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Consolmagno is an author, Vatican astronomer and curator of the Vatican's meteorite collection. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. His work in asteroid and meteorite studies prompted the International Astronomical Union to name an asteroid, 4597 Consolmagno, after him in 2000. Dr. Consolmagno earned his bachelor of science in 1974 and master of science in 1975 in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1978. From 1978-80 he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Harvard College Observatory, and from 1980-1983 continued as postdoc and lecturer at MIT. He has also spent several terms as a visiting scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and as a visiting professor at Loyola College, Baltimore, and Loyola University, Chicago.

Astrobiology Magazine's managing editor, Henry Bortman, had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Consolmagno at the Astrobiology Science Conference, at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): Do you see the study of astronomy as a spiritual pursuit?

GC: Absolutely. When I came back from the Peace Corps, I taught for four years, and enjoyed it so much I decided to teach full-time. And so I entered a teaching order, the Jesuits. What I didn't realize was that they were going to pull me out of teaching to do full-time research at the Vatican. There's a small group of about a dozen Jesuits at the Vatican. I'm one of them. We come from all over the world. We all do just full-time astronomy. But in addition, I do a lot of public talks and things like my participation in this conference.

And the reason why the Church supports astronomy --

AM: That was my next question.

GC: -- goes back to, in sense it goes back to the reform of the calendar, back in 1582. They hired an astronomer to work out how to make the calendar work right. There's also a sense that the Church, in modern times, wants to show the world that it's not afraid of science, that it supports science, that it thinks science is a wonderful thing. Not only to reassure the scientists, but also to reassure the religious people science is a good thing. Don't listen to people who say you have to choose one or the other.

And there's two things going on there. One is the sense that, if God made the universe, and he made it good, and he loved the universe so much that, as the Christians believe, he sent his only son, it's up to us to honor and respect and get to know the universe. I think it was Francis Bacon who said that God sets up the universe as a marvelous puzzle for us to get to know him by getting to know how he did things. By seeing how God created, we get a little sense of God's personality. And that means, among other things not going in with any preconceived notions. We can't impose our idea of how God did things. It's up to us to see how the universe actually does work.

AM: Isn't the belief that God created the universe a preconceived notion?

GC: It is. And it's a preconceived notion that in one form or another every scientist has to have. Because here's the other side: to be a scientist you have to have two fundamental assumptions, so fundamental you don't even think about it. You assume that the universe makes sense, that there really is an objective reality; there really is a logic to this; it's not just chaos; there really are laws to be found. We're so used to that assumption, you don't realize it. A lot of cultures don't have that.

And the other assumption you have to make is that it's worth doing. If your idea, if your religion is to meditate and rise above the physical universe, this corrupting physical universe, you might say, you're not going to be a scientist, you're not going to be interested in Mars. So it's a religious statement to say the physical universe is worth devoting my life to. Seeing how the universe works is worth spending a lifetime doing.

AM: Why is it a religious statement?

GC: By religious I mean that it is based on certain fundamental assumptions you have about how the universe works and what your place in the universe is. And ultimately, that's a religious assumption. Whether it's my religion or somebody else's religion, lots of people with lots of religions are looking at science. I'm not saying it's only one religion that has that assumption. But I'm saying that there are religions that don't. There are brilliant cultures throughout history who have had fabulous mathematics and glorious ethical systems - and no science. It really is an important fundamental assumption that you have to have, especially day-to-day as a scientist. It's what gets you up in the morning.

You know, one of the scary things as a scientist is that you're not punching a clock. There's probably nobody looking over your shoulder to see if you're working today. It's only after two years, when you haven't produced anything, that you don't get the next grant and then you're out of a job. But day-by-day, what gets you up, what makes you do the work? Why are you excited about this stuff? And why do you think that it's worth doing, when people are starving in the world?

AM: And what's your answer?

GC: My answer is the answer I gave before. That it's one of the things that makes us human and, for me, it's one of the things that bring me into close personal touch with God.

