after his developmentally-disabled daughter lost her virginity on a church-sponsored retreat to encourage abstinence.

The Roman Catholic priest at the center of a public furor enveloping Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has resigned.

A female teacher at a Catholic high school in Ohio, fired after the name of her same-sex partner appeared in her mother’s obituary, is fighting to get her job back.

In Uganda, a priest is suspended for calling out the church for its sex abuse problems in Africa. It’s not purer than the church in the U.S., or Western Europe, said Rev. Anthony Musaala, who said he not only knows of others’ wrongdoings but as a teenager was a victim himself.

A bomb explodes at the official opening of a new Catholic church in Tanzania, killing one and injuring 57, and worrying Tanzanians that sectarian violence is escalating. Four Saudis have been arrested.

Worries about Islamic extremists have prompted Aerosmith to cancel a concert in Indonesia, as Lady Gaga did last year. Jennifer Lopez kept her Indonesian date but toned down her costumes and dance moves.

Cathleen Falsani prayed to God to find a truly spiritual yoga teacher after her “not-so-great experiences in the crowded commercial studios where the main goal of the ancient Indian practice seemed to be attaining the perfect ‘yoga butt,’ rather than anything approximating enlightenment.” 

Jana Riess had a 102 degree fever right after her mother’s funeral, and was yearning for a priesthood blessing when two missionaries knocked on the door. A feverish hallucination?

An English priest looks at the silly names celebrities choose for their children, and longs for the days when parents named their children after saints.

A man in Philmont, New York is about to finish a six-year project to copy the King James Bible by hand.

Even though I am a Jewish mother I won’t make you feel guilty for ignoring our fundraiser to sustain the Religion News Roundup, for which I rise at the crack of dawn to give you the freshest religion news there is. Do not give a second thought to the eye strain or the carpal tunnel that the roundup tends to exacerbate as I comb the Internet for the very best in religion news, provided free to you, every weekday. Really, don’t worry about me. You should just read it in good health. I’m sure someone else will make a contribution.

- Lauren Markoe

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Logo of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain (http://bit.ly/10qxLXH)

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For its annual report of violators, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom counts 15 nations where abuse of religious liberty is “systemic, egregious, and ongoing.”

But the commission, which was created by Congress in 1998 as an independent watchdog panel, also wants to highlight the crimes of non-nations, which for the first time this year get their own section in the report. 

“USCIRF added a special emphasis on non-state actors, as their violent actions are a growing threat to religious freedom,” said Knox Thames, the commission’s director of policy and research.

“Violence perpetrated by non-state actors against religious minorities and others who conflict with their world view is increasingly common, with incidents occurring in places as diverse as Pakistan and Nigeria.”

Somalia, for example, which doesn’t make the list, is home to al-Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization that has brutally suppressed Christians and Sufi Muslims who do not subscribe to its radical interpretation of Islam.

“Somalis accused of committing crimes or who al-Shabaab deems to have deviated from accepted behaviors are punished through stoning, amputation, flogging, and/or detention,” according to the report.

On its 15-nation list of the worse offenders, USCIRF includes eight that the U.S. State Department also considers “Countries of Particular Concern”: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.  

But as in years past, the commission wants the State Department to add seven more: Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

This year’s USCIRF list is one country smaller than it was in 2012. Gone is Turkey, whose addition caused an uproar among Turks who called the designation unfounded and damaging to USCIRF’s reputation.

Orthodox Christians welcomed the 2012 designation after years of arguing that Turkey — home to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians — continues to shutter their seminary in that country and withholds legal status from many religious groups.

Thames said the commission’s decision against designating Turkey as a “country of particular concern” this year was unanimous. 

The nation can point to a genuine loosening of restrictions on religious communities, but “nevertheless,” the report concludes, “the Turkish government’s interpretation of secularism requires absolute state control over all aspects of religion in the public sphere.”

But the decision to “promote” Turkey to a country “to be monitored” struck several commissioners as too lenient.

Last year, it was “an error to place Turkey among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom,” four of eight commissioners wrote in a dissent included in this year’s report. “But this year’s designation has erred in the opposite direction.”

The dissenters want it to be designated a “Tier 2” country, just below the most concerning 15.

KRE/AMB END MARKOE

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