ThursdayâÂ?Â?s Religion News Roundup: Dalai LamaâÂ?Â?s Templeton; Pope & Fidel; Trayvon & churches

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel laureate, can add the Templeton Prize – and $1.7 million – to his résumé. He’s actually not the sort to indulge himself with the cash, and he didn’t disappoint in his winsome reaction to today’s announcement: “I am a simple Buddhist monk, no less, no more, after receiving this award,” […]

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel laureate, can add the Templeton Prize – and $1.7 million – to his résumé.

He’s actually not the sort to indulge himself with the cash, and he didn’t disappoint in his winsome reaction to today’s announcement:

“I am a simple Buddhist monk, no less, no more, after receiving this award,” said the 14th Dalai Lama, a.k.a., Tenzin Gyatso, exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists. “Of course more people may pay some attention about my talks, my thoughts, so in that sense, I think, very very helpful.”


Meanwhile in Cuba, a couple of other old guys were yukking it up. “What does a pope do?” 85-year-old Fidel Castro asked 84-year-old Pope Benedict XVI when the two met shortly before the pontiff returned to Rome after his visit to Mexico and Cuba.

One thing the pope will do when he gets back is send the retired leader of the communist revolution in Cuba a book “to help him reflect,” as per Castro’s request. Fidel also wants to know what’s up with those changes in the liturgy. Benedict wants Cuba to declare Good Friday a holiday.

The pope got in a couple of other good lines at his final Mass in Havana’s Revolution Square.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, talks to The Huffington Post about her denomination’s approach to gay marriage and such:

“We muddle through [controversial issues] in a very public way,” she said. Who knew?

White churches are facing questions about whether they are speaking out on the Trayvon Martin killing, and if not, why not.

What really matters, of course: Skittles sales are spiking in the wake of Martin’s shooting; the teenager was carrying them – and an iced tea, and no firearm – when he was killed.


Vanderbilt University’s controversial rules regulating student groups have claimed another casualty: the Catholic student ministry, the largest on campus, is going to leave the school because of policies mandating that anyone be allowed to run the ministry if elected.

Jewish film festivals are being pressured not to show a documentary about the sexual abuse of children in Orthodox communities because “with a community that reveres it’s [sic] rabbis this was not something they wanted to show.”

— David Gibson

Photo credit: The Templeton Foundation

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