AM: You're at an astrobiology conference, and the goal of astrobiology is to understand the origin of life on Earth and to search for life elsewhere, including other intelligent life. So let's just go for the big prize. Suppose another intelligent species is discovered. What would that do to the Church's beliefs about God creating the universe, and Earth, and the creatures on Earth, and sending his only son - which is what it says in the book - to this planet, where there is an intelligent species, perhaps one among millions?

GC: There are five hypotheticals there. So, "I don't know," "I don't know" and "How the heck could I know?" But, I'm also a science fiction fan --

Here are three scenarios. The most likely one: We find an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can communicate with them because they're so alien to us. We can't talk to dolphins now. In which case, we'll never know.

Second scenario: We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate. We discover that they have the two essentials that theologians talk about for the human soul, intelligence and free will. They know who they are, they're self-aware, and they're able to do something about it. I think dogs are self-aware, but they don't have a whole lot of free will. Maybe computers are the same sort of thing. Human beings have to have both.

That means if you're going to have freedom, you've got the capability of doing right and wrong. There is evil in the world, that's an observed fact. There is the need to overcome evil in the world. There's that need for salvation that we all have. I can't imagine they wouldn't need it, if they've got the same freedom we've got.

If you want to trade good bible quotes, here's one: The beginning of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word." The Word is, of course, Jesus, the Word is the second person of the Trinity, the Word is the salvation, the Word is the incarnation of God in the universe, who according to the Gospel is there before the universe was made. The one point in space-time that's the same on every timeline. So that the salvation occurs and is made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ here.

Is it possible that there are other Words in other languages to other cultures? Beats the heck out of me. But that's scenario number two. And people have talked about that for hundreds of years, the idea that there could be other lives - this is classic Catholic poetry. And that's what it is, it's poetry, it's not theology. 'Cause it's so many hypotheticals.

A third scenario: We find a dozen civilizations out there, and a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses go up and convert them all. At the end of the day, every civilization is Christian, except the human race is still not too sure about this. I mean, anything's possible.

AM: But you left one out: They convert us. Because how do we know they don't have an equally powerful set of beliefs --

GC: It's not like beliefs come with power attachments to them. We can't even convert ourselves.

AM: All right, forget "powerful." A "deeply felt" set of beliefs.

GC: Well, the only analogy we have is how different civilizations on the face of the Earth have interacted as they came in contact.

AM: The Church's record isn't so good on that one --

GC: Oh, it's a lot better than you think. It's a lot better than you think. Don't believe the anti-clerical enlightenment people who were spreading all sorts of lies to cover their own rear end. It's the Church who was protecting the indigenous people in South America, against the military.

AM: I don't think they were protecting them in California.

GC: Well, read your history. Am I saying they did everything perfectly? No. They sure did in Paraguay.

The point is, if you're going to convert somebody, you have to treat them as an equal. There are people, when they came to the Americas, who thought that, well, we can enslave these people because they don't have souls. And the Church said, "You can't do that." If you're sending a missionary to somebody, you're implicitly saying they're equal.

The other thing that happens is that each side learns from the other, inevitably. And the sense of acculturation continually goes on. It went on when the missionaries from Italy showed up in Ireland. Irish sensibilities became part of the Christian milieu. German sensibilities. Russian sensibilities. Every culture has added something to the mix, and brought something out of the mix. It's inevitable. You can't pretend that it's a one-way street. Even if you wanted it to be a one-way street, it wouldn't be.

AM: Let's shift topics a bit. What is the focus of your meteorite research?

GC: My particular interest is actually the physical fabric of the meteorite. Our understanding of the origin of the solar system involves the solar nebula, condensation of a lot of, essentially, dust. And we can picture how you go from tiny grains of dust to maybe kilometer-sized balls of dust. But that's not what we see in our museums. What we see are rocks. Well-compressed, well-lithified rocks. When and where did that happen? How did that happen?

