The White House has surprised observers and disappointed some liberal allies by signaling that it is willing to compromise and provide a broader religious exemption in its controversial regulations requiring all employers to provide free contraception coverage.

Given that birth control use is almost universal – even among Catholics – many wonder why the Obama administration could wind up retreating on its pledge.

Here are five reasons that may help explain the political dynamic the president is facing:

1. It’s about religious freedom, not birth control: U.S. Catholic bishops, who led the battle against the Health and Human Services Department mandate, know that they long ago lost their own flock on the contraception issue — 98 percent of Catholics use birth control, according to surveys. So they have carefully reframed the issue as a fight for religious freedom – an effort to keep the government from forcing the Catholic Church and other religious groups to subsidize something that goes against their teachings. That makes it a violation of conscience, a sacred principle that transcends any specific tenet of faith.

That argument also lends itself to the kind of heated rhetoric that plays well in today’s supercharged political atmosphere. For example, bishops and their allies are accusing the president of “anti-Catholicism” and worse: “The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To hell with you!’ ” Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said after the HHS regulations were announced.

The bishops don’t have as much credibility with the laity as they used to, thanks to the clergy sex abuse scandal, among other things. But Catholics are still a potent tribe, and if outsiders are seen as attacking the church, Catholics can get defensive – and they can get even.

2. Obama has lost even the support of his liberal Catholic allies: Case in point: the HHS mandate has been opposed by liberal and centrist Catholics who have supported the administration on a range of other issues — including the Catholic Health Association and the NETWORK social justice lobby — and even went to bat to help pass health care reform despite threats from the bishops.

The president “utterly botched” the religious exemptions issue, wrote Washington Post columnist and liberal Catholic E.J. Dionne, and “Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus.”

“J’accuse!” Michael Sean Winters, a columnist for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, wrote in a florid column that channeled Émile Zola’s famous 1898 letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus affair. “The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.”

3. It’s not just Catholics: Even though evangelicals and other conservative Protestants generally don’t have religious objections to contraception, they do have a big problem with “big government” and with perceived infringements on religious freedom. Evangelicals – both their leaders and their troops – have never been big Barack Obama supporters anyway, so they were happy to provide any electoral and rhetorical muscle the Catholic hierarchy could not muster.

“We do not exaggerate when we say that this is the greatest threat to religious freedom in our lifetime,” evangelical leaders Timothy George and Chuck Colson wrote in an open letter to their fellow believers on Wednesday (Feb. 8). George and Colson compared the administration mandates to policies enacted in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

4. It gives Republicans a potent campaign wedge issue: Mitt Romney wasted no time in accusing Obama of launching an “assault on religion” by way of the contraception mandate, and he declared that his first act as president would be to overturn the HHS regulations. “Remarkably, under this president’s administration, there is an assault on religion, an assault on the conviction and the religious beliefs of members of our society,” Romney said.

Romney’s rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, were not to be outdone, and ramped up their rhetoric against Obama – while also noting that Romney had accepted similar policies while he was governor of Massachusetts.

In short, this is a political fight that the White House neither wants nor needs in an already tough re-election campaign.

5. Obama needs the Catholic vote: In particular, he needs the support of white Catholics, which is the core of this large swing vote (nearly one-quarter of the electorate). They are concentrated in crucial battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and while Obama won the overall Catholic vote 54 percent to 46 percent in 2008, he lost the white Catholic vote, 47 percent to 53 percent.

“To the extent Catholic voters think of this as a religious liberty issue, it does have the potential to pull Catholic voters toward Republicans or away from Democrats,” John Green, an expert on religious voting patterns and director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, told Bloomberg Businessweek.

A poll on the contraception mandate released Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute showed Catholics overall tended to support free contraceptive coverage, but white Catholics were evenly split on the issue. The Obama campaign can’t afford to sacrifice any of those votes, or risk watching the issue grow as a political liability when the election season heats up.

Question: “Do some Christmas traditions have pagan origins?”

Answer:There is no doubt that some of what we now refer to as Christmas traditions can be traced back, in some form, to pagan cultures and celebrations.

The ringing of bells, for example, is generally thought to have had its origin in the early pagan winter celebration of ringing of bells to drive out evil spirits.

In later centuries, bells were rung on Christmas Eve to welcome in the spirit of Christmas with joyful noise (Psalm 95:1).

When Christians enjoy the beauty of a glorious bell choir ringing Christmas carols, we are reminded of the coming of Jesus into the world, not the driving out of evil spirits.

