Asian

Removing Satan from Pakistan parishioners’ pockets

The colourful posters advertising the annual Marian pilgrimage are plastered across Tera village in Pakistan, but they come with an unusual prohibition. “Photographing or videotaping on mobile phones is prohibited. We are all obliged to respect the holy venue. The incoming guests for pilgrimage are requested to observe the SOPs [standard operating procedures],” state notices […]

Papuans pay the price of graft in Indonesia

A multimillion-dollar graft scandal involving high-ranking leaders in conflict-torn Papua has drawn a public backlash and further impoverished people traumatized by decades of violence. Indonesia’s anti-graft agency confirmed last month a corruption scandal involving Papua’s top man — Governor Lukas Enembe. He allegedly embezzled around US$36 million of state funds aimed to advance people’s welfare. […]

‘Nobody dares speak out’: Chinese writer forced into exile

Murong Xuecun was one of the brightest stars of China’s literary scene, his novels offering searing critiques of contemporary social issues that few other writers dared to imitate. But after a decade of diminishing freedom of speech under President Xi Jinping, he could not publish in his own country and was eventually forced into exile. […]

Families grieve for Thai nursery dead

Weeping, grief-stricken families gathered on October 7 out-side a Thai nursery where an ex-policeman murdered nearly two dozen children in one of the kingdom’s worst mass killings. Thai King Maha Vajiralong-korn and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha will later visit survivors of the attack that left at least 37 people dead, including the attacker’s wife and […]

Priests demand fair trials in Indonesia’s Papua region

More than 100 Catholic priests have signed a petition seeking fair trials in cases of violence, including sensational murders, as a way of peace-building in Indonesia’s restive Christian-majority Papua re-gion. The petition includes a five-point declaration which was adopted during a meeting of 106 diocesan priests from all five dioceses in the region in Agats, […]

A social development quest in Timor-Leste

In 2015, when Father Hwang Seokmo ended his term as the director of the headquarters of his religious order in Seoul, he requested the superior send him as a missionary to Timor-Leste. The 57-year-old priest, a member of the South Korea-based Clerical Congregation of the Blessed Korean Martyrs, said the tiny Catholic-majority country, also known […]

The Filipino shepherd has spoken but will the sheep listen

Filipino Catholic bishops led by the Archbishop of Manila have urged church-goers not to forget the atrocities during the martial law era. But will the people heed their advice? The Catholic Church’s hierarchy had gone silent after the presidential election results in May. It was perhaps a painful realization for them that very few Catholics listened […]

Japan’s ruling party concedes Unification Church ties

Around half of Japan’s ruling party law-makers have had dealings with the Unification Church, an official said on September 8, after the assassination of ex-premier Shinzo Abe heightened scrutiny of the religious organization also sometimes known as the Moonies. The man suspected of shooting Abe dead in July allegedly targeted the former prime minister believing […]

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Pope: Red Cross’ humanitarian work shows that fraternity is possible

New Vatican document lists ‘grave violations’ of human dignity