'Tis That Time Of The Year Again

Its mid-December and for Muslims living in the western society, it's generally difficult times. Its the Christmas parties that can't be avoided that contains drinks and oppotunities to fall in Satan's traps.

Whenever I need to go to any of these unavoidable parties, my intention is to educate atleast 3 people on how Christmas has got nothing to do with Christianity and how bad Alcohol is for health. Follow these links if you want to get up to speed on Christmas and Alcohol.

There is a good article in Al-Jazeera about how Victorian Muslims celebrated Christmas. For those of you who may not know, Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.

The Liverpool Muslim Institute was founded by the Liverpudlian William 'Abdullah' Quilliam [Courtesy: Abdullah Quilliam Society]

At 6am on December 25, 1888, the winter sun was yet to rise over the English city of Liverpool.

A Victorian terrace house was feverish with activity.

The soft glow of candlelight emanating from 8 Brougham Terrace revealed men and women busily putting up decorations and preparing food for the big celebration ahead, Christmas Day.

In one corner, a familiar Victorian scene of a woman playing the piano and directing hymn rehearsals, the singers' voices muted by the howling of a bitter northeasterly wind as it rattled the thin panes of glass.

This was Britain's first mosque and Muslim community preparing for their very first Christmas Day.

At 8am, having led the tiny congregation in the early morning prayer, the Imam finally opened the mosque doors.

Imam William Henry "Abdullah" Quilliam founded the mosque after embracing Islam in 1887, aged 31 years old.

He was greeted by more than 100 of the city's poor, who had been invited to enjoy a charitable Christmas breakfast inside what locals called "Islam Church".

As the group of recent converts served the paupers a hearty meal of "sandwiches, bread and meat, seedloaf, bunloaf, bread and butter, tea and coffee," the music began.

Hymns praising the birth of the Prophet Isa, or Jesus, rung out through the venue. By evening, numbers swelled. Word had got around, and the Muslims offered a "substantial tea" and small musical concert to the visitors.

The entertainment began with "mesmeric performances" by two young Muslims before "some delightful airs upon the zither, the fairy bells and the mandolin" by one Miss Warren.

The finale was a "magic lantern" show and photo series from the imam's recent tour across distant Muslim lands.

These descriptions of Victorian Muslims at Christmas were taken from the pages of The Crescent, the country's first Muslim newspaper.

It was published by the Liverpool Moslem Institute between 1893 and 1907 and was recently made available online by the Abdullah Quilliam Society - which is based at the historic mosque - in partnership with the British Library.

"This reminds us there was an earlier generation of Muslims, looking to spread the word of Islam through finding points in common rather than things to argue about," said Timothy Winter, a prominent British Muslim scholar.

Winter, the dean of Cambridge Muslim College and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, converted to Islam in 1979. He has worked extensively with the archives.

Britain's first Muslim community mostly comprised English converts.

The Christmas scenes, described in every January issue of The Crescent, may come as a surprise.

Winter said the festivities demonstrated a willingness to appropriate local traditions, something that was easier because the group had grown up with them.

"They possessed a spirit of openness and hospitality and were more concerned with God and truth and conveying the word [as opposed to] boundary issues and questions of identity and difference," Winter told Al Jazeera.

Quilliam's role and influence were such that he was given the title of Sheikh Ul Islam of Britain by the Ottomans, and when he left Liverpool in 1908, it seems his community disbanded too.

Today, there are more than 2.5 million Muslims in Britain and, unlike Quilliam's community, they hail from a multitude of ethnic and cultural backgrounds and observe Islam differently.

"The Victorian Muslims were a small community, almost exclusively white English," said Sadiya Ahmed, founder of Everyday Muslim - an organisation which preserves Britain's Muslim heritage.

"Today, we have Muslims in Britain whose families have come from all over the world as well as those who are ethnically English, and this inevitably means they approach Christmas in a number of ways," she told Al Jazeera.

While it is common for some "very religious" Muslims to say how Un-Islamic wishing your neighbour, friends or family who may not be Muslims are, I would point out to Fatawa on Islam Awareness Homepage that say otherwise.

Muslims, however, are most respectful of what others believe and wish to live on friendly terms with all their neighbors, whether they are Muslim or not. In this context, returning the Christmas greetings of non-Muslim friends does not present us with a problem.

Obviously, if we sent a card, it would not be a religious card with Christian symbols, but rather some other symbol of the festive season. If the people we are responding to are devout believers in the Christmas message, we might send a greeting that says something like, "May God bless you all as you celebrate your feast," out of respect for their religious belief.