So we've gone back and measured the actual porosity of the meteorites, to look physically at the fabric of them. Individually by looking at them in thin section and with an SEM (scanning electron microscope), just point-counting where the cracks are. But also in hand sample, in bulk, using helium pycnometry and other methods to measure the densities. And one of the interesting things that came out of that is that we came up with the first really good set of meteorite densities about the time we were getting asteroid densities, and we see that they don't match at all. The asteroids are a good 20 percent less dense than the meteorites, which has fit in with new ideas that the asteroids are not big lumps of rock, they're piles of rubble, or at the very least, very fractured rocks. So this is telling us about the processes that went on four and a half billion years ago.

AM: And why does the Vatican fund this research?

GC: There's a political reason. It's a simple one, that they want the world to know that the Church isn't afraid of science, that they like science, that science is great, this is our way of seeing how God created the universe, and they want to make as strong a statement as possible that truth doesn't contradict truth, that if you have faith, then you're not going to ever be afraid of what science is going to come up with. Because it's true.

And the one time in history that they screwed up on this, the Galileo affair, the Church was wrong. And we've admitted it was wrong. How many times has science abused the Church? How often have you heard a scientist apologize to the Church?

AM: Do you think that was the only time in history that it happened?

GC: The whole scientific enterprise really does coincide well with Christian theology. The whole idea that the universe is worth studying is a Christian idea. The whole mechanism for studying the physical universe comes straight out of the whole logic of the scholastic age. Who was the first geologist? Albert the Great, who was a monk. Who was the first Chemist? Roger Bacon, who was a monk. Who was the first guy to come up with spectroscopy? Angelo Secchi, who was a priest. Who was the guy who invented genetics? Gregor Mendel, who was a monk. Who was the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory? Georges Lemaître, who was a priest. There is this long tradition; most scientists before the 19th century were clerics. Who else had the free time and the education to gather leads and measure star positions?

AM: Okay, but you brought up Galileo, I didn't. Are you saying that was a single incident, or was it a period of time --

GC: A bit of both.

AM: -- and if it was a period of time, when do you think it changed, and how and why do you think it changed? Because it took a pretty long time to apologize.

GC: Well, yes and no. You probably aren't aware of all the other apologies before the most recent apology. Nobody knows really why Galileo was gone after. You can read all the documents. They're in translation in a marvelous book by Finocchiaro, "The Galileo Affair". For most of Galileo's life he was lionized, he was treated like a hero, including by people in the Church. His book, "The Assayer", has the Church censor saying, "We're honored to live in a time with a man this wonderful." When Galileo got into trouble at the end of his life, it was a real shock. It was a complete reversal of everything that had been said up to that point.

And so the historical question is, why did it happen? And the answer is, we don't know. You can go to amazon.com and find 300 books on Galileo, every one of them with a different answer. Which is to say, there was something going on, and it wasn't simply a science versus religion thing the way that Berthold Brecht describes it in his play. If you relied on "JFK," the movie, to figure out what happened in the assassination of Kennedy, you'd be in as good shape. You've got to remember the Galileo affair occurred at the height of the Reformation and the 30 Years' War. These were really stressful times in Europe. Europe was falling apart. And it was a uniquely bad time for a lot of people in a lot of directions.

Could it happen again? Of course it could happen again. As long as there's human beings in the Church -- and the last time I saw, most of us are -- and as long as there are human beings who are scientists, there will be inevitable conflicts, there will be people who think they know better, and there will be people who will be right and people who will be wrong. The Church will always make mistakes. Scientists will always make mistakes. We're human beings.

But if you look at the whole sweep of history, for most of its history, the Church has thought that studying science is great. And there's been a fringe of religious fundamentalists - not Catholics - who have tried to warp science to their particular peculiar theology. In the same time, there have been a bunch of science fundamentalists, who have tried to use science as a substitute religion. And neither of those operations really works very well. And both of them, I think, come out of a lack of confidence.

The religious fundamentalists, basically, are scared that they don't have faith, which is why they cling so tightly to what little they've got. The science fundamentalists, I think some of them just want to be taken seriously as scientists and they think, well I have to show that I've rejected anything else.

