Decreased financial and political commitment was blamed recently for the rash of measles outbreaks in 30 African countries.

If the trend continues, by 2012 some 500,000 may die from measles, reversing the gains of the last 18 years that were made against the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Severe measles can incur complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and dehydration, ear infections or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

Measles deaths among children under five years old fell to 118,000 in 2008 from 733,000 in 2000.

The disease tends to occur among poorly nourished young children with the most severe complications, according to Reuters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the African countries that had the largest outbreaks are Zimbabwe, Chad and Nigeria.

Some 8,000 migrant children in Bulgaria also had the highly-contagious disease during the period,

WHO expert Peter Strebel said the World Health Assembly’s 193 member states, in their annual meeting in Geneva last Thursday, decided to aim for at least 90 percent measles vaccination coverage nationally by 2015, Reuters reported.

However these goals, while achievable, require a long and determined commitment by the states themselves.

Strebel said the assembly will also aim for 80 percent coverage in every district, and to reduce measles to less than five per million population, Voice of America said.

They also strive to reduce measles mortality by 95 percent compared to 2000 levels.  It costs less than $1 to vaccinate a child against measles, but two doses are required for full protection, according to Voice of America.

Meanwhile large cases of measles have also erupted in the UK, the USA and parts of Europe due to a flawed study that linked measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination to autism.

In Britain vaccination rates dropped below 90 percent last year following the autism scare, Strebel said.  However, after the study was proven to be flawed, in the U.K. in fact there have more recently been improvements in vaccination levels and disease spread has fallen to very low levels, Reuters reported.

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An Associated Press report said recently that Facebook is now being used to help recruit priests in France.

According to the report, this is part of an overall euro 250,000 campaign to encourage more males to become men of the cloth.  The April 20-May 5 campaign also includes 75,000 postcards showing a priest’s vestments with a button reading, “Jesus is my Boss” and the slogan, “Why not?”  It will be distributed throughout France, in restaurants, bars and movie theaters, among other places.

But the use of Facebook indicates the ever enlarging role the social network is playing in today’s world.  On its first week the page got over 1,200 fans.

Roman Catholicism is the main religion in France, comprising 64 percent of the population, or 41.6 million people out of a total 65 million.  However, only some 2 million attend church regularly, the report said.

There has also been a steady decline in the number of priests with only 24,000 today, compared to 42,000 in 1975.  Even the number of those who were ordained in 2009 (89) is a steep fall from a decade before at 116 in 1999.

Although the declining trend of ordainments is common in Europe and the United States, globally ordainments have actually increased, with the largest number of new priests coming from Asia and Africa.

The AP report noted, for example, that it is common for a church service in Italy to be conducted by priests from Brazil, Mozambique, the Philippines and other countries.

For Europeans and the United States, the most difficult obstacle towards becoming a priest is the vow of celibacy.  However, another difficult consideration is that the priesthood is a lifetime career choice whereas many people undergo many career changes in a lifetime.  Also, priests don’t make much money.  In Asia and Africa however joining the priesthood is a valued profession.  It also enables one to get an advanced education and earn a respectable living.

Even the average age of the European priests is indicative of a shortage of young Caucasian men entering the priesthood.  On the average, an Italian priest in 2003 was 60 years old, with one of every eight priests 80 years or over.

The decline is not related to the recent sex abuse scandals, the AP said.  The ad campaign however hopes to interest a younger age group of French men to become part of the Catholic priesthood.

The Telegraph UK for example described a half page ad of a 41-year-old man with the caption, “I am a man among others.  I’ve heard and responded to Christ’s call.  I love life.  I am a priest!”

The use of Facebook is also seen as a way to attract their target market and to reinvent the image of priests into something more young, new and contemporary.  The Telegraph UK report quoted French advertising guru Jacques Seguela who commented on the ad campaign and the sex abuse church scandals by saying, “The Church couldn’t call off the publicity campaign.  In any case, the ad is also a good counterattack in a crisis period.  This is a real grassroots reaction of the Church showing its modernization, in contrast with the image of a Pope mired in his own conservatism.”

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Two bombs were set off within minutes of each other in a Christian populated area in Iraq recently, killing one and injuring 80 others, the Associated Press reported.

The explosions took place in the northern city of Mosul, where a large Christian community resides.

There have been attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents against the Christian minority in Iraq, especially in Mosul.

Some extremist Sunnis view Christians as nonbelievers and believe that Christians support the Shiite-led government, which they oppose.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that minorities including Christians could be caught in the crossfire of longstanding feuds between Arabs and minority Kurds for the area’s oil-rich resources and land, Radio Free Europe reported..

Wisam Jarji, a student who was wounded in the blast said, “I could see blood stains and hear screams all over the place.”

The U.S.-based National Council of Churches sent a letter last week to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to lobby for more protection for Iraq’s Christian community from the government.

They were particularly worried in the aftermath of the March 7 parliamentary elections as various political forces still vie for power, the AP said.

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Warsaw (ENI). Almost two-thirds of Europeans think Christian values are still relevant to contemporary life and are ready to acknowledge the Church’s efforts to promote them, a recent survey carried out for La Croix daily newspaper has found.

“Whether rooted in Christianity or not, Europeans recognise a privileged place for this religion in its Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox forms,” France’s Roman Catholic-linked newspaper commented on 1 April.

“Yet while two-thirds think Christianity’s message is still up-to-date, this isn’t the case for the other third. So, Christianity remains an element marking the religious culture of the Old Continent, but no longer claims exclusivity,” the newspaper noted.

In the survey, conducted during March by France’s Institut Francais d’Opinion Publique (IFOP) in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, 57 percent of respondents said they believe Christians are “sufficiently visible” in society. That was compared to 28 percent who thought they were “not visible enough” and 15 percent who considered them “too visible”.

Although 61 percent of Europeans said the “message and values” of Christianity remain topical, only Italians believe churches are doing a good job in communicating and reaching out to young people, compared to between 74 and 80 percent of British, French, German and Spanish respondents who thought the opposite.

Forty-eight percent of Europeans assigned a key role to Christian values in promoting “dialogue with different cultures and religions” and “solidarity with the poor,” compared to between three and 13 percent believing these values are important in bioethics and respect for life, in “moralising capitalism” or on issues such as immigration and environmental protection.

At the same time, slightly more than 80 percent of respondents said church priorities for the 21st century should include action for world peace and combating poverty at home, while a third believe churches should be “available at life’s key moments” and one in five think their priorities should include “making Christ’s message known”.

In its commentary, La Croix said the “Christian anchorage” of Europeans appears “too deep to be shifted by the waves stirred by current events”, and has been little affected by current abuse scandals in the churches. However, it also notes strong national differences in attitudes to Christianity, with French citizens voicing stronger criticisms than their Italian neighbours.

In Britain and Germany, where religious pluralism and coexistence are a “well anchored historical reality”, according to La Croix, more citizens regret the failure of traditional churches to hold their ground against new minority faiths.

“For the English above all, religion is a private affair. The Church should be there at life’s important moments, rather than to support world peace, whereas in Germany the churches have a recognised social role as a sort of State institution,” the newspaper noted.
“By contrast, if the majority of French are strongly detached from religion, French Catholics display a more marked religious outlook than Italian or Spanish Catholics. They are also proportionately more numerous in voicing an attachment to Christian values,” it stated.

The survey by IFOP, which was founded in the 1930s, follows other poll results suggesting interest in religion remains extensive in Europe, despite what many see as the continent’s outwardly secular character.

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A recent Pew survey showed recently that sub-Saharan Africa is among the most religious places in the world; and its least religious nation is more religious than the United States–which is among the most religious of the advanced industrial countries.

The survey was conducted in 19 countries namely Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The countries were chosen for being the most populous and for their different colonial histories, languages and religions.

The data was collected through more than 25,000 face-to-face interviews in more than 60 languages/dialects from December 2008 to April 2009.

A recent Pew survey showed recently that sub-Saharan Africa is among the most religious places in the world; and its least religious nation is more religious than the United States--which is among the most religious of the advanced industrial countries.

The two dominant religions are Christianity and Islam, and unlike the United States and Europe (where many have no religion) the vast majority is religiously affiliated.  However, they overlap traditional African beliefs and practices with faith.

Large numbers of Africans, whether Christian or Muslim, also believe in witchcraft, evil spirits, sacrifices to ancestors, traditional religious healers and reincarnation among others.

The survey also showed that Christianity and Islam coexist together, and they often view each other as tolerant and honest.

They attribute the peaceful coexistence to their governments which treat both religions fairly.

Some 40 percent of Christians however consider Muslims to be violent, while Muslims assess Christians more positively.

Most respondents favor democracy and religious freedom.  However, Muslims and Christians would both like a government based on either the Bible or sharia law.

Many Muslims also advocate the imposition of severe punishments like stoning people who commit adultery.

The survey also showed that:

• Most respondents rank unemployment, crime and corruption as bigger problems than religious conflict–except in areas like Nigeria and Rwanda where religious conflict is a major problem.
• Many respondents are concerned about religious extremism, even in their own faith. Muslims are more concerned about Muslim extremism than about Christian extremism; and Christians in four countries say they are more concerned about Christian extremism than about Muslim extremism.
• Neither Christianity nor Islam is growing significantly in sub-Saharan Africa at the expense of the other.  There is virtually no religious switching between the two.
• At least half of all Christians in every country surveyed expect that Jesus will return to earth in their lifetime, while roughly 30 percent or more of Muslims expect to live to see the re-establishment of the caliphate, the golden age of Islamic rule.
• In most countries, more than half of Christians believe in the prosperity gospel – that God will grant wealth and good health to people who have enough faith.
• By comparison with people in many other regions of the world, sub-Saharan Africans are much more optimistic that their lives will change for the better.

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