If they are, like the vast majority, simply celebrating what has become an important social occasion, we can respond to a well-intentioned greeting with a card that says something like "Compliments of the season" or "Greetings," since neither they nor we are celebrating the religious festival.

In such a context, even a card with a picture of a tree or some mistletoe or a robin red-breast, and the greeting "Merry Christmas" is not really a problem for either of us.

Going for drinks in the pub to celebrate is clearly out of the question. Going to parties where alcohol is being consumed is not how Muslims behave. However, if our non-Muslim neighbors invite us into their house for a piece of Christmas cake or a mince pie, we can accept their invitation.

Christmas should not be allowed to become a time where Muslims are being singled out as being unfriendly or not a part of the community. Indeed, we should be seen by our neighbors as full of fun and quite comfortable living with them. Let us not forget, though, to invite those same people to join us in our own homes at the time of the `Eid or to join us for iftar during Ramadan.

Showing our non-Muslim friends that Islam is a religion of peace and that we are peaceful and kind people is, indeed, at the heart of how we should behave. Peaceful and kind does not, of course, mean weak. We are not offering Christmas greetings out of weakness because we are in a minority. No, our greetings to our neighbors come from a strong and proud faith that we are called to be Muslim.

Our actions throughout the year, not just at Christmas time, should show how good Muslims behave and how we are faithful to prayer and dedicate all things to the Mercy of Almighty Allah. Indeed, Christmas time is actually a time for da`wah.

In a world which has lost all sense of God and which turns to alcohol and consumerism to drown its sorrows, we can show that there is a better way and that the way for all mankind to experience peace is not by kissing under the mistletoe or visiting Santa Claus in his Grotto, but by embracing Islam. In sha' Allah, even Christmas is a time for us to tell others about Islam.

ALLAHU ALAM الله اعلم

Did Jesus (AS) really die for our sins?

Rev. Franklin Graham says churches and synagogues are forbidden in most Muslim countries

On ABC's This Week on Oct. 3, 2010, host Christiane Amanpour held a town hall debate on whether Americans should fear Islam.

Naturally, the issue of the so-called Ground Zero mosque came up.

Amanpour asked the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, about his comments following 9-11 that Islam is a "very evil and very wicked" religion.

"I understand what the Muslims want to do in America," said Graham, president of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse. "They want to build as many mosques and cultural centers as they possibly can so they can convert as many Americans as they can to Islam. I understand that...I understand what they're doing. And I just don't have the freedom to do this in most Muslim countries. We can't have a church. We're not able to build synagogues. It's forbidden."

Imam Osama Bahloul, leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and a panelist on the show, said Graham was incorrect.

"For someone to say we are not allowed to build a church in a Muslim country, this is absolutely not right. You can Google this," Bahloul said.

We spoke to several experts on religion and government in Muslim countries. And the consensus was clear: there are, in fact, Christian churches and/or synagogues in almost every Muslim country.

"Reverend Graham is wrong," said Yvonne Haddad, Professor of History of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Georgetown University. "Churches are flourishing in Jordan and Syria. In Egypt, the Christians find restrictions on church construction which has recently been partially lifted."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic relations, agreed that Graham was incorrect. "There are lots of Christian churches and synagogues in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Indonesia, Qatar, Kuwait ... If you go to any number of so-called Muslim countries you will see thriving Christian and Jewish populations."

One member of the Iranian parliament is Jewish, Hooper noted.

"The only one where you don't see it, where you can't have a Christian church or synagogue is Saudi Arabia," Hooper said. "It's only an issue in Saudi Arabia."

The cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia are considered the two holiest cities in Islam, explained Akbar S. Ahmed, chair of Islamic Studies at American University. And so, he said, no churches or synagogues are allowed there.

"That is like the Vatican in terms of Catholicism," Ahmed said.

But where he grew up in Pakistan, for example, Ahmed said, there is a huge Christian church. While there are now very few Christians left there, the building is deserted but remains untouched. After 1948, he said, most Jewish people living in Muslim countries migrated to Israel. But there are still many churches in Muslim countries, as well as synagogues. One of the top advisers to the king of Morocco is Jewish, he said.

There may be periods of turmoil, or some narrow-minded leaders who have attacked churches over the years, Ahmed said, but there is nothing formalized in Islamic law that forbids the building of churches or synagogues.

"Today, because of the general atmosphere in the air, there are many untruths being spread about Islam," Ahmed said.