So in that sense, science and religion are very separate. And Stephen Jay Gould had it right up to that point in his book "Rocks of Ages". But what he misses is that every human being is a person with religious beliefs, who also is a scientist. At the fundamental level -- Why do I do this? What am I looking for? Why do I choose this question instead of that question to study? What kind of picture of God do I get at the end of the day when I see that the universe is not just a dome over a flat Earth, the way that Genesis describes it, but is infinite numbers of multiverses? -- what science does is expand my view of how big God is. And as I said before, my fundamental beliefs of how the universe works, which cannot be proved by science, are the assumptions I start with before I can build a logical system. Those assumptions direct what science I do and why I do it.

AM: What do you hope to get out of being here at the Astrobiology Science Conference?

GC: Oh, having a good time. And, fundamentally, that's why we do science, because it's really enjoyable. I'm also working on a research project with Lynn Rothschild on whether or not life could be transported in the pore spaces of meteorites. And so we want to talk about that as well.

In addition, in some way, I'm waving the Church flag. Just by walking around with this badge that says "Vatican Observatory," I'm reminding people that, yes, there is indeed a religious aspect, and indeed, an ethical aspect to science. That's what the session I'm participating in here is about - that we are human beings, that we do have more than just science in our lives. And the science is great and wonderful, and when done right, is done not for money or for our own prestige or our own glory but because we want to find out what's the truth. That's the best way to do science. That's the most fun. One of the nice things about being paid by the Vatican is that I don't have to worry about NASA politics. I don't have to write grant proposals. I don't have to find out what's the flavor of the month this month. I can do anything I want.

AM: You don't have to worry about Vatican politics?

GC: Nope. They barely know we exist. My instructions when I arrived there were: do good science, period.

AM: Does the Vatican fund research other than its own research? Does it have a relationship to ESA (European Space Agency), for example?

GC: No. The Vatican's actually a pretty small outfit, per se. The budget of the Vatican is smaller than the budget of most archdioceses in the U.S., because they don't have all the schools and the hospitals and things. So the fact that we get the money we get, which is probably under a million a year, is still a substantial commitment, just to do science. But we're the only thing they can afford to do directly. There's also a pontifical academy of sciences, which are 120 great scientists from around the world, any religion, every religion, who sit as a group to advise the Vatican on issues worth worrying about. For instance, in the 80s, they were the ones who got the Pope to really speak out about nuclear winter and nuclear disarmament.

AM: Do you have any final comments to make?

GC: No. I don't expect to convert anybody here. I don't expect to convert any aliens. If I can get people to think and if I can get people to laugh, what more do I need to do?

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Patients Want Doctors to Discuss Spirituality

Do you smoke? Do you have a family history of cancer? Are you spiritual?

It's not often that you hear your doctor pose that last question. But a new survey of 920 adults shows that patients want their doctors to ask about their spirituality in many cases, such as when facing a life-threatening disease or a serious medical condition.

A positive spirit is often credited for helping people cope with life's toughest obstacles, such as a devastating illness. But spirituality's role in health care has long been controversial, and doctors traditionally have shied away from spiritual or religious discussion.

Evidence indicates that patients who are more spiritual or religious have lower mortality rates, reduced stress, and overall better physical and mental health. They typically require fewer health services. Lack of spiritual training, unwillingness to depart from established medical arenas, and ethical issues are some of the reasons why doctors have avoided widespread spiritual discussion with patients.

In an effort to clarify how spirituality should be encompassed in a medical setting, patients at five family physician offices (four urban, one suburban) in Ohio were asked to rate their spirituality (1 being not spiritual at all, 5 being extremely spiritual) and to describe how their beliefs played a role in their health care decisions. The survey also included questions about their medical history, experiences with a serious illness, and whether or not they had ever asked a doctor (or vice versa) about their spirituality. The majority of those surveyed were women.

