Faith News

The 1,500-year-old temple, based in the mountains of Henan province, is often viewed as the home of Zen Buddhism. Its founder, the Bodhidharma, was said to have arrived “from the western regions” in the local hills and meditated in a nearby cave for nine years, facing the wall and sitting in silence. In recent decades, the temple has grown beyond just a religious institution. The temple has featured in films and television series, including the popular 1982 film Shaolin Temple. 

The investigation raises questions about the commercialization of religious sites. Shi, 59, travelled the world, with an iPhone and an iPad, and holds an MBA, earning the nickname “the CEO monk”. Abbot Shi Yongxin ran one of the country’s most revered and historic sites, a sort of Glastonbury Abbey and York Minster rolled into one. Shaolin Temple in Zhengzhou is the reputed home of Zen Buddhism and the “kung fu” martial arts, known as wushu to the Chinese. However, under the eyes of Abbot Shi, the Temple became a brand. In 2008, the temple opened an online shop. The same year, the China Daily reported that Shi had been criticised after Shaolin announced its plans to set up its own “franchises” in other Chinese temples. In 2015, Shi stirred up controversy with his plan to build a hotel complex worth almost $300 million in Australia. Designs included a kung fu academy, a live-in temple and a golf course.

“Shi’s actions are very bad, severely tarnishing the reputation of the Buddhist community and undermining the image of monks,” the state-backed Buddhist Association of China said in an official announcement on Monday, as he was placed “under investigation”. 

Seventeen business ventures controlled by Shi Yongxin are also being audited, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. He is also under criminal investigation for misappropriating temple assets and has had his ordination certificate revoked. 

The State Department announced that for nearly seven years it had been placing in the wrong line tens of thousands of applications for neglected or abused minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and would then start adding those to the general queue with the clergy. Since the mid-2010s, a surging number of youth from these countries have sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S. This change means that only applications filed before January 2019 are currently being processed, moving forward the Central American minors by a few months but giving clergy with expiring visas no option but to leave their U.S. congregations behind.

“They’re doing everything they’re supposed to be doing and all of a sudden, they’re totally steamrolled,” said Matthew Curtis, an immigration attorney in New York City whose clients, like an Israeli rabbi and a South African music minister, are running out of time. “It’s like a bombshell on the system.”

Across all faith traditions, there are few options for these workers to continue their U.S.-based ministry, attorneys say. At a minimum, they would need to go abroad for a year before being eligible for another temporary religious worker visa, and repeat that process, paying thousands in fees, throughout the decade – or for however long their green card application stays pending. 

“A big concern is that leaving is not really viable. The church will replace the pastor or shut down, it’s too much instability,” said Calleigh McRaith, Castillo’s attorney in Minnesota.

In a report released Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services blamed the EB-4 backlogs on the surge in applications by minors from Central America, and said the agency found widespread fraud in that program. 

The Senate and House bills would allow the Department of Homeland Security to extend religious workers’ visas as long as their green card application is pending. They would also prevent small job changes — such as moving up from associate to senior pastor, or being assigned to another parish in the same diocese — from invalidating the pending application.

“The past two years have been extremely difficult for American Muslims,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

“Since October 2023, we’ve definitely seen rise in Islamophobia,” said Rawand Abdelghani, who is on the board of directors of Nueces Mosque, one of the affected mosques in Austin, Texas. “Anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, all of that rhetoric that’s being said … it has contributed to things like this happening.”

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said “if people think they can get away with graffiti, then the next step is to firebomb a mosque or even go attack worshippers.”

Nueces had already increased its security camera use following three incidents last year, including someone throwing rocks at the mosque. The Nueces security footage showed an individuals with their face partially covered. They spray-painting what appears to be Star of David symbols at the property. In Texas, a gathering at Nueces brought together neighbors and others, including Christians and Jews, to paint over the vandalism, clean up the property and garden.

CAIR Austin said similar incidents were reported at two other Austin mosques. Referencing former President Joe Biden, the CAIR report said that for “the second year in a row, the Biden-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States.” They all seemingly happened on the same night in May, in what the group described as part of “a disturbing pattern of hate-motivated incidents” calling for the increase in security.

The Islamic Center of Southern California has been targeted before, including vandalism in 2023 and separate threats that authorities said in 2016 were made by a man who was found with multiple weapons in his home.