Similarly, there was an early pagan tradition of lighting candles to drive away the forces of cold and darkness. However, is it likely that our hearts are drawn to those early pagans rather than rejoicing in our Savior, the Light of the World (John 1:4-9) as we light candles?

Of course not.

Nor is it likely that when I give gifts to my loved ones at Christmas, the gifts will have less significance to either of us because some Druid somewhere in time offered a gift to his goat as part of some pagan ritual.

No, we remember, as we should, the gifts given to the Christ-child by the Magi (Matthew 2:11). Jesus was the greatest gift ever given, and therefore His birth is worthy of celebration.

So obscure are the beginnings of many Christmas traditions that reference books and internet sites contradict one another on the details.

Some of our most popular and beloved Christmas symbols are entirely Christian, and were never part of any pagan religion anywhere.

At the same time, some Christmas traditions undoubtedly do have their origins in the pagan past. What is important is not the origins of traditions, but their significance to us today as believers in the Son of God.

December 25 was not mentioned in the biblical narrative as the day Jesus was born, and, as such, we cannot be dogmatic about it one way or the other.

But even if the date is completely wrong, there is still the opportunity for thousands of people who wouldn’t go to church any other time of the year to go on Christmas day and hear the gospel of Christ.

If you are fully convinced that you cannot, in good conscience, observe a particular Christmas tradition, do not observe it. If you are fully convinced that a particular tradition is too steeped in paganism to honor God in any way, by all means forsake that tradition.

At the same time, if you are fully convinced that you can honor and worship God through a particular tradition, honor and worship God (Romans 14:5)!

For Christians, Christmas traditions can be an important part of the celebration of the birth of our Savior, and they remind us of that momentous event that changed the world forever. More importantly, they bring to mind the miracle of new birth He created in us when He came into our hearts, saved us from our sins, and made us children of God by the shedding of His blood on the Cross (Colossians 1:20).

It is this amazing truth that enables us to say with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14).

Christian evangelical leaders of hundreds of organizations agreed recently in a conference in Hungary to strengthen cooperation among them to better address the economic and moral decline of Europe.

Some 500 participants in the HOPE•II congress, organized by Hope For Europe, met in Budapest to plan cooperative strategies to offset “deep poverty” and a “culture of death” in Europe, Jeff Fountain, congress director, told BosNewsLife.

Fountain told BosNewsLife, “Some 500 leaders returned home from the HOPE•II congress in Budapest a few days ago, buoyed with fresh perspectives” to lend “hope for Europe against a background of crisis and scandal embroiling European institutions.”

The participants in the four-day event came from some 40 European nations, and included artists, theologians, politicians, evangelists and pastors, according to BosNewsLife.

Some 20 talks were given by renowned Christian leaders, including world famous book authors such as Thomas Schirrmacher, Philip Jenkins, Os Guiness and Vishal Magalwadi, according to the congress website.

This is the second time Hope for Europe held its congress in Budapest (the first time was in 2002). The organization, which has  ties with the European Evangelical Alliance, seeks to network Christians of different professions across Europe, the website said.

The congress opened on May 9, which marks “Europe’s forgotten birthday,” Fountain said during the congress, adding, “Few Europeans are aware that on 9 May 1950 the first move was made towards the creation of what is now known as the European Union,” BosNewsLife reported.

Fountain said this was the day when “French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman surprised the world…by announcing a plan for France, Germany and other European countries to pool together their coal and steel production as ‘the first concrete foundation of a European federation,’” according to BosNewsLife.

However Fountain said Schuman “would be appalled by the false ethic of greed in the financial sector, and the ‘culture of death’ expressed in youth suicides, abortions, euthanasia, low birth rates, rising murder rates, [and] signs of deep spiritual poverty,” BosNewsLife reported.

Noting that Schuman envisioned “a community of peoples deeply rooted in Christian values,” the Penn State University historian said Europe’s roots are strongly linked to Christianity, BosNewsLife said.

The keynote speaker of the event, Philip Jenkins urged Evangelicals to remind Europeans of their Christian roots. “Look around you…at street names, religious holidays, flags, monuments, and you can’t avoid seeing how much Europe is rooted in a deeply Christian past,” BosNewsLife reported.

Jenkins also debunked as “myth” the belief that Europe would one day be filled with Muslim migrants, noting that birth rates of Muslims in Europe, and across the world, have fallen from six to 1.6 within the last quarter century, according to the website.