Study author Gary McCord, MA, of Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, found that 83% of respondents wished to discuss their spiritual beliefs with their doctor. Spiritual discussion was most acceptable when dealing with a life-threatening illness, serious medical condition, or a loss of a loved one. It was least welcome during routine physical exams.

Among the findings:

* People aged 30 to 64 most welcomed spiritual discussions.
* 17% never wanted to be asked about their spirituality.
* 20% always wanted their doctor to be aware of their beliefs.
* 18% told their doctor about their beliefs without being asked.

Of those who wished to discuss spirituality:

* 87% wanted their doctor to understand how their beliefs helped them deal with being sick.
* 83% wanted their doctor to understand how their beliefs influenced their decisions.
* Women were more likely than men to change their medical treatment based on spirituality.
* Two-thirds believed that by having doctors know about their spiritual beliefs, they would be advised on how to take care of them when sick.
* 67% believed that by having doctors know their spiritual beliefs they would be compassionate and encourage hope.

The findings were reported in the July/August 2004 Annals of Family Medicine.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

More Americans seek God on their terms, and in their homes

For many Americans, worship is no longer centered exclusively under a steeple. In an era of long commutes, overloaded schedules, and made-to-order spirituality, religious experience increasingly means venturing into someone's home for refreshments and a taste of God on far more personal terms.

In the trend, some see the danger of renegade religion. Others see a host of potential benefits - as long as the movement doesn't go too far. "Home is a very comfortable, safe environment. It's not institutionalized," says Diane Bennett, director of small group ministries for Vision New England, an evangelical network. "People want friendship and relationships. It makes sense to try to create it at home."

Though religious life beyond traditional walls is too decentralized to track precisely, some indicators suggest a rising trend:

• About half of the nation's observant Christians participate in small group ministries that meet either at church or in parishioners' residences, according to Gallup Poll research.

• Over the past year, followers of "Conversations with God" author Neale Donald Walsch have launched 162 home-based "Humanity's Team" gatherings nationwide.

• Organizers of the Alpha Course, an introduction to Christianity, are currently recruiting hosts to offer an environment "less threatening" than the institutional churches.

Reasons for religious pursuits in the living room range from the practical to the theological. In some cases, home-based observances aim to provide a complement to gathering formally on a holy day. Park Street Church in downtown Boston, for instance, encourages suburbanite members to discuss sermon-based questions, posted weekly on the preacher's website, at a church member's house.

In others cases, groups become substitutes for other religious affiliations. At least 15 Jewish fellowship, or "havurah," gatherings in the Boston area have become independent congregations over the past 30 years, according to Mark Frydenberg, National Havurah Committee Chairman. Although most havurah groups remain connected to an established synagogue, he says, some have gone further to quench a thirst for community.

"People have wanted a more participatory form of worship than they could get at the synagogue" where the congregation follows a rabbi's lead, Mr. Frydenberg says. For example, he said women who face restrictions in Orthodox congregations sometimes find a home-based congregation more accepting when they wish to take part.

Indeed, many seek refuge from organized religion in the safe confines of informal settings, says Caiazzo, whose group meets in Danvers, Mass. "You can have your pain addressed better in a small, familial environment."

Seeking God in a private gathering is hardly a new religious endeavor. For millenniums, Jewish families have joined over dinner tables to begin Sabbath observances. Early Christians worshipped secretly under a Roman Empire that regarded them as outlaws. And today in countries where religious minorities face persecution, home-based worship is the norm.

In 2004 America, devotion in the den reflects not so much necessity as personal choice. The preferences of those gathered dictate the agenda, whether it be to pray for loved ones, to hold one another accountable to agreed-upon moral standards, to discuss philosophical questions or to make music. "We're coming together and sharing our deepest beliefs about who we really are and who God is," says Ms. Schulte in Austin, whose group is part of Humanity's Team.

Churches ambivalent

For established churches, intimate meetings in private residences can help members internalize Sunday messages by providing a setting "where people are a lot more likely to open up and tell the truth," according to Eric Reed, managing editor of Leadership, a journal for church leaders. As an added bonus, he said, the gatherings keep costs down in lean times. "Instead of spending on a second building that's all classroom space, you can do that function at home and spend your money on things other than tables and chairs," Reed said.

