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Today, some would call Patrick intolerant or bigoted. He was. He would have flunked a class on How to Win Friends and Influence People. Imagine how he would have reacted to diversity training. If he were ministering today, he might refer to Christians as “the Good,” the Druid gods as “the Bad,” and those who believed in the pagan gods as “the Misinformed.” The Druids didn’t like his message. They arrested him several times, but he was always freed to preach another day. During his 30 years as a missionary to the Irish, Patrick spoke out against what he...

St Columba landed there in 563 AD with 13 followers and established a monastery. This isolated island, off the south-western tip of Mull, was soon to become the intellectual powerhouse of the medieval world... Pre-Columba the island was sometimes referred to as Innis nam Druidneach, the Isle of Druids. Old stories record St Columba and his followers fighting off the local Druid elders when they landed to take possession of the island... some histories have King Fergus II joining forces with Alaric the Goth to fight the Roman Empire during its decline and fall. This version of history reports that...

Two druid priests yesterday became the first North Wales same-sex couple to tie the knot in a so-called gay wedding. Seven couples across the region took part in the historic ceremonies. And one wedding guest said if the controversial partnerships were introduced earlier, an inheritance tax legal battle after his partner of 48 years died, could have been avoided. The first North Wales ceremony was held in T£ Dewi Sant, Wrexham, between Philip Main, 49, and David Girvan, 52. The keen druids both dressed in white robes for the 10am ceremony - which fell on the winter solstice, also a...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- It's almost Halloween - and all those ghosts, goblins, tricks and treats are giving Hans Kohler the creeps. So the mayor of Rankweil, a town near the border with Switzerland, has launched a one-man campaign disparaging Halloween as a "bad American habit" and urging families to skip it this year. "It's an American custom that's got nothing to do with our culture," Kohler wrote in letters sent out to households. By midweek, the mayors of eight neighboring villages had thrown their support behind the boycott. So had local police, annoyed with the annual Oct. 31 uptick...

An Ellettsville family whose home is decorated for Halloween contacted police after someone placed on its porch a flier that suggests Halloween praises the devil. Dalene Gully told Indianapolis television station WRTV that she took offense to the flier, which was placed outside her home by the House of Prayer Church of Bloomington. "I started reading it, and I was very, very upset by it. I found it very accusatory and very threatening," Gully said. The church's pastor, Larry Mitchell, said the people who left the flier would have preferred to talk with Gully, but she wasn't there. Mitchell said...

GREER, S.C. -- An internal investigation has cleared a reserve officer with the Greer Police Department of any wrongdoing in connection with a traffic stop that sparked a religious controversy. Tony Stewart has been a volunteer officer with the department for 14 years. In June, Stewart cited motorist Tony Gainey for driving with a suspended license, not having proper license plates or proof of insurance. Gainey and his wife, D.J., said they're convinced Stewart pulled them over because of the bumper stickers on their car. One of the stickers read, "It's a druid thing." The Gaineys said they believe in...

A traffic stop in Greer, S.C., this month is turning into a holy war of sorts, as a practicing Druid couple claim they were targeted by a Christian police officer who tried to convert them away from their pagan belief. Debra and Tony Gainey say they were pulled over because they had a bumper sticker reading "It's A Druid Thing." Tony Gainey was driving at the time of the stop June 10 and was taken into custody on charges of driving with a suspended license, operating a vehicle with an improper tag and failure to have proof of insurance....

Stonehenge druids 'mark wrong solstice' By Charles Clover, Environment Editor (Filed: 21/06/2005) Modern-day druids, hippies and revellers who turn up at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice may not be marking an ancient festival as they believe. The latest archaeological findings add weight to growing evidence that our ancestors visited Stonehenge to celebrate the winter solstice. Analysis of pigs's teeth found at Durrington Walls, a ceremonial site of wooden post circles near Stonehenge on the River Avon, has shown that most pigs were less than a year old when slaughtered. Dr Umburto Albarella, an animal bone expert at the University...

No, this isn’t about the Star-Spangled Banner, neither the flag nor the anthem. It’s about dawn itself. The promise of a new beginning. Civilization began, thousands of years before recorded history, when men discovered how to cultivate crops. That meant communities and social organization. It also meant the beginnings of astronomy, studying the movement of the sun. Early evidence of this includes the “solar observatories” built by the Incas in South America, by the Anasazi in North America, and most famously, by Druids and others at Stonehenge in Britain. All these identified the solar equinoxes, especially in the spring. Coupled...