Jenkins blamed the fall in birthrate, which is the steepest ever recorded, to Europe’s secular lifestyle which makes it difficult to maintain sustainability, the website said.

Failed humanistic vision

Other speakers at the event cited the failure of the “humanistic vision of society and economy,” and noted the need to bring back to Europe biblical truths, according to the website.

During the congress, five HOPE awards were also given to ministries for their contribution in promoting hope, the website said. The recipients of the awards are: TopCretien.com (a Paris-based website), the Santa Clara Church in Stockholm (for inner city work), Sergey and Mariana Glushko (Teen Challenge, Kyiv), Patricia Green (Berlin-based work against trafficking) and Shirinai Dossova (for witnessing to communists and Muslims).

The White House said recently that it was regrettable that an Evangelical leader would make absurd claims on Easter Sunday about issues that had long been belied.

Jay Carney, White House spokesman, said remarks by Evangelical leader Franklin Graham suggesting that President Barack Obama may have been born in a country other than the U.S. are unbelievable and sad, the New York Daily News said.

Carney said, “I think it’s unfortunate that a religious leader would choose Easter Sunday to make preposterous charges,” according to the New York Daily News.

Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, was responding to a question from Christiane Amanpour, who asked the son of Billy Graham if he was bothered by questions that have been raised by “Birthers,” Christianity Today said.

Graham replied, “Well, the president, I know, has some issues to deal with here. He can solve this whole birth certificate issue pretty quickly. I don’t—I was born in a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, and I know that my records are there. You can probably even go and find out what room my mother was in when I was born. I don’t know why he can’t produce that. So, I’m not—I don’t know, but it’s an issue that looks like he could answer pretty quickly,” Christianity Today reported.

Graham told Christianity Today that the ABC program where he questioned Obama’s birth had actually been taped one week before Easter, and that his statements were merely in response to questions he had been asked.

Graham told Christianity Today, “I’m not going out making speeches about where the President was born. I could care less. I’ll continue to answer reporters’ questions.”

His statements however reflected that of Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn) who also suggested that Obama should produce a birth certificate. A few days afterwards, George Stephanopoulos of ABC presented Obama’s birth certificate to Bachmann. She replied, “Well, then, that should settle it,” Christianity Today reported.

Obama had actually released his birth certificate as early as 2008 when he was campaigning for the presidency, the New York Daily News said.

Despite this, rumors of Obama’s birth continue to float with some saying he was born in Kenya, and others saying he was born in Indonesia or the U.K. According to the president’s birth certificate, he was born in Hawaii, New York Daily News reported.

The “issue” of Obama’s birth has been noisily banded about of late by Donald Trump, who is posturing to run for the presidency as a Republican candidate. Graham told Christianity Today that he sees Trump as a viable candidate.

Graham told Christianity Today, “Donald Trump, when I first saw that he was getting in, I thought, well, this has got to be a joke. But the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, ‘You know? Maybe the guy’s right.’”

Other candidates that get Graham’s nod are Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Graham told Christianity Today,
“We’ve got to have some new leadership, new Republicans, more Tea Party people.”

A new study in Italy showed recently that twins, while in utero, make deliberate and directed movements to touch each other from the 14^th week of gestation.

This is the first time that a study of twins in the womb showed that they touch each other intentionally. In the past similar studies were conducted past the 11^th week of gestation, but only examined reflex actions, LifeSiteNews reported.

The new study was conducted by Dr. Umberto Castiello, University of Padova and his associates, using advanced ultrasonography that recorded the movement of the twins in 3D, LifeSiteNews said.

In the study, the researchers said, “Unlike ordinary siblings, twins share a most important environment – the uterus. If a predisposition towards social interaction is present before birth, one may expect twin fetuses to engage in some form of interaction,” LifeSiteNews reported.

Methodology

The premise of the study recognizes that when babies are born, one-to-one interactions are the beginning of social cognition. But, the study said, babies can’t develop just by watching, but need to also touch and have reciprocal interactions, like copying facial movements.

The study questions further, do babies have a propensity to interact even before birth, when they are still in the womb? The study differentiated reflex movements from intentional movements, referring to a 2007 study by Zoia et. al.

In the Zoia study, 22-week-old fetuses were seen in utero to have three hand movements that were goal directed, namely “movements ending at contact of fingers with the mouth, movements ending at contact of fingers with the eye, and movements directed away from the body, towards the uterine wall.”