Despite their encouragement, established churches still watch closely. House gatherings that break off altogether from established churches can be become both unfaithful and unhealthy, according to Vision New England's Ms. Bennett.

"People are [sometimes] disgruntled with the church for some reason, and they decide they'll start their own. I don't think that's positive," Bennett said. "Scripture calls us to meet together as a corporate body for worship. Not every place has great teaching."

Breaking doctrinal bounds

Some who worship within the comfort of their own four walls, however, have come to feel that righteousness actually depends on independence from churches driven by rules. Paul Pappas founded a church in his Methuen, Mass., living room after disappointment with the doctrines of Greek Orthodox, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Pentecostals.

"We [in the home congregation] have a wide range of beliefs, but our core is in Jesus Christ crucified," Pappas says. Many come to the group from born-again backgrounds. "People can believe however they're led," he says, as long as they don't they insist that only their understanding is right.

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Spiritual books boom

The search for Christian publications in tiny, out-of-the-way religious bookstores is long over. Today, that hot new read everyone is talking about may very well be a religious book stacked on the shelves of your local Barnes & Noble.

As publishing groups and research firms examine sales statistics for 2003, it's clear that religion and spirituality books emerged as retail powerhouses.

The No. 1 nonfiction book in 2003 was Pastor Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life," according to the Book Industry Study Group. The self-help guide has sold 17 million copies.
Top sellers on the fiction side include "The Da Vinci Code," "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," and "Armageddon," all titles with a spiritual bent.

"What we are looking at is unquestionably religious books becoming mainstream," said Albert N. Greco, the study group's statistician and a professor at Fordham University. "They are so hot that big chains like Barnes & Noble and mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart are allocating more space."

Last month, the Association of American Publishers released its 2003 statistics, showing religious books generating sales of $337.9 million, up 36.9 percent from 2002. The category includes Bibles, hymnals and self-help titles, but it is religious fiction that is driving the surge in sales, Greco said.

The Left Behind series written by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye is a big reason for the increase, Greco added. "Glorious Appearing," the most recent book in the series, which chronicles Jesus Christ's return to Earth, was on the New York Times best-seller list earlier this month. The series' previous 11 volumes have sold more than 40 million copies.

Industry experts point to the aging baby-boomer population's search for spiritual peace and security and the destabilizing effects of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as prime reasons for the rising popularity of religious books.

Consumers who purchase religious products buy them primarily because they are interested in spiritual matters, are looking for God's presence in their lives, or are seeking a purpose in life, according to the preliminary findings of a new study by Publishers Weekly. These buyers are primarily evangelical Christians, are more often women, and are on average 38 years old.

The study's results were released last month at Book Expo America in New York, which offered its first religion and spirituality day during the annual publishing-industry convention.

"It was a long overdue recognition of how important this category has become," said Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly, a cosponsor of the convention.

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Survey: Protestant majority disappearing in the USA

The United States will no longer be a majority Protestant nation in years to come, due to a precipitous decline in affiliation with many Protestant churches, a new survey has found.

Between 1993 and 2002, the share of Americans who said they were Protestant dropped from 63% to 52%, after years of remaining generally stable, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

At the same time, the number of people who said they had no religion rose from 9% to nearly 14%, and many are former Protestants, the survey's authors said.

The study was based on three decades of religious identification questions in the General Social Survey, which the opinion center conducts to measure public trends.

The United States "has been seen as white and Protestant," said Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey. "We're not going to be majority Protestant any longer."

Respondents were defined as Protestant if they said they were members of a Protestant denomination, such as Episcopal Church or Southern Baptist Convention. The category included members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and members of independent Protestant churches.

Among the reasons for the decline were the large number of young people and adults leaving denominations as the number of non-Protestant immigrants increased, comprising a greater share of the population. Also, a lower percentage are being raised Protestant, Smith said.

