I found this interesting to read:
THE SPREAD OF FAITH
Religion, Born Again
By Rainer Traub
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,459500,00.html
Amid wrenching change worldwide, people are returning to old-time
religion. In the name of God, terrorists are happily maiming and
killing; in the United States, the Christian Right has a stranglehold on
government. On this increasingly God-fearing globe, only Western Europe
looks like the last bastion of secularism - or are the faithful here too
returning to the fold?
Rome, April 2005. People stand shoulder to shoulder on St. Peter's
Square. Pope John Paul II has passed away and the colorful crowds,
including truant schoolgirls and dudes with dreadlocks - more like fans
at a rock concert than churchgoers - have converged on the Vatican to
pay their last respects.
The flood of visitors has hardly slowed in the year since, but the
attraction now is the new Holy Father. Germans in particular are
flocking to see "their" Pope, Benedict XVI, with some 50,000 seeking an
audience during his first six months as the leader of the Roman Catholic
Church.
Are these signs of a religious renaissance in notoriously secular Europe
- especially among the young? Or are the multitudes at the Holy See more
groupies than true believers - a product of the same media hype that
feeds our fixation with soccer icons, pop divas and Hollywood stars?
full text at
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,druck-459500,00.html
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