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At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk - round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal. Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album. A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland. The 62-year-old monk's love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago. "I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it" he says. Brother...

"The kingdom of God is built up in SILENCE; it is, before all things, INTERIOR, and hidden in the depths of the soul. Undoubtedly grace possesses a virtue which nearly always overflows in works of charity, but the principle of its power is entirely within. It is in the depths of the heart that the true intensity of the Christian life lies, it is there that God dwells, adored and served by faith, recollection, humility, obedience, simplicity, labour and LOVE." "It is not our PERFECTION which DAZZLES God, since He is surrounded by shining Angels. No! It is our MISERY,...

YANGON, Myanmar - The military government banned assemblies of more than five people and imposed curfews in Myanmar's two largest cities on Tuesday, after thousands of Buddhist monks and sympathizers defied orders to stay out of politics and protested once again. On a day President Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against the junta, truckloads of soldiers converged on Yangon after the monks, cheered on by supporters, marched out for an eighth day of peaceful protest from Yangon's soaring Shwedagon Pagoda, while some 700 others staged a similar show of defiance in the country's second largest city of Mandalay. "The protest...

Buddhist monk arrested over child prostitution, A 25-year-old Buddhist monk from the Shogetsuin Temple in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, was arrested Friday for engaging in child prostitution with a 15-year-old girl who he met through a cell phone dating website. According to police, Nobuhiro Suetsugu had sex with the girl at a hotel in Toshima ...

Buddhist monk cuts off penis and renounces refix Wed Nov 22, 6:23 AM ET BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai Buddhist monk cut off his penis with a machete because he had an erection during meditation and declined to have it reattached, saying he had renounced all earthly cares, a doctor and a newspaper said on Wednesday. The 35-year-old monk, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, allowed medical staff at Maharaj hospital, 780 km (480 miles) south of Bangkok to dress his wound, but refused reattachment, hospital chief Prawing Euanontouch said. "We cleaned up the wound, gave him some stitches,...

I just saw the TV show "Monk." Rented it cause my Blockbuster is too cheap to stock up on very much. I like it. Don't have regular tv and never saw "Monk" before. I like that guy. He played Antonio Scarpacci in "Wings" and a funny alien pawnshop owner in Men In Black. Only, Episode 1 had a sniper using a Weatherby Fibermark. They could tell which model Weatherby from a recovered bullet? And they said it was a British firearm. I remember when Weatherby was made in Germany. And then in Japan. It's made in Britain? Quality must be...

When Father Solanus Casey died in Detroit in 1957, all he left after 86 years on this earth were a small crucifix, an old pair of sandals, several religious pictures, a wooden statue of St. Anthony, some dog-eared religious books, a knot of heavily darned socks and a framed, 40-year-old picture of his family. Bl. Solanus Casey (1870-1957) But he left another rich legacy — a long list of curious "favors" to an equally long list of devoted believers. Father Solanus Casey had come to Detroit to be a Capuchin friar. During his years as a priest he spent...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The chief of Cambodia's Buddhist monks is cutting his charges some slack for the duration of soccer's World Cup: they may watch the matches on television, but no cheering or getting excited. And absolutely no betting. The country's holy men - more than 90 percent of Cambodia's 13 million people are Buddhist - normally aren't supposed to watch television, movies or artistic displays. According to Buddhism's strictest tenets, they should abstain from pleasurable activity. Gambling is a major no-no. But monks get as excited as anyone else at the chance to watch soccer's top stars,...

This column is called “The Edge,” so my topic choice this week might seem a little odd. I’m writing about one of the oldest institutions in Western civilization: the monastery. Monastic-type living stretches way back. It even pre-dates Christianity, possibly as far back as the Greek Pythagoreans, whose community some consider the first monastery in western culture. In Christianity, the monastic life started with St. Antony. In 285, St. Antony fled to the wastes of Egypt, there to live by himself in an old empty fort. He stayed there nearly 75 years, coming out only twice. People flocked to...

Ladakhis are not used to this: religious tension, clamping of curfew and the army marching through the place better known for its Buddhist chants, prayer flags fluttering between mountains and the arid, pristine moonscape. Old timers say Ladakh has not seen communal tension since the 1970s when Buddhists and Muslims went for each other's throat over minor incidents. This time, as the world burns in the Prophet cartoon row, the division between the two communities happened over the reported desecration of the Holy Koran in Bodh Kharbu. The picturesque village, which is mainly populated by Buddhists, is located in the...

