Silvia Orriols proposed a couple of weeks ago that the Quran be banned because, according to her, what is said in it is barbarism. Dictators, authoritarians, and fascists have that urge to burn and ban books, I don't know if it's because they've never read them or because they can't stand the fact that there are consciences that endure on supports as light as paper. Eternity on thin sheets transmitted through the centuries. The holy book of Muslims, taken from a literary point of view, is a very interesting work full of stories, imagination, and fantasy. The snag is that so many millions of people over the centuries suffer from the quixotism that religious people call faith: confusing fiction with reality. The Quran also has very boring passages, and if it were an original aspiring to be published, any editor today with a minimum of professional judgment would take scissors to remove superfluous repetitions, worn-out clichés, and other defects in the supposedly sacred text. Some of its fragments are sublime, with rhythm and musicality, images of enormous beauty and lyricism. My favorite surah, which I still remember from the times I memorized it in the oratory on Ramada street in Vic, is the first one revealed to Muhammad when he took to going alone to the mountain. Or so says the official history of Islam. That the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him the first word that would be used to found a religion that today has over a billion believers. Gabriel told him: Read! Thus, with such a categorical imperative. Something that surprised the future prophet because, according to the myth, he was completely illiterate, a merchant who traveled Arabia and the Middle East buying and selling things but without any ability to decipher written letters. "Read!" the messenger angel repeated to him. "Read in the name of your Lord, who created you from a drop of blood," etc. In this, I confess that I have been very obedient to my parents' religion. If Gabriel had stopped at the beginning of the surah (Read, damn it, read!) perhaps I would still be a Muslim. But that miraculously appearing being from nowhere kept returning with the ups and downs typical of someone who insists on writing a long book, sometimes more inspired and sometimes not so much. 

This year, TV3's program Signes dels temps celebrates forty years on air. It airs on Sunday mornings and delves into the social and pastoral current affairs of the Catholic Church. The title refers to an expression from the Second Vatican Council about the Church's duty to be attentive to the changes and evolutions of society. Perhaps it would be good for TV3 to also be attentive to the evolution of its schedule, because, ironically, this slot has been somewhat neglected. It must be said that Signes dels temps is formally correct with Montserrat Esteve at the helm. There is a certain effort to give it a veneer of connection with social reality. The content aligns with the program's objective, and it is made with care and professionalism. The post-production work should be highlighted to give it a relative visual modernity. It will surely satisfy the expectations of the Episcopal Conference, but this centrality of Catholicism and an approach with such a typical catechism style do not quite align with the function of a public television.

Fear can still be felt on the Syrian coast, which is mostly inhabited by members of the Alawite minority. A brutal attack took place here. outbreak of sectarian violence last March. Although the incidents began with coordinated attacks by an opposition militia against loyalist forces in Damascus, most of the victims were civilians killed in the ensuing revenge. They all professed the Alawite faith, which split from Shiism ten centuries ago and to which theformer dictator Bashar al Assad. So, the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, created a commission of inquiry into the massacres, which presented its findings at the end of July amid great expectation.

Among the words hidden in the word search there are fast, charity, Passover... Concepts specific to the Easter calendar, which religion teacher Pau Estanyol uses to introduce them in the class he teaches at La Vall del Terri School (Pla de l'Estany). Of the more than 250 students at the school, only two in the first year of primary school and one in the second year are taking this subject. This is the reality experienced by many Catalan public schools: the percentage of students who took religion in public schools during the 2023-2024 academic year was 10.50% (69,571 students out of 662,315 total students), according to data from the Department of Education. In private schools, including subsidized schools, the figure rises to 62.73% (198,696 students out of 320,821 total students).