In the experiment, five pairs of twins from low-risk pregnant mothers were examined in utero on the 14^th and 18^th weeks of gestation. Each recording session was 20 minutes long, LifeSiteNews reported.

On the 14^th week the twins were seen touching themselves and the uterine wall. There was also contact “head to head, head to arm and arm to head,” the study said. However, from the 15^th to 22^nd week, “intra-pair contact becomes a constant and increasing feature of all twin pregnancies.”

LifeSiteNews reported that interest in their twin rose three times as high, and 30 percent of total movement was aimed at the sibling. The movements also lasted longer, LifeSiteNews said.

The study said “[Between the 14^th and 18^th weeks] kinematic analysis revealed that movement duration was longer and deceleration time was prolonged for other-directed movements compared to movements directed towards the uterine wall. Similar kinematic profiles were observed for movements directed towards the co-twin and self-directed movements aimed at the eye region.”

The study showed that the increase of movement towards the twin was consistent among all sets of twins that were examined in utero adding, “When the context enables it, as in the case of twin fetuses, other-directed actions are not only possible but predominant over self-directed actions,” LifeSiteNews reported.

Some Christians feel the BBC TV series, The Nativity, is not faithful enough to the bible, while others believe that by lending a human perspective to the story, the birth of Christ becomes a more genuinely felt experience for both the churched and unchurched.

The Nativity, written by Tony Jordan, is a four-part series that is being aired on BBC during Christmas week. The Daily Express said some Christians are outraged at scenes where a 15-year-old pregnant Mary is being accused by Joseph of “whoring” or rape, and another where people attack her because they don’t believe she was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice said the gospels only say Joseph was suspicious, but mentions no violence or verbal abuse. He also said children who do nativity plays at school may be confused, The Daily Express said.

Green told The Daily Express, “They wouldn’t mock the birth of Muhammad, or anything to do with his life story. They wouldn’t ridicule Hinduism or Sikhism, but Christianity is their big target.”

Churched and unchurched

Jordan however said that he wanted a film that both the churched and unchurched would appreciate. He told The Telegraph, “I want people who have no particular faith, who don’t watch the God Channels, to watch this nativity. And if they have faith, to reinforce it. And if they haven’t, to make them think, ‘Wow, I don’t know, maybe…’”

Noting that unbelievers tend to laugh at the idea of Jesus being born to a virgin, Jordan made that the centerpiece of the story. “The story has been hidden because people couldn’t get past that first bit,” He told The Telegraph.

The Nativity focuses on the tension and romance between Mary and Joseph. Jordan told The Daily Express, “I think it perfectly believable that Joseph should get angry with his betrothed and only agree to take her with him to Bethlehem when she risks being stoned by angry neighbors.”

The journey to Nazareth takes on a new twist. Jordan told The Telegraph, “In my version they hate each other for the whole journey, but come together at the end through Joseph discovering faith.”

Some might say it is “wholesale revisionism,” but Jordan kept true to the essence of the gospel and researched so carefully as to call NASA scientists to get a detailed understanding of the Star of Bethlehem, The Telegraph said.

The writer’s favorite character is a shepherd burdened with debt and an ailing wife. People tell him God will take care of him, but Jordan tells The Telegraph, “When you’re unemployed and your wife is dying, that’s…hard to take.” At the end of the story however the shepherd kisses the feet of Baby Jesus.

Actress Tatiana Maslany, who plays Mary, said the story is about enduring love “even in the most difficult circumstances.” Andrew Buchan, who plays Joseph compares his character to any man today “who goes away and comes back to find his wife or girlfriend pregnant. Of course he’s going to … challenge her,” The Daily Express reported.

The Church of England says the series is “a gritty interpretation of the events of the first Christmas. We hope it will bring home the story of Jesus being born in a humble stable to many new viewers,” according to The Daily Express.

Independent Catholic News notes that Jesus is described throughout the series as a “bridge between heaven and earth,” and cites the irony of the couple’s journey through a barren desert of extreme temperatures looking for a place where Mary can safely give birth to Jesus.

The Church Media Network clarifies that the series is a drama that is sourced from the gospels but is not an exercise in evangelism. However, the series can be used as a tool to open up dialogue about Jesus and what his birth means to the world, according to their website.

Amid stepped up violence against Christians in Iraq, many Iraqis have fled to neighboring Jordan as a stepping stone to get to the U.S., Australia, Canada or Europe.

