Word: religione
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Castellanos said that he didn’t think Romney’s religion should be an important issue, and that he would advise his candidate to stay true to himself and his values...
...pilgrimage as betrayal, not breakthrough. The UBCV's two top officials, Thich Huyen Quang, and Thich Quang Do ("Thich" is an honorific held by most Vietnamese monks) have been under house arrest in their respective monasteries due to their pro-democracy stance and opposition to strict government control of religion, which was established after the communists won the war in 1975. A spokesman for the outlawed sect said he is "shocked" that Nhat Hanh is willing to work with his co-religionists' oppressors. "I believe Thich Nhat Hanh's trip is manipulated by the Hanoi government to hide its repression...
...Quang Do, 77, has been a high-profile dissident operating out a monastery in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and proponent of Buddhism free of state control. (An estimated 80% of Vietnam's 84 million people are Buddhist, but after the Vietnam war the Communist Party folded the religion's many sects into one state-controlled church.) Quang Do smuggled his messages to his supporters in Paris who then channel the word back to Vietnam. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times...
...Despite the sequestration of the dissident Buddhists, Hanoi's communist leaders have been working hard to dispel the country's reputation for persecuting religion. After the U.S. in 2004 placed Vietnam on its list of "Countries of Particular Concern" for blocking religious freedom (North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China are all on the list), Hanoi passed a new law outlining ways for non-state religions to gain official approval. The next year, it allowed Nhat Hanh to return to Vietnam for the first time in 40 years. Late last year, Washington removed Vietnam from the religious-freedom blacklist...
...Unified Buddhists say the Communist Party's strategy is to promote Nhat Hanh's non-political teachings in order to sideline the religion's legitimate leaders, those who stayed during the war. But Nhat Hanh's followers say that he only wants to promote Buddhism among ordinary Vietnamese and point out that both of the banned sect's leaders refused to meet with Nhat Hanh during his first visit in 2005. Quang Do rejected overtures for a meeting and when Nhat Hanh led a delegation to the monastery where Huyen Quang is confined, the UBCV patriarch locked himself...