Museum offers look
at historic Islamic art
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A new exhibit featuring Islamic art is opening at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
Called “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists,” the exhibit features works spanning 13 centuries and three continents.
The Kansas City Star reports that it includes paintings, sculptures, ceramics, animation, photographs and textiles. There’s also a 1952 Chevrolet grain truck that Kansas City artist Asheer Akram transformed into an ornately decorated Pakistani cargo truck.
Curator Kimberly Masteller says Kansas City has a longstanding connection to Islamic art through the distinctive architecture of the Country Club Plaza, where lattice screens and other designs were inspired by Kansas City’s Spanish sister city of Seville. That city was part of the Moorish Islamic empire from the eighth to the 13th centuries.
- The Associated Press
Archbishop deposed in child sex case
ST. LOUIS - St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson has been deposed in a case involving a priest in the archdiocese.
The deposition was Thursday in the case against the Rev. Xiu Hui Jiang. He is charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child after a teenage girl told authorities that Jiang molested her.
The archdiocese says in a statement that the case is in the hands of the Missouri court system, where the allegations can be sorted out.
The girl’s parents filed a lawsuit in July alleging that Carlson knew Jiang was a danger to children. The archdiocese says those allegations are false.
- The Associated Press
Cuban Catholic bishops call for political reform
HAVANA - Roman Catholic bishops in Cuba called for political reform in tandem with social and economic changes already underway, issuing their first joint pastoral letter in two decades.
The letter was presented to reporters Monday.
The document from the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba urged authorities to bring about a political opening that includes “the right to diversity with respect to thought, to creativity and to the search for truth.”
Jose Felix Perez, secretary of the bishops conference, said a copy was delivered to island officials and “it is hoped that the letter will be read with the same spirit with which it was written … constructively.”
- The Associated Press
Protesters rally in support of Rowan commissioners
SALISBURY, N.C. - Hundreds of people went to North Carolina’s Rowan County administration building Monday night to support county commissioners and their right to pray before meetings.
The Salisbury Post reports Return America, a group based near Winston-Salem, N.C., organized the rally.
The group gathered just beneath the room where commissioners hold their meetings. The crowd sang patriotic songs, followed by hymns. They filled the sidewalk in front of the building and crowded street corners across from the building.
The American Civil Liberates Union had sued the Rowan County commissioners in March on behalf of three residents who complained that commissioners were alienating members of the community by opening their meeting with a prayer for one specific religion.
Religion, Pages 12 on 09/21/2013