While the facts about whether most Muslim countries allow churches or synagogues is pretty cut-and-dried, there is another facet to this claim. Graham was speaking in the context of Muslims building mosques in order to convert people to Islam in the United States. And so we think it's fair to also look at whether it's possible to build a church or synagogue in most Muslim countries with the aim of converting people. And on that point, Graham is on firmer ground.

According to a 2007 Council on Foreign Relations "backgrounder" on religious conversion and sharia law, authored by Lionel Beehner, "Conversion by Muslims to other faiths is forbidden under most interpretations of sharia and converts are considered apostates...Some Muslim clerics equate this apostasy to treason, a crime punishable by death."

According to the report, while a vast majority of Muslim countries no longer prescribe death for apostates (instead opting for some lesser form of punishment), "some states, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, still do hand out death sentences."

Shireen Hunter, visiting professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, said that Graham "cannot be more wrong," about there being a prohibition against churches or synagogues in most Muslim countries.

But, she said, "conversion is a totally different thing."

There is a great deal of debate in the Muslim community about Islamic law regarding conversions. Some argue Islam teaches there is no compulsion to faith. And while enforcement of religious laws against conversion is more aggressively applied by some Muslim countries than others, "this is an issue that is there."

In many countries in the Middle East, religion dictates your legal status as well, explained Nathan Brown, an expert on Islamic law at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While legal enforcement of bans against conversions from Islam are rare in most Muslim countries, "conversions are practically difficult," he said.

We think a Catholic church recently built in Qatar is a good example of how this is handled.

According to a March 2007 Al Jazeera story about the construction of a Catholic church: "Although the country's native inhabitants are entirely Muslim -- and are prohibited by law from converting to another faith -- the new Catholic church will cater to the large number of Christian migrants who have come to the Arabia Gulf state in search of work."

Archbishop Paul Hinder, the Catholic Church's Bishop of Arabia, explained in the story that he oversees churches in Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and even in Saudi Arabia, "the birthplace of Islam, where Christianity is practiced behind closed doors." On the Christian communities in Saudi Arabia, Hinder clarified: "It's not an open church. Privately the Christians may gather in their houses in a very discreet manner."

We think Graham erred when he said that in most Muslim countries, "We can't have a church. We're not able to build synagogues. It's forbidden." That's demonstrably false. The construction of churches is not forbidden in most Muslim countries, only Saudi Arabia. And so, on balance, we rate Graham's comment False.

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Jewish lobby wages war on Christmas trees

We certainly missed this one but is very interesting. As one of the title says: "What is they were Muslims?"
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The "Lobby for Jewish values" this week began operating against restaurants and hotels that plan to put up Christmas trees and other Christian symbols ahead of Christmas and the civil New Year.

According to the lobby's Chairman, Ofer Cohen, they have received backing by the rabbis, "and we are even considering publishing the names of the businesses that put up Christian symbols ahead of the Christian holiday and call for a boycott against them."

Fliers and ads distributed among the public read, "The people of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to maintain the values of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish identity.

"You should also continue to follow this path of the Jewish people's tradition and not give in to the clownish atmosphere of the end of the civil year. And certainly not help those businesses that sell or put up the foolish symbols of Christianity."

The Jerusalem Rabbinate also works each year to ensure restaurants and hotels receiving kosher certification from the Jerusalem Religious Council do not put up Christian symbols.

It should be noted that most of the hotels in Jerusalem and a significant part of the restaurants in the capital receive permanent kosher certification from the city's religious council.

According to a senior official in the kashrut department, this is done each year consensually, but that businesses which do not meet this requirement may find their kashrut certificate revoked.

Can a Muslim say happy Christmas to his friends?

Suheil Azam was sitting in a coffee shop in east London last month when one his friends began a debate on whether it was permissible under Islamic scripture for Muslims to wish their non-Muslim friends happy Christmas. As a 23-year-old professional who socialises widely, Mr Azam had never considered the possibility that someone in his community might frown upon him for going round to his neighbours at Christmas or partying during New Year. But his friend, who had become increasingly devout, was adamant that such behaviour was haram (forbidden).

"Personally I think he's wrong," explained Mr Azam. "But it's difficult to argue against him because all the information he gets is taken from the internet and it makes him sound very knowledgeable."

