Rock and roll nuns to perform for pope in Panama

Yahoo – AFP, Roberto CORTIJO, 17 January 2019

Known as "Siervas" or Servants, a band made up of nuns plays catchy Christian
songs that sound indistinguishable from many of their peers in mainstream rock

With millions of YouTube views and hits on Spotify and iTunes, a group of young nun rockers play one of their biggest gigs next week, and thousands of Catholics, including the pope himself, will lap it up.

It may be rock and roll, but Twisted Sister they ain't, and sex and drugs are not an option for the Sisters of the Servants of the Plan of God. They play their brand of melodic rock in their traditional habits.

"We're young sisters," says 37-year-old guitarist Sister Ivonne of the band, which includes members from Chile, Japan, Ecuador, China and Costa Rica.

"This is another form of bringing our evangelical message, showing our strength -- that's to say, it's also music that we like, it shows a lot about who we are."

Known as "Siervas" or Servants, the band plays catchy Christian songs that sound indistinguishable from many of their peers in mainstream rock.

But the appearance is very different, rock's grunge and glad rags giving way to the nuns' tried and trusted black and white habits and veils on stage.

Sister Ivonne (L) says playing in a band with other nuns is "another form of bringing 

our evangelical message, showing our strength"

YouTube hit

With a half-dozen slickly produced videos on YouTube, Siervas has built an international following as it communicates its message of "love, joy, hope."

Their "Trust in God" music video, which features the nuns playing on a helipad atop a Lima skyscraper, went viral on YouTube with nearly two million views.

And now, the Peru-based sisters will play at the World Youth Day celebrations, a gathering of global Catholic youth in Panama presided over by Pope Francis.

The message at the heart of their music? "We want to reach as many people as possible, and if the pope is included in that, we're more than satisfied," said Ivonne, who pens much of the lyrics.

The 11-member band, which performs in Spanish, has previously played for crowds at Francis' visits to Mexico and Peru.

Sister Teresa, a drum player from Chile, plays in a band made

 up of nuns she says takes "the word of God and his consolation 

to the prisons, to the disabled"

Not just music

"We're not just working in music, but we take the word of God and his consolation to the prisons, to the disabled," said Sister Daniela, the drummer from Costa Rica.

Tuesdays, when they are back in Peru, they bring food to the homeless on the streets.

The group will gig at a women's prison during the trip to Panama. They will also play at a children's cancer hospital and schools.

"We go to the women's prisons to listen to them. All they ask is to be listened to and to know God has forgiven them," said Camila, the 22-year-old Peruvian guitarist.

The band, which has so far visited 11 countries, including the United States, was formed in Lima in 2014 when the young musician nuns from different nationalities came together, said 24-year-old Sister Arisa, from Japan.

"It was God's plan that we come together," said Arisa, a violinist.

After months of rehearsal, they held their first concert in the auditorium of the General Command of the Army, helping raise funds for a house for the order in Angola.

Sister Arisa, a violinist from Japan, says that "it was God's plan" that she and 

other nuns form a band

The band has undergone several changes to its lineup since 2014, as sisters leave to fulfill their missionary role.

"Until now we have not been able to talk to the pope, we would love it if he approaches us," said Ivonne, from Chile.

"I wouldn't know what to say, I think I would faint."

Known as "Siervas" or Servants, a band made up of nuns plays catchy Christian songs that sound indistinguishable from many of their peers in mainstream rock

Sister Ivonne says playing in a band with other nuns is "another form of bringing our evangelical message, showing our strength"

Sister Teresa, a drum player from Chile, plays in a band made up of nuns she says takes "the word of God and his consolation to the prisons, to the disabled"

Sister Arisa, a violinist from Japan, says that "it was God's plan" that she and other nuns form a band

VIDEO: These nuns play catchy Christian songs that sound like mainstream rock 'n roll, and are scheduled to play at the World Youth Day celebrations in Panama, an event presided over by Pope Francis pic.twitter.com/xggFs5r8Iq

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 17, 2019

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Women should play a greater role in the training of priests to fight the child abuse 'crisis' that has engulfed the #CatholicChurch, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said https://t.co/UmGvrcnIZI #MarcOuellet

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 16, 2018

Pope, patriarch urge Christian unity at historic talks

Yahoo – AFP, Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere, 13 February 2016

Pope Francis (R) and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill,

 greet each other during a historic meeting in Havana on February 12, 2016 (AFP

Photo/Adalberto Roque)

Havana (AFP) - Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called in a historic meeting Friday for restored Christian unity and urgent action to help Christians threatened by violence in the Middle East.