According to the AFP, many Christians fled to Jordan because of threats from the radical Shiite Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr. However, after the Oct. 31 attack on Baghdad’s Syriac Catholic cathedral, the numbers have increased.

One Christian, Moayed (who would not give his last name), told the AFP he fled Iraq after the radical Shiite Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr blew up his supermarket and told him to leave because “there is no room here for Christians.”

Mohannad Najem told the AFP, “Churches in Iraq no longer issue birth certificates in order to contain the exile of Christians.” He fled to Jordan with his wife and four little children because the Mahdi Army told him that unless he paid $1,000 a month, his children would be killed one by one.

Uday Hikmat, 33, told the AFP he and his parents left Iraq three days after the church massacre. With his birth certificate, he hopes to complete documentation for an emigration visa to Canada.

Flawed U.S. State Department report

Meanwhile, Muslim and Christian leaders in Jordan disputed report recent U.S. State Department report on religious freedoms, which said Jordan discriminates against citizens who convert to other faiths, The Jordan Times said.

The report said, “While relations between Muslims and Christians generally were good, adherents of unrecognized religions and Muslims who converted to other religions faced societal discrimination and the threat of mental and physical abuse,” The Jordan Times reported.

According to The Jordan Times the report said, “The [Jordan] government continued to harass some citizens and resident foreign groups suspected of proselytizing Muslims and a few Muslim converts to Christianity, including by attempting to induce them to revert to Islam. But the intensity of the harassment declined during the reporting period.”

Muslim and Christian leaders said the report cites individual cases that don’t represent the country. Father Nabil Haddad of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center told The Jordan Times, “We have never had any difficulties in setting up churches or religious schools to teach our congregation the rituals of Christianity.”

Hamzah Mansour of the Islamic Action Front, the political wing of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood told The Jordan Times, “Muslims and Christians…are one people and we have never had any problems with coexistence.”

Both faith leaders agreed that the resistance is against foreign missionary activities in Jordan–not against both faiths, according to The Jordan Times.

The U.S. State Department report said Jordan’s Constitution, penal code and civil law do not ban conversion, nor proselytizing Muslims. However, because primacy is given by the government to Sharia law, it takes precedence over Muslims’ personal lives and prohibits conversion, The Jordan Times said.

The State Department report said that Sharia “infringes upon the religious rights and freedoms laid out in the Constitution by prohibiting conversion from Islam and discriminating against religious minorities in some matters relating to family law.”

A Philippine tourist guide pleaded “not guilty” to charges of “offending religious feelings” when he went inside a Catholic cathedral in Manila by himself while an ecumenical church service was going on, and decried the stand church’s stand on birth control.

Carlos Celdran was arrested on Sept. 30 when he entered the Manila Cathedral alone, dressed as Filipino national hero Jose Rizal, and carrying a sign that said “Damaso,” (a corrupt and abusive priest in Rizal’s novel, “Noli Me Tangere”), GMA 7 said. As Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales was preaching, Celdran stood at the cathedral’s main altar and yelled, “stop getting involved in politics.”

He was referring to the Catholic Church’s stance against RH bill 96, which would allow government hospitals to distribute condoms and other means of artificial birth control to the public, GMA 7 reported. The Catholic Church had threatened President Benigno S. Aquino with civil disobedience, and one bishop talked about excommunication, if Aquino pursued the bill. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/09/aquino-appeals-to-philippine-bishops-amid-civil-disobedience-threat-13891).

Celdran had walked into an ecumenical mass that was attended by the Papal nuncio Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, other dignitaries of the clergy, heads of other faiths, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, and other government officials, according to GMA 7. He has been charged by Monsignor Nestor Cerbo, rector of Manila Cathedral, for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code which forbids “offending religious feelings,” GMA 7 said.

Article 133 says “the penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional in its minimum period shall be imposed upon anyone who, in a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony, shall perform acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful,” according to GMA 7.

The tourist guide has gained local cult status for his bitingly humorous, historical/political city tours, which are often attended not just by foreigners but by Filipinos who live in the city, as well. Celdran is known to distribute condoms—which are available in any drugstore–to residents of Intramuros, where the Manila Cathedral is.

At his arraignment Thursday at the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court Celdran, again wearing his Jose Rizal suit, pleaded “not guilty” before Manila Judge Alfonso Ruiz. He told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he wore the costume again to remind the public of the RH bill, and “because it is Halloween.” He added that he pleaded not guilty because “I did not say anything offensive.”

