A group Christian women theologians in India has expre-ssed shock and pain at the increasing incidents of sexual assaults on young Dalit women in the country.
“We strongly condemn these acts of violence and call upon the state machinery to ensure a free and fair probe into these crimes so that the guilty are brought before the courts of law and justice ensured to the victims/survivors,” says the Indian Women Theologians Forum (IWTF).
In an October 7 press release, the forum deplores the rape of four young Dalit women in Uttar Pradesh districts of Bulandshahr, Azamgarh, Balrampur, and Hathras in September. On Sept-ember 18, another Dalit teenager was set on fire in Telangana state’s Khammam district for resisting the rape attempt of her employers’ son.
“It is time for every right-thinking Indian to raise their voice and demand justice for the Dalits in our country. It is time for each of us to examine our own attitudes and behaviour that continues to treat Dalits as second class. It is time for India to change,” the Christian women theologian assert.
“We are deeply pained that even 70 years after the birth of India’s egalitarian Constitution framed by Dr. B R Ambedkar… Dalits continue to be treated as sub human,” the forum statement bemoaned.
Ambedkar, an eminent jurist, economist and politician, who had himself suffered caste discrimination, ensured that his strong views on social develop-ment, communal harmony and eradication of caste are spelt out in the various articles of the Indian Constitution.
Daily Archives: October 16, 2020
Hindus plan anti-conversion campaign across India
Hindu groups in India are planning to launch a nationwide campaign to curb religious conversion, which they claim is a form of violence and a crime.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) say religious conversion is rampant in tribal-dominated areas and they plan to bring those converted back to the Hindu fold.
But their claims brought a swift rebuttal from Christian leaders.
“The Catholic Church in India does not promote or propagate religious conversion and, as the RSS and VHP claim that it does, then let them prove it,” Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ Commission for Tribal Affairs, told.
“From time to time, those groups blame us for conversion, but there is no record of any religious conversion where the Church is involved, so there is no question of reconversion.
“Everybody knows that the Church is engaged in many charitable works. Our main concern is that any charitable work can be construed as allure-ment to conversions, but it is not true. We should do our work and should not give heed to RSS and VHP propaganda.”
Christians attacked in India for rejecting idol worship
Christian families in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh had their houses vandalized after refusing to follow the local Sarna religion.
A mob attacked houses in five villages in Kondagaon district of Bastar division on Sept. 22-23, PTI news agency reported.
“There was an incident of clashes between tribal groups and tribal Christians as the villagers wanted the Christian group to follow the traditional tribal Sarna religion of worshiping nature, which the Christian groups refused to do,” Bishop Joseph Kollamparampil of Jagdalpur told.
“The situation was quite tense as some vested interest people were trying to give it a communal color, but the administration was very alert and the situation is under control now.”
Vincenzo Guo Xijin endured years of communist persecution and Resigns
Bishop Vincenzo Guo Xijin of the Mindong diocese announced his decision to resign from public life and retire to a life of prayer in a speech delivered at his last public Mass on the evening of Oct. 4.
Guo, who has suffered homelessness and imprisonment many times at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), submitted his letter of resignation to the Vatican.
“Tonight will be the last public Mass that I preside: From tomorrow I will only do private Masses,” he informed his parishioners. “The faithful can receive the sacraments and attend Mass at the nearby church.”
Guo described the reign of Chinese president Xi Jinping and Pope Francis as “a new era” and “a new page for the Church,” warranting other leaders.
I am no longer able to keep up with this era. Tweet
“In such an extraordinary historical moment, we need people with great talent, wisdom, virtue and knowledge to be able to keep up with this era or even precede the steps of the era by guiding it,” he argued.
The speech was laden with self-deprecatory and resigned remarks:
I am a person who has no talent; my head is now a void unable to change with a changing society; [I am] a shepherd born in a poor village who has no talent, no virtue, no wisdom, no skills, no knowledge; in the face of this age that changes so rapidly, I feel almost incapable.
The prelate, described as “a great confessor of the faith,” thanked God “for enlightening me by making me understand that I am no longer able to keep up with this era,” he resolved. “I do not want to become an obstacle to progress.”
When asked what could be done to stop the persecution of faithful Catholics in China or to support his pleas for a faithful appointment for the See of Hong Kong, Zen replied: ”Nothing. I’ve done more than I can, and there is nothing more to do other than prayer.”