"For nearly one thousand years, Catholics and Orthodox have been deprived of communion in the Eucharist," they said in a joint declaration signed after talks in Cuba.

Pope Francis (R) and the head of the

Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, 

kiss each other during a historic meeting in 

Havana on February 12, 2016 (AFP Photo/

Adalberto Roque)

"We are pained by the loss of unity, the outcome of human weakness and of sin."

It was the first meeting between the heads of the Eastern and Western churches since the great schism of 1054 when the churches split apart, with the Eastern church rejecting the authority of Rome.

"Mindful of the permanence of many obstacles, it is our hope that our meeting may contribute to the re–establishment of this unity willed by God," the church leaders said.

Their meeting was driven by rising violence in recent years in the Middle East, where Christian communities have suffered violence at the hands of extremists.

"We call upon the international community to act urgently in order to prevent the further expulsion of Christians from the Middle East," they said.

"In many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated," they went on.

"We wish to express our compassion for the suffering experienced by the faithful of other religious traditions who have also become victims of civil war, chaos and terrorist violence."

The 79-year-old Francis, in white robes and a skullcap, and Kirill, 69, in black robes and a white headdress, earlier kissed and embraced before sitting down smiling for the historic meeting at Havana airport.

Between them, they are the spiritual leaders of more than 1.3 billion Christians.

"At last we meet. We are brothers," said the pope as he met the white-bearded Orthodox leader. "Clearly, this meeting is God's will."

Comparison of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, with photos 

of their leaders (AFP Photo/Gustavo IZUS)

Church diplomacy

The meeting on neutral ground -- hosted by the communist, atheist Cuban leadership of Raul Castro -- was decades in the planning, with the final obstacles swept away by the pope's determination and global politics.

"I just wanted to embrace my Orthodox brothers," he said in an interview this week.

But he also framed the encounter in a broader context of engaging Russia, saying Moscow could be an important partner for peace in the world.

Francis has twice received Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Vatican. The Russian leader has clashed with other powers recently over the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

The Orthodox Church's refusal to accept the primacy of the Roman pontiff has long been the primary barrier to a rapprochement between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill (C) and Cuba's President Raul Castro (R) exchange

gifts after a meeting in Havana on February 12, 2016 (AFP Photo/Enrique de la Osa)

Now there are also tensions over the perceived evangelism of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe.

The conflict in Ukraine has pitted Ukrainian Catholics loyal to Rome against separatists who are mostly Russian Orthodox.

Meanwhile, violence by armed Islamist groups has surged in the Middle East and North Africa.

"The international community must undertake every possible effort to end terrorism through common, joint and coordinated action," the declaration read.

"We exhort all Christians and all believers of God to pray fervently to the providential creator of the world to protect his creation from destruction and not permit a new world war."

The church leaders warned against the rise of secularism and said European integration must respect religious identities.

Pope Francis (L) is welcomed by Cuban President Raul Castro at the

 International Airport Jose Marti in Havana, on February 12, 2016 (AFP

 Photo/Yamil Lage)

"While remaining open to the contribution of other religions to our civilization, it is our conviction that Europe must remain faithful to its Christian roots," they said.

Francis left after the meeting for a tour of Mexico, while Kirill continued a visit to Cuba, Brazil and Paraguay.

Francis's arrival in Mexico was set to be a luminous affair, with hundreds of thousands of well-wishers expected to line the 12-mile (19-kilometer) route from the airport to the Vatican ambassador's residence in Mexico City.

Believers planned to light up the road Francis's popemobile will travel with their mobile phones or hand-held torches, creating what local organizer Roberto Delgado described as a "wall of light and prayer."

Pope, Russian patriarch sit down together in Cuba for historic meet https://t.co/3VVTKNAe08 pic.twitter.com/yZxhRJ17nL

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 12, 2016

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Pope Francis and other religious leaders at the Vatican. Photograph: AP

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."

Pope takes message of equality to Paraguay

Yahoo – AFP, Kelly Velasquez, Paula Bustamante, 11 July 2015

Pope Francis waves goodbye as he prepares to depart Viru Viru airport in Santa 

Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, July 10, 2015. The pope is departing for Paraguay, as part 

of his three-nation tour of South America. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Asuncion (AFP) - Pope Francis brought his message of equality to Paraguay, on the third and final stop of a South America tour that has burnished his reputation as a powerful voice for the downtrodden.