During his arraignment some 20 supporters showed up wearing white shirts that said “DAMASO” and “Pass the RH Bill.” Also present at the court hearing was Atty. Reynaldo Reyes, counsel for Cerbo (who filed the charges against Celdran), the Philippine Daily Inquirer said. Reyes said his client may consider forgiveness if Celdran makes a public apology, noting that the Catholic Church does forgive those who repent, ABS-CBN reported.

Celdran told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he has already apologized for his method of protest, but he refuses to apologize for his support of the RH bill. Celdran’s counsel, Atty. Marlon Manuel said his client would consider settling if the Catholic Church will not insist that Celdran admits that he offended religious feelings.

Judge Ruiz set Celdran’s pre-trial hearing for December 7, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said.

Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III urged recently the Catholic bishops to calm down and to await a planned dialogue, after the bishops had threatened to launch a civil disobedience campaign over the pending reproductive health bill.

The Palace said they will hold a dialogue with the powerful and influential Catholic church after it has consulted with lay leaders on R.H. bill 96, which is pending in Congress, GMA News said.

If passed, the bill will require sex education in primary and secondary public schools, and call for the purchase of contraceptives by state hospitals as part of its essential medicines and supplies, according to the CBCP website.

The Catholic church only permits natural methods of birth control and claims that artificial methods of birth control will promote promiscuity and increase abortions. Eighty percent of the Philippine population is Roman Catholic, GMA News reported.

The church went up in arms after Aquino (who is on a seven-day visit in the U.S.) said in a U.S. televised interview that determining the size of one’s family is a personal choice, the AFP said.

Aquino said, “The government is obligated to inform everybody of their responsibilities and their choices. At the end of the day, government might provide assistance to those who are without means if they want to employ a particular method,” the AFP reported.

Aquino added, “I believe the couple will be in the best position to determine what is best for the family, how to space (the births), what methods they can rely on and so forth. They face the responsibility for the children that they bring in and government is willing to assist them,” according to the AFP.

Civil disobedience threatened

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr. of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said, “If the RH bill becomes law, we will advise Catholics not to follow it…the Church considers as non-negotiable its opposition to artificial contraception,” GMA News reported.

Iniguez blamed Aquino’s stance on artificial contraception on the fresh aid from the United States which includes a $434-million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corp., GMA News said.

In the CBCP website Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the bishops’ Commission on Family and Life said, “It’s no secret that the US and other foreign nations have tried to pressure the Philippine government for a more aggressive birth control program.”

In the past the bishops had often condemned the USAID, United Nations Population Fund and other international aid agencies which Castro said have been pressuring lawmakers to push the reproductive health (RH) bill, according to their website.

Castro expressed fear that with Aquino’s recent support for artificial contraception, the possible passage of the RH bill is further strengthened. He noted that while Aquino was always a strong advocate of the measure, he was relatively silent on the issue during the campaign period, the CBCP website said.

The Philippines estimates its 2010 population at 94.01 million, up from 76.5 million in the 2000 census and making it the 12th most populous nation in the world AFP.

The president of a Christian association was invited recently to attend the international Islamic Conference in Llorin, Nigeria.

Bishop Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria will attend the formal opening of the Islamic Conference on Sept. 16. The event, which is being organized by the World Muslim Conference, seeks to promote understanding, interaction and world peace, All Africa said.

The World Muslim Conference seeks “to work for a world of co-existence through inclusiveness and participation. As a member of diverse family of religions…we believe what is good for Muslims has got to be good for the world, and vice versa, to sustain it,” its website says.

They also say on their website, “To be a Muslim is to be a peace maker, one who seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence of humanity. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation.”

The World Muslim Conference has been active in causes that forward greater tolerance of different faiths. Recently it protested a decision by Malaysia’s Penang High Court which denied Siti Hasnah Banggarma, 28, the freedom to return to Hinduism, her faith of birth, Free Malaysia Today said.

Banggarma was forced to convert to Islamism at age seven when she was in a government orphanage. She married a Hindu at a later age but could not register her marriage nor place her husband’s name on the birth certificates of their children, Free Malaysia Today said.

Under Malaysian law, non-Muslims who marry a Muslim must first convert before the marriage is considered legal. In a statement the World Muslim Conference asked for a reversal of the judge’s decision citing their scripture which said, ” … Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error …” [2:256]” Free Malaysia Today said.

Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim of the organizing committee said the congress will seek to educate and enlighten people on the teachings of Islam, and particularly, to raise the awareness and knowledge of Islam among the youth, All Africa said.