When this Indian monk chanted, the West wondered how he created a choral effect. Ngawang Tashi Bapu or Lama Tashi—who mesmerised music lovers with his multi-phonic chanting—found a place in Grammy nominations and triggered a chain of vocal experiments, is changing track. He will now sing in monotone, in his “normal voice”. Last year, Lama Tashi took the US by storm with his solo album Tibetan Master Chants comprising 12 Buddhist mantras of compassion and tranquillity. On the eve of the 48th Grammy Award presentation — the “world’s biggest music show” — the 38-year-old Monpa monk from Arunachal Pradesh has...

Once again, convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti is trying to "lead" his people from inside an Israeli prison. If his win in primaries in the West Bank on Friday provides any insight into the Palestinian popular mood, it is that they are still addicted to terrorist "leaders" like Barghouti. According to the BBC: He [Barghouti] is serving five life terms in an Israeli jail for the killing of four Israelis and a Greek monk. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said there was no chance of Barghouti getting an early release. Barghouti, 46, won 34,000 out of 40,000 votes - affirming...

For many Americans, the Thanksgiving holiday is about gorging on a sumptuous meal, spending time with family and gearing up for the busiest shopping day of the year. Of course, it's also supposed to be about expressing gratitude for all that we have in our lives, but that simple lesson often gets lost amid all these other activities. Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk who has written several books about the importance of gratitude, including "Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer" and "A Listening Heart," says remembering what we are thankful for is an essential part of daily living, one that's...

Here's something you don't see every day - not that I'm knocking the guy - but he IS kind of...different.

The remains of an ancient church dating to the early days of Christianity have been discovered beneath a Coptic Christian monastery, the Egyptian Gazette daily reported Sunday. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni announced Saturday that archaeologists have found the remains of the church, built of bricks. It included a number of underground rooms which monks used for celebrating the liturgy. The church, uncovered beneath Saint Anthony's Monastery in the Red Sea area, was founded by disciples of Saint. Anthony, a hermit who died in A.D.356 and is regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. Archaeologists have also unearthed the bases...

In April 2005, an ascetic Buddhist monk who lived in the forest in Ka Li village tract, in Kun-Hing township, was tortured and beaten to death by SPDC troops from LIB524, at a cave called Tham Loi Mon about 2 miles east of Ka Li village. The monk, widely known as Zao Sin Man (meaning the one who firmly observes the Buddhist moral precepts), mostly lived in the forests and practised meditation in caves. He was a native of Murng Nawng village in Murng Nawng village tract, Kae-See township, and had assumed the monkhood since his teens many years ago....

Theological Student Delivers Eucharist By Jackie Spinner Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 8, 2004; Page A16 HASWAH, Iraq -- His flak jacket was covered in dried blood, his blood. Look at the stains, Marine Lance Cpl. June N. Ramos said, pointing. There were dark red smears all over the front of his camouflage vest. Ramos reached into the pocket of the flak jacket and pulled out a small silver tin wrapped in a plastic bag. He opened the container, which held a half-dozen Communion wafers. "Instead of putting a grenade in here," Ramos said, fastening the pocket of his...

FIVE Thai Buddhist monks have been defrocked and fined after a brawl with monks from a nearby temple, police and newspapers said today. The street fight was the culmination of years of antagonism between monks from the two temples who had often exchanged curses, insults and rude gestures as they collected alms on different sides of a road, the Manager newspaper said. "When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So am I," the paper quoted one of the defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan, as saying after the brawl in the north-eastern state of Nong Khai...

A celibate Buddhist monk has been cleared of trying to pick up a policewoman who was posing as a prostitute. Hoa Trung Nguyen, 47, from the Phap Bao Temple in Sydney, was convicted of soliciting last year. He maintained he asked the woman how much she charged out of human curiosity. And he has now been acquitted on appeal by Campbell District Court. His solicitor Quang Nguyen said his client was "extremely relieved" to have been proved innocent.

Father Joe The Man Who Saved My Soul By Tony Hendra Random House. 271 pp. $24.95 Tony Hendra will always occupy a warm spot in my heart because of his hilarious (and uncanny) imitation of John Lennon on "Magical Misery Tour," one of the selections on National Lampoon's 1972 LP Radio Dinner. Hendra was one of the founders of National Lampoon, and he recounts both his days there and how the Lennon send-up came about in Father Joe. But only in passing. For this is definitely not your usual show-biz memoir. True, by starting off with an account of how...