The pope was greeted by tens of thousands of people as he made his way from the airport to downtown Asuncion, where he praised Paraguay's "solid and stable" democracy, but called on leaders to address inequality.

"An economic development which fails to take into account the weakest and underprivileged is not an authentic development," the first Jesuit pope told Paraguay, which has one of the region's highest rates of growth -- and inequality.

The pope also paid tribute to the country's women, largely left widowed and orphaned during the War of the Triple Alliance from 1865 to 1870, which nearly decimated the male population.

"As mothers, wives and widows, they shouldered the heaviest burdens," Francis said.

"They found a way to move their families and their country forward, instilling in new generations the hope of a better tomorrow."

His arrival marks the second visit by a pope to Asuncion after John Paul II in 1988 -- just one year before dictator Alfredo Stroessner fell, making way for democracy.

"It is not hard to feel at home in so welcoming a land," the pope said.

"Paraguay is known as the heart of America, not only because of its geographic location, but also because of the warmth of its hospitality and the friendliness of her people."

The 78-year-old Argentine pope arrived in Asuncion from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. As his Airbus crossed over northern Argentina, he sent Argentine President Cristina Kirchner a message of "affection for his dear country."

Francis has not returned to his home country since his election as pope in March 2013, but could travel there on an official visit in 2016.

On Saturday, the pope will visit the Marian Shrine of Caacupe and on Sunday will travel to a poor Asuncion neighborhood, ahead of a mass expected to draw a crowd of one million.

Francis begins his trip back to the Vatican Sunday, concluding his three-nation tour that also saw him travel to Ecuador.

Paraguay is home to the main base of South America's Jesuit mission. Adding to its Catholic credentials, the country elected a bishop, Fernando Lugo, to the presidency in 2008. He served in office until 2012, when he was kicked out in a coup.

- 'Many sins' -

Before leaving Bolivia earlier in the day, Francis ventured into a violent, overcrowded and gang-ridden Bolivian prison that houses children living with their parents. He hugged and kissed inmates and urged them not to yield to the "devil."

One disconsolate female inmate broke down in tears and threw herself into the pope's arms, saying she felt utterly abandoned.

The pontiff, who specifically requested the visit to the Palmasola jail, walked slowly through a courtyard where hundreds of prisoners and their families awaited him.

Back inside the penitentiary, Francis exchanged hugs and kisses with prisoners and held children in his arms, kissing them too.

"The man standing before you is a man who has experienced forgiveness. A man who was, and is, saved from his many sins," said Francis, the first pope from Latin America.

"That is who I am. I don't have much more to give you or to offer you, but I want to share with you what I do have and what I love. It is Jesus Christ."

The Palmasola prison, nearly 50 years old, was built to hold 600 prisoners but is now overflowing with nearly 5,000 men and women.

A gang war there in 2013 left more than 30 people dead. An estimated 30 percent of the inmates are accused of rape.

September return

Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay are predominantly Catholic and have been marked by a long history of poverty and inequality, especially afflicting indigenous populations.

Beginning in the 1500s, Spanish conquerors, with the blessing of the Church, subjugated and enslaved indigenous peoples in the Americas, annihilating native cultures and forcing their conversion to Christianity.

Francis will return to Latin America in September, when he travels to Cuba.

Pope Francis greets dancers after their performance, after he delivered mass to 

pilgrims at the Marian Shrine of Caacupe on July 11, 2015 in Paraguay (AFP

 Photo/Juan Mabromata)

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In Ecuador, indigenous Christians not sold on pope visit

Yahoo – AFP, Paola Lopez, 4 July 2015

Quechua Indian Gustavo Negrete, evangelical pastor of the Llamahuasi community

 in Ecuador, speaks during an interview with AFP at his home in Pujili on June 28,
2015 (AFP Photo/Rodrifo Buendia)

Llamahuasi (Ecuador) (AFP) - Thirty years ago, Gustavo Negrete took his wooden cross and joined other indigenous Ecuadorans to greet Pope John Paul II. But he has no interest in seeing Pope Francis on Sunday.

Like a growing number of indigenous people in Latin America, Negrete has turned his back on the Roman Catholic faith that was violently forced upon their ancestors by Spanish conquistadors.