Smith said it is also possible that some former Protestants are now identifying themselves only as "Christian," a choice on the survey.

The Roman Catholic population has remained relatively stable over the period, making up about 25% of the U.S. population.

People who said they belonged to other religions — including Islam, Orthodox Christianity or Eastern faiths — increased from 3% to 7% between 1993 and 2002, while the share of people who said they were Jewish remained stable at just under 2%.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Survey: 18% reveal Gibson's "Passion" Inspired Greater Church Attendance and Personal Prayer

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ inspired a greater frequency of church attendance, personal prayer, and church-related activity, according to a Barna Group Survey. In total, 18 percent of respondents admitted that their practice of religion was altered as a result of seeing the film.

In total, one-third (31 percent) of Americans reported having seen the film.

One in six viewers (16 percent) revealed that The Passion had affected their religious beliefs. The types of change in belief was related as: an increased awareness of how one's actions affected others; a deeper appreciation for what Christ's suffering and death had wrought for them; and a renewed sense of the importance that one's life decisions and behavior has.

". . . about 13 million adults changed some aspect of their typical religious behavior because of the movie and about 11 million people altered some pre-existing religious beliefs because of the content of that film," George Barna, director of the research, emphasized. "That's enormous influence," he said.

"More than any other movie in recent years, The Passion focused people on the person and purpose of Jesus Christ," he continued. "In a society that revolves on relativism, spiritual diversity, tolerance and independence, galvanizing such intense consideration of Jesus Christ is a major achievement in itself."

The Passion was the eighth-highest grossing film of all time.

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Monday, July 12, 2004

Harvest prayers to include apology for global inequality

Church of England harvest festival services could soon expect worshippers not only to thank God for an abundant crop but also to repent for sins against the environment and for oppression and inequality.

Congregations which traditionally gather around piles of bread, fruit and vegetables to sing "We plough the fields and scatter" will be asked to acknowledge their "selfishness in not sharing the earth's bounty fairly". They may also apologise for "our failure to protect resources for others" and for "inequality and oppression in the earth".

The new prayers are contained in the latest addition to the liturgy, the Common Worship: Times and Seasons, which is expected to be approved by the General Synod meeting in York tomorrow.

It was compiled by the liturgy commission, which is headed by the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev David Stancliffe, and suggests prayers and liturgies for services throughout the Christian year.

During Rogationtide, which marks the blessing of the land, worshippers will be asked to pray to "free the exploited and oppressed" and long for "a harvest of justice, Lord we pray".

One section reads: "For all those who depend on the earth for their daily food and fuel, whose forests are destroyed for the profit of a few, Lord we pray . . .

"For those who labour in poverty, are oppressed by unjust laws, are prevented from speaking the truth."

A Church spokesman said the prayers "reflected the reality of the global economy in which people recognised the need for fair trade and justice for everybody who produces our food. These are all suggested outlines for use with services that already exist."

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Sunday, July 11, 2004

New center to promote studies of effects of prayer

In the past century, physical scientists and religious believers have often taken separate paths in their pursuits of truth. But in recent years there's been a growing interest in applying scientific methods to study the effects of prayer.

To date, most of the effort has been driven by researchers in the United States. In what could be a major step to broaden scientific inquiry of prayer, a panel of leading religious figures and medical researchers used a conference of the Parliament of World's Religions in Barcelona, Spain, to announce the opening of the Office for Prayer Research.

Medical researchers at Duke and Harvard universities joined author Deepak Chopra and Tom Zender, president of Unity, a spiritual movement, to introduce the center, to be based in Missouri.

Mr. Zender says that the new office will offer "a safe haven where different researchers [working on the scientific study of prayer] can come together to collaborate and share information." He sees the new center as a "global repository" that will not sponsor scientific studies into prayer's effectiveness, but will gather information and make it available to others.

For its supporters, the Office for Prayer Research signals a public acknowledgment that prayer's benefits to health are being taken seriously.