Fahrenheit 815 “Have you ever tasted the rain before?” Clarisse interrupted, as she stopped abruptly at the street corner. The clouds above had darkened threateningly, and the first few drops of rain had begun to stain the sidewalk. “Sometimes I like to tip my head back, open my mouth and let it fill with the glorious rain!” Rev. Montag laughed quietly. “You are a strange girl.” “You know, it tastes like wine…” By now Rev. Montag had become accustomed to Clarisse’s tangents, as strange and wonderful as they were. “You were asking about priests…” “Yes, of course, I’m sorry,” Clarisse...

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. - Two Episcopal priests who led Druidic activity will not be suspended, said a bishop, who blamed the local scandal on conservative groups out to destabilize the Episcopal Church USA. The Rev. William Melnyk and his wife, the Rev. Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, had participated only in "exploratory thinking" with Druid circles as students of pre-Christian Celtic spirituality, said Bishop Charles E. Bennison, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. But his discussions with the couple, he said, convinced him that they had not led any Druid groups or joined nature-worshiping Druid rites. "They made a small error of judgment...

Beyond the Episcopal Church's Pagan Eucharist Compiled by Ted Olsen | posted 10/27/2004 Guess what's no longer linked on the Episcopal Church USA's page for Women's Worship Resources? Both items highlighted in yesterday's Weblog: "A Women's Eucharist: A Celebration of the Divine Feminine" and the "Liturgy for Divorce." You can actually still read both, but they're now orphan pages, apparently unlinked from within the Episcopal Church website. (Though Weblog should add that they're now linked from just about every conservative Anglican weblog in the country.) One of those liturgies remaining is a "Station of the Cross," which includes these lines...

The Herbert Hoover Dike, which is holding back high water in Lake Okeechobee, sprung a leak. This wasn’t the gusher type that normally comes to mind, but rather more seepage than normal, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Last week’s seepage and one in June were considered minor and have been fixed. But with a tropical storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and already heavy inflow to the lake, Okeechobee’s water will keep rising — increasing the chances of more leaks, damage to the lake’s health and greater releases of water to the Caloosahatchee River and St. Lucie...

Druids have been brought in to reduce the number of accidents on Austria's worst stretches of autobahn.The Druids have put up huge roadside monoliths to restore the natural flow of "earth energy". After the massive pillars of white quartz were put up beside a notorious stretch of road during a secret two-year trial, the number of fatal accidents fell from an average of six a year to zero.Gerald Knobloch, who describes himself as an archdruid, used a divining rod to inspect the 300-yard stretch of the A9 in Styria and restore "earth energy lines". "I located dangerous elements that had...

LONDON (Reuters) - The construction of one of the country's most famous ancient landmarks, the towering megaliths at Stonehenge in southern England, might have been supervised by the Swiss, or maybe even the Germans. Archaeologists studying the remains of a wealthy archer found in a 4,000-year-old grave exhumed near Stonehenge last year said on Monday he was originally from the Alps region, probably modern-day Switzerland, Austria or Germany. "He would have been a very important person in the Stonehenge area and it is fascinating to think that someone from abroad -- probably modern-day Switzerland -- could have played an important...

Europe's first school for witches and wizards opens in AustriaEurope's first school for witches and wizards has opened in Austria.Students can take a six-semester course, including learning to make potions and cast spells, ending in a "sorcerers' diploma."The school is located in the mountains of Klagenfurt in southern Austria."Wizardry is very close to nature and is in no way a form of religion," said school director Andreas Starchel, who also calls himself Dakaneth."The school's aim is to pass on witches' and wizards' ancestral knowledge, which is gradually being forgotten," says the school's website.The school caters for three classes of students....

h3>THE COMPLEX HEIR TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Pro-life, Anti-War, Pro-Homosexual -- Rowan Williams Isn't Easy to Pigeonhole LONDON, AUG. 3, 2002 (Zenit.org).- What can one make of a one-time Oxford professor who admits to being a fan of "The Simpsons"? And a pro-lifer who favors women as bishops? The Anglican Communion will find out when its new leader takes over this autumn. Last week's announcement that Rowan Williams will be the 104th archbishop of Canterbury caught few Church-of-England observers by surprise. News leaks had preceded the appointment. Yet there was still much to write about him when the appointment...