Such a debate between two young British Muslims would have been almost unthinkable two decades ago. But today it is frequently the internet that young Muslims turn to when looking for spiritual advice. And what they find in cyberspace is often shockingly intolerant. "Do not congratulate [the unbeliever] on their festivals in any way whatsoever," warns one prominent site. "That implies approval of their festival and not denouncing them."

While the real world provides a vast array of interpretations from a variety of Islamic schools, more often than not it is the intolerant strands of Islam taught by Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist Wahabi scholars that dominate online. Backed by billions of petrodollars and an army of tech-savvy graduates who are more than capable of capturing the YouTube generation's imagination, the internet has long been a stronghold for the most intolerant forms of Islam. For those who wish to see the West's Muslim communities continue to integrate with their neighbours, the prevalence of such isolationist rhetoric is of great concern. Armed with quotes from Saudi scholars living thousands of miles away, a small number of angry young British Muslims are forgoing the inclusive Islam their parents were once taught in favour of an interpretation that encourages them to cut themselves off from mainstream society and view all non-Muslims with contempt.

But now, as the Hajj gets under way in Mecca, one of the world's oldest Islamic institutions has come to Britain to remind young Muslims who might be tempted by the Wahabi rhetoric that there is an alternative way to worship. Scholars from Al-Azhar in Cairo have been touring Britain's mosques to launch a new online book of fatwas (Islamic judgements) which directly challenge the Saudi way of thinking.

The second oldest university in the world, after China's Nanking University, Al-Azhar was generally seen as the foremost centre of learning in the Sunni world until Saudi Arabia began exporting its millenarian version of Islam en masse from the late 1970s. Critics have since accused Al-Azhar of being too close to the widely disliked Egyptian government, but it remains one of the few international schools of Islamic jurisprudence with enough historical clout to challenge Saudi Arabia's supremacy.

The 200-page book, entitled The Response, has been available in the Middle East in Arabic for two years but this is the first time a comprehensive list of some of the most commonly asked questions encountered by Al-Azhar's scholars has been available in English, and equally importantly, Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. The issues answered in the book range from whether the Earth revolves around the Sun (Sheikh Ibn Baaz, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti during the 1990s, insisted that the Sun revolved around the Earth) to whether a Muslim is allowed to perform magic tricks (Wahabis forbid it).

After each question, the book's authors quote a fundamentalist fatwa and then offer their own, centrist alternative. In reply to whether Muslims can greet non-believers during their festivals, for instance, Al-Azhar's scholars write: "There is no harm in congratulating non-Muslims with whom you have a family relationship, or that are neighbours of yours." They then give examples from the Prophet Mohamed's life that showed his tolerance toward other religions.

Sheikh Abdel Fattah El Bezm, the Grand Mufti of Damascus, was one of two Al-Azhar trained scholars to tour the UK this week, visiting mosques in Birmingham and Manchester. An elderly cleric with a trimmed grey beard and warm eyes, the Islam he grew up with and went on to study was mainly concerned with creating a just world marked by kindness and lenience.

In an interview with The Independent, he was keen to avoid blaming the Saudis directly, but it was clear that Al-Azhar's scholars want to confront the hardliners' rhetoric. "This is not an argument between two countries, between Saudi Arabia or Al-Azhar," he said. "But we do want to show that there are many different schools of thought. A few decades ago people began to abuse Islam and abuse Muslims. They took Islam out of context; they used it for their own personal gain and it has come back to haunt us. We are now paying the price for that." Richard Gauvain, a British-born academic and a specialist in Islam who has taught at the American University of Cairo for the past seven years, translated The Response into English and says it is time moderate scholars caught up with the online mullahs. "To be honest this book should have been written 30 years ago," he said. "Its value lies in re-establishing Al-Azhar as the leading voice. It reaches out to the average guy on the street and reminds them that nuance and ambiguity have always been very much part of the Islamic tradition."

But will British Muslims listen to what Al-Azhar has to say? Earlier this year Al-Azhar launched an English language version of its famous Islamic Hotline. Commonly referred to as "Dial-a-Sheikh" in Egypt, the hotline was launched in 2000 and allowed ordinary Muslims from across the Middle East to phone Al-Azhar's scholars for Islamic advice. It has since received over two million calls from around the world but has had trouble gaining a foothold in the UK. Chérif Abdel Meguid, the phone line's rotund and bespectacled founder, was surprisingly candid about the limited success of the hotline in Britain: "Very few of our callers come from the UK at the moment," he admitted. "We launched it in April but we haven't followed it up with enough advertising yet. This week we've taken adverts out in some of the Urdu language British press so we hope to get more callers." Inayat Bunglawala, the Muslim Council of Britain's influential media secretary who recently founded his own group, Muslims4UK, believes the Egyptian institution's reputation has suffered. "Educated Muslims look at Al-Azhar with respect because of its history as a beacon of learning but they are also very much aware that its reputation has dwindled in recent decades," he said. "Many now regard it as little more than an extension of the Egyptian government whose sheikhs are called upon to make pronouncements that are favourable to the Egyptian regime. "