Dr. Chopra, who hosted the panel, explained: "Even though prayer has existed in every spiritual tradition, only recently has science begun to validate that prayer 'works,' which in the field of medicine means that patients who are prayed over recover faster and have fewer complications from serious illness. But science is at a loss over why prayer works, and it will remain at a loss until we revise our most basic theories of what we call reality."

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Friday, July 09, 2004

World's varied religions gather for conference

Learned Muslim clerics, Buddhist monks and Roman Catholic cardinals rarely find themselves in the same place at the same time with gurus, cult followers and mystics. But the Parliament of World's Religions, convening a weeklong conference here Wednesday, is out to change all that.

Call it religious globalization or spiritual summitry. The Chicago-based organization expects to draw about 6,500 religious leaders, activists and followers of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam to the assembly. Billed as part of a "cultural Olympics," the conference is being held on the grounds of the 100-acre site of the "Universal Forum of Cultures," a more secular, five-month-long humanities festival that began in May along Barcelona's sea front.

The world's great faiths have certainly interacted in the past. But in gathering traditional religions with those of a more New Age flavor, the parliament is seeking written commitments from the faithful to help tackle four worldwide problems: refugees, water shortages, religious violence and increasing debt.

"The hallmark of the conference is to help put a human face on these four issues," said Rev. Dirk Ficca, executive director of the parliament. "I will tell you candidly there are these big gatherings all over the world where people tend to go and talk. But we hope for a litany of commitments. A church or synagogue, for example, can go home and host a refugee family."

At the opening assembly Wednesday evening, thousands gathered to listen to chanting Buddhist monks, dressed in orange and red tunics. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist who was awarded this year's Nobel Peace prize, gave the keynote address.

"Human rights can be achieved only through democracy," said Ebadi, a longstanding critic of the authoritarian rule of Iran's hard-line clerics. "But democracy also requires a framework. A majority has no right to govern as they please."

The first parliament session was held in Chicago in 1893, thought to be the first time that Jews, Catholics, Bahais and Hindus engaged in official dialogue. A century later, the second parliament was held, again in Chicago, and a third in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999.

At a time of rising Islamic extremism around the world and the war in Iraq, the parliament's organizers are under more pressure to produce action. Discussions will include seminars on Islam's relationship with the West and how a Muslim can practice the faith while living in a Western country. Renowned speakers, including best-selling author Karen Armstrong and Islamic intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who will begin a tenured post at the University of Notre Dame this fall, will lead these seminars.

"As we know, Islam is the target of criticism, and Muslims should explain what they stand for and reach out to the average people. This is my aim," said Ramadan, a Muslim cleric who is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian thinker who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.

Spain chosen before attacks

Spain was chosen in 2002 as the venue for the parliament long before the March 11 attacks in Madrid, when Islamic militants blew up four packed commuter trains, killing 190 people. The explosions, the worst in Europe in 15 years, make Barcelona an appropriate place for discussing Islam and violence in religion, said parliament organizers, though some would-be participants canceled plans to attend out of fear of further attacks.

"It is interesting how Spain has reacted differently than the United States did to Sept. 11," said Ficca. "I find great sophistication here, even among people on the street, about the difference between Muslims and terrorists. There is greater recognition that there are complex reasons driving terrorism that cannot be solved by waging war."

Leaders of the parliament were asked at a news conference Wednesday how their interfaith dialogue in Barcelona could promote world peace.

"The parliament will not dictate to the world what to do," said Lally Lucretia Warren, a parliament leader from Botswana. "But religion is the chief instrument through which order is established in the world."

Despite an emphasis on working to promote peace, much of Wednesday was devoted to symbolism. Activists lit the World Peace Flame, created in 1999 when seven peacemakers on five continents lit seven peace flames that were flown across the world and later united into one.

They also planted a peace tree on the grounds of the Forum.

The week's schedule is packed with sessions on everything from the value of meditation to Sufi psychology. The seminars include titles such as, "Transforming Inter-Faith Dialogue: A Pathway to Peace," and "The way of the Saints: The Path of Personal Transformation through Meditation."