Quechua Indian Gustavo Negrete, 

evangelical pastor of the Llamahuasi 

community, speaks with AFP during an

 interview at his home in Pujili, Ecuador,

 on June 28, 2015 (AFP Photo/Rodrigo

Buendia)

In his case, the 46-year-old Quechua became an Evangelical pastor.

Ecuador will be the first stop in the first Latin American pope's eight-day trip to the region, which will include visits to Bolivia and Paraguay.

While he vowed to bring a message of "tenderness" to historically excluded indigenous population who are victims of a "culture of waste," many have already lost faith in the Vatican.

When John Paul visited Ecuador in 1985, 94 percent of the population identified as Catholic. Today, 80 percent of the country's 16 million people are Catholic. Seven percent of Ecuadorans are indigenous people.

Negrete was 16 when he was among a group of Quechuas who welcomed the Polish pontiff three decades ago.

John Paul blessed his wooden cross, but Negrete ditched it for a protestant Bible in the early 1990s, giving up his dream of being a Catholic priest to become a pastor.

He now preaches in four temples of the Prince of Peace church.

Pope Francis "is going unnoticed today in indigenous communities," Negrete told AFP, as he held his Bible.

"The concept that we had in that era -- that a representative of God was coming -- no longer exists," he said.

'Estranged' from Vatican

Every Sunday, Negrete drives his car along a steep road to Llamahuasi, an Andean mountain community some 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Quito.

Quechua Indian Gustavo Negrete, evangelical pastor of the Llamahuasi 

community, speaks with AFP during an interview at his home in Pujili, 

Ecuador, on June 28, 2015 (AFP Photo/Rodrigo Buendia)

On a recent Sunday, the villagers welcomed him in a modest church with music, playing guitar and keyboards as a choir of women in white dresses and purple shawls sang in Quechua.

"Christ lives!" the faithful chanted, some with tears in their eyes.

Negrete said he gave up Catholicism when he realized that the church did not punish "drunkenness, the mistreatment of sons and wives" in indigenous communities.

Memories of his father, who worked in a farm whose owners forced him to convert to Catholicism, also influenced his decision.

"To know that, while still believing in God, the Catholic church considered that we weren't people with souls, caused us to become suspicious, estranged," he said.

700 pastors vs 20 priests

Ecuador and Bolivia lack official figures on the number of indigenous people who are Protestants.

But Manuel Chugchilan, president of the Feine organization that groups indigenous Evangelicals in Ecuador, said that the number of protestant churches soared from 40 in 1980 to 2,500 today.

A T-shirt portraying Pope Francis is

 seen in a shop in Ecuador's capital,

 Quito on July 3, 2015 (AFP Photo/Juan

Cevallos)

He said Protestants reached areas where the Roman Catholic church was absent and gained the trust of indigenous people because of the "change of life" that they offered.

Alcoholism and violence have disappeared, while families prosper because they focus on their children's education, Chugchilan said.

Another telling figure is the number of pastors and priests.

While the Ecuadoran Episcopal Conference says that only 20 of 3,000 Catholic priests are indigenous, the Feine counts 700 pastors of native origin.

Father Marco Acosta, head of the Episcopal Conference's indigenous pastoral affairs, said that "many are in the Evangelical church more out of interest than conviction."

He said he hoped that the "figure of Pope Francis, his testimony, his simplicity, his message" will resonate with the indigenous population.

Cuba prepares for Christmas with early gift from Obama

Yahoo – AFP, Francisco Jara, 24 Dec 2014

People wearing Santa Claus costumes give out leaflets promoting a restaurant

in the streets of Havana, Cuba, on December 23, 2014 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

Havana (AFP) - Cubans prepared Wednesday to celebrate Christmas, a resurgent holiday banned for 38 years by the communist government, with an early gift from US President Barack Obama: a historic rapprochement.

Across the island, houses, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels and state-run stores have put up Christmas decorations, embracing a holiday eliminated by Fidel Castro soon after he came to power in the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and declared Cuba an atheist state.

"El Comandante" restored Christmas in 1998 after a landmark visit by pope John Paul II.

A Christmas tree adorns the lobby of a

 hotel in Havana, Cuba, on December 23,

2014 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

After an initially hesitant revival, the Christmas spirit is once again booming on the island.

"Christmas was a very deep-rooted tradition in Cuba. It was interrupted for 38 years, which is no small thing, and yet it made a comeback," said the secretary of Cuba's Conference of Bishops, Jose Felix Perez.