But Muhammad Ali Musawi from the Quilliam Foundation, which was set up by former extremists who have abandoned their hardline rhetoric, believes even extremists will take note of Al-Azhar fatwas. "I think this is something that we should welcome," he said. "[Al-Azhar] is still a respected institution and people will listen to what it has to say.

"The big problem, as ever, is resources. The sort of money Al-Azhar has backing it cannot even begin to compare with what Saudi Arabia puts in to funding its Wahabi clerics. Unfortunately, young British Muslims rarely come across a scholar from Al-Azhar. But barely a week goes by without a Saudi institution sending over one of their clerics to preach in our universities or mosques."

Conflicting fatwas: Cairo vs Saudi Arabia

Q. Should a husband or wife stay in a marriage if their partner no longer prays?

* Fatwa from Sheikh Ibn al-Uthaymin (a prominent 20th-century Saudi scholar) By abandoning his or her prayers, a person leaves Islam. It is forbidden, therefore, for a Muslim to remain with a husband or a wife who no longer prays.

* Al-Azhar's fatwa With a single stroke of the pen, this fatwa declares a vast number of Muslims to be unbelievers. In fact, it means that millions of people are now no longer Muslims. We do not know why the authors are so keen to exclude crowds of Muslims from God's religion.

Q. Is free thought and faith a positive attribute?

* Sheikh Ibn al-Uthaymin Whoever argues that a person is entitled to complete freedom of faith is an unbeliever, guilty of the major sin of disbelief.

* Al-Azhar Allowing people freedom of faith does not mean that we consent to people forsaking their religion. However, we are dismayed by insistence on charging Muslims with acts of apostasy for the smallest of reasons.

Q. Is it wrong to say the Earth moves around the Sun?

* Sheikh Ibn Baaz (Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia 1993-99) "The person who maintains that the Sun does not move should be condemned to death after being called upon to repent, as his denials of the motion of the Sun constitute a denial of God's Word.

* Al-Azhar Matters which are not explicitly indicated in texts revealed by God should be referred to experts in these fields, such as astronomers. Such fatwas as this one sadly distorts the image of Islam worldwide.

Q. Is it allowed for a Muslim to live in a non-Muslim country?

* Sheikh Ibn Baaz It is illegal to live in such countries for work, trade or even for study, except when engaged in proselytising in the name of Islam.

* Al-Azhar It is a Muslim's duty, whether living within Muslim or non-Muslim communities, to benefit other members of those communities through teaching religion, calling for the good and opposing the bad.

Q. Are Muslims allowed to study secular law?

* The Permanent Committee for Islamic Research (Saudi Arabia's most senior school of Islamic jurisprudence) It is not permitted to teach secular law as a general course in higher education. This subject should be limited to specialists, who are able to show how secular law deviates from the truth [of Muslim law].

* Al-Azhar There is nothing wrong with studying secular law providing that one's study is guided by a legitimate interest, such as co-operating for the general good of society and fighting legal oppression.

Good Friday, Canadian Muslim Style

It's not just Christians who flock to houses of worship at Easter.

Muslims do it, too.

"In Canada, Easter has become the third Muslim holiday, after the two Eids," says Nadir Shirazi, a Toronto multi-faith co-ordinator at the University of Toronto.

Friday is the traditional big day for Muslims to attend afternoon prayers, but the North American work week can make that difficult. Most observant Muslims end up at a mosque near their place of work each Friday, rarely able to be at their family mosque on Islam's primary day of worship.

But that changes every spring with Good Friday, a statutory holiday steeped in Christian tradition to mark the day the Bible says Jesus was nailed to the cross.

The day off gives Muslims a rare chance to pray at their neighbourhood mosques, alongside family and friends.

"For many Muslims, this is the only time they get to pray with their families, instead of a place near their work," says Shirazi, who also helps companies make their workplaces more accommodating to people of faith.

Across Toronto, mosques are bracing for their biggest prayer day of the year with added events such as lectures, discussions, games for the children and dinners.