First Swiss-Filipino joins Vatican guard
Vincent Lüthi was among the 38 new recruits who took oath of allegiance to Pope Francis in the Vatican on October 4.
The 22-year-old grew up in Cugy, Switzerland and the only child of a Swiss father and a Filipino mother from Santa Fe town on Bantayan Island in Cebu province.
The ceremony for new Swiss Guards was due to take place in May, but it was moved to October due to the coronavirus restrictions.
The event was also held behind closed doors, in accordance with current protection regulations.
Pope Francis met with the guards and their parents before the ceremony and thanked them for choosing to dedicate “a period of their youth in the service of the Successor of Peter.”
In the audience on October 2, he told the new recruits that “the time you will spend here is a unique moment in your life.”
“May you live it in a spirit of fraternity, helping one another to lead a meaningful and joyfully Christian life,” the Pope said.
The pontiff also emphasized the crucial role of the family in the transmission of faith.
“The presence of your family members expresses the devotion of Swiss Catholics to the Holy See, as well as the moral education and good example by which parents have passed on to their children the Christian faith and the sense of generous service to their neighbor,” he said.
North Korean defectors to reveal harrowing detail of escape at Night of Freedom event
North Korean defectors who risked everything for freedom will speak on October 7 night at Liberty in North Korea’s annual Night of Freedom, which will be held online this year.
The hour long event will be held at 7 p.m. Eastern time and will include three stories from defectors who escaped one of the world’s most repressive regimes, along with appearances by celebrities, raffles, and never-before-released short film.
Liberty in North Korea plans to broadcast the event from its headquarters in Long Beach, California. It will host a similar event on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. Pacific time.
Anyone interested in participating can sign up for free on Liberty in North Korea’s website. So far, over 2,000 people world wide have done so. Liberty in North Korea CEO Hannah Song said it will be the group’s first large online event.
“What are we willing to give up for freedom?” Song said in an interview with The Christian Post. “When I hear the risks our North Korean friends take, these are things I can’t even begin to fathom deciding. I’ve had to think about that very deeply every time I’ve heard their stories. What is my freedom to me?”
Along the 3,000-mile trek from North Korea to South Korea, defectors must cross the North Korean border, dodge human traffickers and the Chinese police, and brave mountains and jungles. The defectors speaking at the event each fled North Korea in search of different kinds of freedom, Song said.
Bishops concerned as South Korea adopts abortion law
South Korea’s government has adopted a draft law to legalize abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy, but Catholic bishops in the country said it violates the foetus’s right to life.
The government on Oct. 7 adopted the bill that plans to ban abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy except in the case of a sex crime or if it affects the mother’s health or severe congenital disabilities for the foetus.
The law bans abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy, the Justice Ministry said.
Although the government has adopted the bill, the public have been given around 40 days to submit their views before it is sent to the National Assembly for approval.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea has been opposing the move to legalize abortion since August when the government was finalizing the draft bill.
In a letter submitted to President Moon Jae-in on Aug. 20, the bishops voiced their concerns about legalizing abortion. They said human life must be protected “from the very moment of conception.”
The government began to amend the law prohibiting abortion in April 2019 when the South Korean Constitutional Court ruled that the ban was unconstitutional. It asked the government to legalize abortions by the end of 2020 or consider the abortion ban legally invalid.
The bishops said abortion is not the solution to issues related to marriage and pregnancy. Most such issues could be solved by changing the current social culture which makes “women solely responsible for pregnancy and childbirth,” the bishops’ conference said in a statement on September 2 on its website.
Police arrest well-known Vietnamese rights activist
Police in southern Vietnam have captured a famous blogger and rights activist who has been praised for bravely struggling for democratic freedom and accepting persecution.
The Public Security Ministry announced on Oct. 7 that police arrested Pham Thi Doan Trang and searched her boarding house in Ho Chi Minh City. Trang is accused of campaigning against the state and spreading information and documents against the communist government. The Hanoi resident will be detained for four months as her case is investigated.
Le Nguyen Huong Tra said police arrested Trang at midnight of Oct. 6 while she stayed at a boarding house in the city.
“I am not surprised at my friend’s arrest after she published reports on the lethal land clash between police and farmers in Dong Tam Commune,” Pham Thanh Nghien, Trang’s close friend, said. The clash claimed the lives of three police officers and farmers’ leader Le Dinh Kinh.