In Havana's old city, Santas brave the Caribbean heat in bushy white beards and red suits to hand out restaurant flyers alongside Mrs Clauses wearing decidedly skimpier red outfits -- a scene that would have been unthinkable under Fidel.

On the streets of the capital, the dashboards of cars are decked out with Santas, wreaths and mini Christmas trees.

Less playful decorations adorn the gates and courtyards of foreign embassies and the US interests section, set to regain its status as an embassy under last week's watershed announcement by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over from his big brother Fidel in 2006.

The thawing of the two countries' Cold War animosity has raised many Cubans' hopes for an economic revival in a country scarred by the "special period" of hunger and shortages in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This year, Perez said, "everything the two presidents announced is giving people hope that their lives will get better and there will be greater understanding."

In this country where Catholicism has long co-existed with local traditions that draw on both Christianity and African religions, state-run stores are brimming with Christmas gift baskets and restaurants and hotels are offering sumptuous Christmas dinners.

At the Ambos Mundos, where the great American writer Ernest Hemingway once lived, the four-course meal costs $40 -- twice the average monthly salary of around $20.

"Before there were no Christmas decorations. All this is totally new," a Latin American diplomat told AFP.

Communist Christmas

New Year's was long celebrated as the main holiday in Cuba, bolstered by the revolutionary significance of the date: January 1, 1959, is the day Castro's forces ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista.

A couple wearing Santa Claus costumes greet a little boy as they give out

leaflets promoting a restaurant in the streets of Havana, Cuba, on December 23,

2014 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

Starting in 1960, December 25 was declared a working day.

Christians celebrated in secret, hoping to evade detection by the Revolutionary Defense Committees (CDRs) deployed across the country.

Even after the holiday was restored, Christmas celebrations were muted until Fidel handed over power amid a health crisis.

In 2010 the Cuban government opened talks with the Church, which led to the release of 130 political prisoners and the return of Church buildings confiscated in the 1960s.

Later that year the main architect of the detente, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, celebrated Cuba's first Christmas mass since 1959 inside a prison.

Today, Cuban bishops broadcast Christmas messages on television.

In a further goodwill gesture toward the Church, Raul Castro also restored Good Friday as a holiday when pope Benedict XVI visited the island in 2012.

This picture released by Estudios Revolucion shows relatives welcoming

 freed Cuban prisoner Geraldo Hernandez (C) on December 17, 2014 in Havana

upon his return from the United States (AFP Photo)

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Berlin prayer house unites Jews, Christians, Muslims

Yahoo - AFP, Frederic Happe, 8 June 2014

(From L) Pastor Gregor Hohberg, Rabbi Tovia Ben-Chorin and Imam Kadir

 Sanci hold three bricks as they pose for photographers in the vacant lot where

 they hope to build a multifaith prayer building, in Berlin June 3, 2014. (Photo:

John MacDougall)

Christians, Muslims and Jews, all praying under the same roof -- that's the groundbreaking project of a pastor, a rabbi and an imam in Berlin.

Still a sand-strewn vacant construction site, St Peter's Square in the centre of the German capital will -- God willing -- by 2018 host a building that's so unusual it doesn't have an official term.

Not a church, nor a synagogue, or a mosque as such, but a bit of all three, the centre known currently as a "House of Prayer and Learning" will be unlike any other religious venue in the world, its initiators say.

The aim of the 44-million-euro ($60-million) project, whose fundraising kicked off Tuesday but has been several years in the making, is not only to show the importance of multi-faith dialogue but to mirror multi-cultural Berlin.

"It seemed to us that there was a very strong desire for the peaceful coming together of the religions," said Roland Stolte, one of two Protestant representatives on the board of the association behind the project.

Not by coincidence, it will stand at a location with a strong and long religious significance.

In 2007 archaeological excavations unearthed the foundations of four previous St Peter's churches that had stood on the site at different periods since the Middle Ages, Stolte told AFP in an interview.

The last one, which had a striking 100-metre-tall (328-foot) steeple and dated from the mid-19th century, was damaged in World War II and later demolished by the former East German communist state in the early 1960s.

A car park then occupied the site which the city authorities later handed back to the local Protestant community.

"We wanted to revive this place, not by building a church again but by constructing a place that says something about the life of religions today in Berlin," Stolte said.

Nearly 19 percent of Berlin's 3.4 million residents described themselves as Protestant, according to 2010 official data.

