Word: faithful
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Could the world be home to a new theocracy? Starting last month, in a tropical country of 65 million, thousands of faithful, many dressed in religious garb, have marched the capital's streets demanding that the draft of the new constitution currently being debated enshrine their beliefs as the state faith. In our era of sectarian strife, many of us shudder at the prospect of another nation blending church and state. Look what happened in Iran and Afghanistan, we think, or what might have occurred if former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke had reigned supreme in America. Yet the marches...
...although plenty of Muslims have been murdered as well), it's not surprising that sentiment in usually tolerant Thailand is turning hostile. "Ten years ago, it would have failed," says Mettanando Bhikkhu, a prominent Buddhist scholar in Bangkok, of the movement to make the religion the country's official faith. "But among these Buddhist nationalists, burning sentiments against other religions are very strong...
...many Buddhists in Thailand have no wish to see their faith enter politics. And Thai Muslims, most of whom already feel marginalized in this overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, will read any such move as more evidence of their second-class status. "It will inflame the south," says Panitan Wattanayagorn, a security specialist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "Muslim countries will believe we are against minorities." That would be a shame, since historically Thai culture has shown tolerance toward other cultures and religions. "Most Thais would like to find a compromise or middle path on this [constitutional] issue," says Panitan. A Buddhist...
...with its bishops and priests? so that this great Catholic continent is also a continent of life and of hope." The Pope acknowledged the need for the Church to respond to the challenge of evangelical Christian movements, which have been luring Catholics away with their more immediate approach to faith. Catholicism, he said, must be "more missionary and more dynamic in offering a response to this thirst...
...past, the Vatican frowned upon such figures and anything resembling a commercial show of faith, but the success of these methods in fighting the Protestant encroachment has prompted Rome to adopt a more convenient silence on the issue, both in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. The question now is whether that high-energy devotion to Jesus, Mary and Benedict can prevent further erosion of Roman Catholicism in a region that boasts almost half the world's devotees...