Farhad Khadim, vice-president of the Islamic Centre of Toronto in Scarborough, says his mosque expects to see about twice as many worshippers today, estimating that there will be between 1,000 and 1,500 coming through the doors around lunch time.

"Normally, we get about 600," says Khadim, whose mosque includes families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

As a result, there will be a special lunch prepared today, with foods from many different countries, and pizza for the children.

There will be added lectures for the adults, and a forum to seek input from youths on how to engage them more in the life of the mosque.

"This is a traditional thing we do every Good Friday," he says.

Khadim, an active member of the Muslim community, says other holiday weekends such as Christmas and Thanksgiving have also gained importance in the Muslim calendar by providing an ideal time to hold conferences, such as the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference held in Toronto every Christmas.

"It's a matter of convenience," Khadim says, adding that with Christians busy with their holidays, finding meeting space for thousands of Muslims gets easier.

"You often find that large venues are much more available."

Atheist and Humanist groups also tend to hold conferences during religious holiday weekends – not out of a sense of irony, but because long weekends make travel easier.

For Muslims, though, Good Friday has evolved into a community and family day, with the emphasis on local events and needs.

Theologically, Good Friday is no different from any other day of worship in the mosques. But its status as a day off work has made it a big day to spend with friends and family – much as the church picnic has long been in many Christian churches – and a day many Muslins look forward to all year.

Many imams also take Good Friday as a chance to talk about Jesus and his place in Islam, says Shirazi.

"He's part of our religion, he's a prophet," says Shirazi, who'll be at the Pickering Islamic Centre today.

Khadim says he has also heard imams use Good Friday to talk about the role of women in society, drawing on the stories of the Virgin Mary and Khadijah, the wife of the prophet Muhammad.

"All the prophets were surrounded by strong women," says Khadim.

By coincidence, this weekend is also Passover, when Jews mark the Exodus of Jewish slaves from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. As well, it's the start of the Buddhist New Year.

"Thousands of people across Canada will be taking part in religious or spiritual events over these few days," says Shirazi.

"It's a wonderful convergence of our multiculturalism."


You may also find Ahmed Deedat's research on Good Friday an interesting read. The article is available here.

Get out of Hell Free option back in Christianity

The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”

In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

In simple english, Plenary Indulgences are sort-of 'Get Out of Hell Free card' from a priest.

With his traditionalist bent and sympathies for pre-Second Vatican Council mumbo jumbo, it comes as no surprise that Pope Benedict is giving the nod to the return of indulgences in the Catholic Church.

Roman Catholic doctrine is full of implausible theological concepts. Only a very naive person could possibly go along with half of it. Indulgences only add to the impression of a Church out-of-touch and intent on reviving the more Monty Pythonesque aspects of Catholic religiosity.

Indulgences allegedly grant a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife. Of course, they also place power back in the hands of priests - which is what Benedict is all about. The re-emergence of indulgences, saint veneration and other stratagems from the RC box-of-tricks is in part a move to help shore up the fading influence of the Church.

Indulgences were dropped decades ago by Catholics with good sense who realized, much as Luther did in his day, that such beliefs risked making the Church into a sort of spiritual bazaar where 'sins' could be absolved with clerical rigmarole, helped by perhaps a donation to a charity or two.

“Why are we bringing it back?” asked Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who has embraced the move. “Because there is sin in the world.”

Isn't this a bit like bribing the god via bribing the priests?

'Crappers' to bring luck

From left: A traditional Catalonian caganer, Spanish Princess Letizia, US President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI.

A Caganer is a little statue found in Catalonia, in neighbouring areas with Catalan culture such as Andorra, and in other parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy.

In Catalonia, as well as in the rest of Spain and in most of Italy and Southern France, traditional Christmas decorations consist of a large model of the city of Bethlehem, similar to the Nativity scenes of the English-speaking world but encompassing the entire city rather than just the typical manger scene. The caganer is a particular feature of modern Catalan nativity scenes, and is also found in other parts of Spain and southwestern Europe, including Salamanca.

Accompanying Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Shepherds and company, the caganer is often tucked away in a corner of the model, typically nowhere near the manger scene. There is a good reason for his obscure position in the display, for "caganer" translates from Catalan to English as "pooper", and that is exactly what this little statue is doing — defecating.

Catalans create Christmas Nativity scenes using models and hide the figures in them before inviting friends to find the figures. Catalans believe the "caganer", by creating faeces, fertilises the earth and brings prosperity and luck for the coming year.