Some 8.1 percent said they were Muslim and 0.9 percent Jewish, while more than 60 percent said they did not adhere to any religion.

'Be patient'

Pastor Gregor Hohberg said it had been crucial to also get the centre's Jewish and Muslim partners involved right from the start, well before work got underway on building it.

"From the beginning we wanted it to be an inter-religious project, not a place built by Christians in which Jews and Muslims would then be added," he said.

Imam Kadir Sanci, who's of Turkish origin, told AFP that a Catholic-Protestant church in western Germany had inspired him to dream that such a centre could be possible .

"When I was doing my Muslim theology studies in Frankfurt, I had seen in the neighbouring town of Darmstadt, a Catholic church and a Protestant church under the same roof," he said.

"I said to the priest it would be great to one day have a shared place with Muslims. But the priest told me 'be patient, it took us 600-plus years'," the imam said.

An illustration of German architect Wilfried Kuehn's design for the House of

 Prayer and Learning project, a multifaith prayer building in Berlin June 3, 2014.

(Photo: John MacDougall)

Architect Wilfried Kuehn, whose design for the new building was chosen in 2011 from around 200 entries in a competition, said it had posed many challenges that spanned architecture and theology.

"It was a challenge to try to combine the differences and the universal aspects. It was a question of not mixing the religions while ensuring mutual recognition," he said.

Each of the three religions will have its own equal-sized prayer space, all on the same floor, with each leading out to a common room where the congregations will be able to mix and chat.

Hohberg said that after much consideration, they had decided against a common prayer room "because that risked putting off more people than it would have attracted".

"And we want also to address the more conservative believers, to show that inter-religious dialogue is not only possible but important," he said.

However, financing must still be found, and organisers have sought to keep even that aspect of the ambitious project firmly at the grassroots level.

A crowdfunding campaign via the website www.house-of-one.org was launched Tuesday to raise the 43.5 million euros needed.

Donors are, among other things, invited to buy a "brick" for 10 euros.

"We wanted for this project to be base-driven," Stolte said, adding that they had sought out local partners such as Berlin's Jewish community or the Muslim group Forum for Inter-Cultural Dialogue rather than involving higher religious echelons.

For this reason, an upper limit has been set on individual donations -- at one percent of the total, or 435,000 euros.

Also in the garden of the Vatican embraced Peres and Abbas together. (NOS/AFP)

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"Soul Journeying" - Mar, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version Part 1) - New

".... Will religion on the planet survive the new energy?

We have spoken in the past about the evolution of spiritual systems [religion] on the planet. We have discussed what to expect, and we have told you to look at how organized religion will shift. In fact, it's already happening - a very slow understanding that your systems simply reflect the concept of branches of the same tree, and they are not opposed to each other but simply different. We describe it again, for it shows how the collective soul plays a part in awareness.

The question has arisen, "Will religion survive?" and the answer is yes. We told you before that it doesn't matter how Humans find God. It really doesn't matter! There will be many levels of Human awareness represented by many ways to worship and grow. Cultures don't need to meld into one group to become enlightened. It's important that all of the various processes remain, so that Human Beings just starting out can go through whatever spiritual processes they wish and have enough time to honor their own timing of learning. The search for God is unique to each Human Being.

So what about organized religion? How is it going to change? It's going to start seeing connectivity, and this is what we teach. When the religions of this planet join together in dialogue and they eventually realize they are unique, but have much the same compassionate purpose, they will relax. When they see it's fine to worship the way they wish, yet at the same time acknowledge the others' right to worship the way they wish, wisdom will expand. You will see an expansion of this planet's spiritual awareness, with increased knowledge and understanding and compassion. But as long as they separate into groups, where each one claims to be "right" and they don't talk to each other, there can be no growth. But you knew that, didn't you?

Religion is not going to diminish or go away. In fact, it's going to get bigger! Look for better understanding between belief systems. When you see separation and radicalism, it will look alarming to you - yet it has been there all along. In the very new energy, it will start showing itself as being lower consciousness and not of God. Change is everywhere.

Isn't it interesting that on your planet, there is a full realization of a monotheistic God? There is one God, a theme expressed by most of the Humans on Earth. Most of the earth also believes there is an afterlife [something beyond death]. Yet you segment yourself into thousands of "doctrinal pieces", deciding who gets to worship the one God in the correct fashion. Those who do not somehow will be left behind. This attitude is what will change. It's about connectivity and compassion for another's process. .."