Nghien, a Catholic mother of one, said Trang’s arrest, which came when delegations from Vietnam and the US were holding their 24th annual human rights dialogue via virtual sessions on Oct. 6-7, showed that the Vietnamese government refused to respect human rights.
Cardinal says Pope’s new encyclical is a warning: The world is ‘on the brink’
One of Pope Francis’s top advisers said that the pontiff sees the current world situation comparable to that of the Cuban missile crisis, World War II, or 9/11 – and that to fully understand the papal encyclical released on Sunday, October 4, it’s necessary to acknowledge “we’re on the brink.”
“Depending on your age, what was it like to hear Pius XII deliver his Christmas messages during World War II?” said Cardinal Michael Czerny. “Or how did it feel when Pope John XXIII published Pacem in Terris? Or after the 2007/2008 crisis, or after 9/11? I think you need to recover that feeling in your stomach, in your whole being, to appreciate Fratelli Tutti.”
“I think Pope Francis feels today the world needs a message comparable to what we needed during the Cuban missile crisis, or World War II or 9/11 or the big crash of 2007/2008,” he said. “We’re on the brink. We need to pull back in a very human, worldwide and local way. I think that’s one way to get into Fratelli Tutti.”
Fratelli Tutti is the encyclical the Argentine Pope released on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, after signing it the previous day in the Italian town where the Franciscan saint lived most of his life.
According to the cardinal, if Pope Francis’s previous encyclical, Laudato Si’, on the care of creation, “taught us that everything is connected, Fratelli Tutti teaches us that everyone is connected.”
“If we take responsibility for our common home and for our brothers and sisters, then I think that we do have a good chance, and my hope is re-kindled and inspired to keep on going and do more,” he said.
Czerny, head of the Vatican’s migrants and refugees section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, made his comments during a “Dahlgren Dialogue” session organized online by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life of Georgetown University.
The prelate said that Fratelli Tutti “brings some big questions and brings them home to each of us,” with the pontiff attacking a theory that most subscribe to without realizing they’re doing so: “We believe to be self-made, without recognizing God as our creator; we’re prosperous, we believe we deserve everything that we have and consume; and we’re orphans, disconnected, totally free, and actually alone.”
What Lessons Do Americans See for Humanity in the Pandemic Humanity in What Lessons Do
When an event has as much impact as the coronavirus outbreak – disrupting billions of lives and leading to more than 1 million deaths around the world – it’s natural for people to ponder big questions. Is this just a random occurrence, or is there something more at play? Is it all part of God’s plan? Or, at a more worldly level, can this experience teach us any truths about humanity?
We sought to explore these questions in a recent Pew Re-search Centre survey, conducted in mid-July on the Centre’s American Trends Panel. First, we asked people: Do you believe there is a lesson or a set of lessons for humankind to learn from the coronavirus outbreak? And if so, do you think these lessons were sent by God, or not?
A large majority of U.S. adults (86%) say there is some kind of lesson or set of lessons for humankind to learn from the pandemic, and about a third of Americans (35%) say the lessons were sent by God. The remainder say the lessons were not sent by God (37%), they do not believe in God (13%), or there is no lesson to be learned (13%).
Then, we asked half the respondents who said yes to the first question to describe, in their own words, what lessons they think humankind should learn. This prompted more than 3,700 people to write their answers, which ranged from a few words to several sentences.
The rest of this essay looks at a sampling of responses – including many examples presented exactly as respondents wrote them. Some responses have been lightly edited for spelling and clarity. Due in part to the great variety of responses we received, we did not attempt to quantify what percentage of Americans believe there is a certain type of lesson to be learned.
Americans who say God is using the pandemic to send a lesson to humanity often highlight religious lessons. Those who do not think the lessons of the pandemic were sent by God mention a variety of topics – though rarely religious ones.
Among those who say there is a lesson about religion within the pandemic, some respondents point to the role God has in humans’ lives. For instance, a 53-year-old woman writes that “whether you believe it or not, God is in control and we must have God at the centre of our lives. He is our saviour.”
A 58-year-old man feels God wants people to reflect on their lives: “God is telling us that we need to change our ways or He will send a virus that will make us be alone so that we have time to think about how we live our lives. We all need to live as one we are all children of God. God did not create mankind to live as we do. And He is not going to let this virus end until He knows that we have learned our lesson.”
