“In God’s hands” read several of the tattoos inked during a free-of-charge session over the weekend — organized by none other than Austria’s leading group representing Catholic nuns and monks.
“It’s important for the church to look at how people express their piety, including on their bodies,” said Christopher Paul Campbell, director of Quo Vadis.
He added that the church — parts of which have frowned upon tattoos — had to “learn to be sexy” if it wanted to keep attracting followers.
Photo: AFP
The number of people leaving the Catholic Church in Austria has been rising, reaching a record of almost 91,000 people last year.
About half of Austria’s 9 million people are Catholic.
Quo Vadis said hundreds of believers were keen to attend the first such tattoo session near Vienna’s iconic St Stephen’s Cathedral on Saturday.
In the end, the dozens of slots available were allotted in a lottery.
The night before the session, the German tattoo artist, his needles and everyone wanting to get tattooed were blessed in a Mass.
Believers could select from a list of intricate Christian motifs, including crosses and fishes.
Austrian Ursula Noe-Nordberg asked to get a small cross tattooed on her wrist.
“It will be a surprise” for my family, the grandmother-of-five said, adding that the cross would remind her of her tattooed grandchildren.
But not everyone was happy about the initiative, with organizers saying they received hate mail.
Some people believe body art is satanic, despite the practice of tattooing stigmata or tributes to a pilgrimage dating back centuries. Even famous Austrians such as the 19th-century Empress Sisi were tattooed.
“I got the criticism that we’ve turned the church into a disco. I say: Okay, then I’m the DJ,” Father Sandesh Manuel said.
The Franciscan monk, who wears a baseball cap and likes to rap, also got inked with the words “Humanity is the greeting of religion.”
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS