Week Commencing 19th July 2021

24th July

The Guardian reports: The Vatican has released information on its real estate holdings for the first time, revealing it owns more than 5,000 properties, as part of its most detailed financial disclosures ever.

From the BBC, one of Britain’s youngest imams is using social media to change people’s impressions of what a religious leader must be like.

22nd July

From Aljazeera, police and civil authorities in the Indian capital have demolished a makeshift mosque in a Rohingya camp, say the refugees, weeks after a massive fire had engulfed the settlement.

21st July

In The Guardian, the top administrator of the US Conference of Catholics resigned after cellphone data revealed that he was a frequent user of Grindr, the queer dating app, and regularly visited gay bars.

20th July

From The Guardian, Muslims in England were able to pray shoulder to shoulder for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic following the easing of social distancing restrictions. Just in time for Eid al-Adha.

From Religion News Service, the national leader of the far-right group The Proud Boys, Henry Tarrio, has pleaded guilty to the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from Asbury Methodist Church, a historic Black Church in Washington D.C..

19th July

Aljazeera reports, amid the withdrawal of foreign forces after 20 years, peace talks between the Government and the Taliban, and looming threats of a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Eid al-Adha falls at a particularly precarious time for Afghanistan.