Daily Archives: July 28, 2023
Unholy horror of churches burnt in Indian ethnic violence
Charred walls, collapsed tin roofs and smashed windows in a burned Kuki community church illustrate how deadly ethnic violence has led to brutal sectarian attacks in India’s troubled Manipur state.
At least 120 people have been killed since May in armed clashes between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki in the northeastern state.
The ruins of the Kuki church in Imphal are just one among the more than 220 churches and 17 Hindu temples destroyed in the months of vigilante violence, according to a report by India Today news magazine.
Across the street from the burned church, Baptist priest Zuan Kamang Damai led a service on Sunday with a congregation just a third of its usual size of about 800 after many of his Kuki parishioners fled.
“After this violence erupted, they moved to different places to save their lives,” he said.
“They want to come back, they want to resettle, they want to live with my family,” Damai said. “This is what they responded to me, and I comfort them. God is there.”
Damai is himself a Naga, another major tribal group in the area who have largely been spared in the cycle of revenge attacks.
But many of his regular worshippers are staying away, fearful of the possibility of violence.
“We have to respect each religion — regardless of Christians, regardless of Hindu, Muslim, whatever,” the 55-year-old said.
Bishops decry law enforcement agencies’ apathy, silence in Manipur
A top team of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India that visited the conflict-ridden areas of Manipur has criticized the prolonged silence and apathy of the law enforcement agencies in containing violence in the northeastern Indian state.
“It is our earnest appeal that the governance system should uphold the secular fabric of our country, reinforce constitutional values and cultivate an environment of peaceful co-existence of various communities,” asserts the team led by the conference president Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Trichur.
The team that visited various places in Manipur July 23-24 included the conference’s deputy secretary general Father Jervis D’Souza and Father Paul Moonjely, executive director of Caritas India, humanitarian response organization of CBCI.
It was the first CBCI official team to visit Manipur where clashes between Kuki tribal people and Meitei people erupted 82 days ago, killing more than 160 people and rendering thousands homeless. As many as 349 churches and institutions have also perished in the violence.
The visit also took place five days after a video surfaced on social media showing two women being paraded naked and later gang raped. The 26-minute video triggered national outrage prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak about Manipur for the first time. The incident occurred on May 4, but the world did not know about it until because of a ban on the internet in Manipur.
Indian Prime Minister Modi Finally Comments on Manipur Violence, Church Says It Is ‘Too Late’
With India and observers elsewhere in the world stunned by a viral video of the naked parading and public rape of two Christian women in simmering Manipur state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had little option but to break his widely deplored silence on the bloodshed there.
“The video showing atrocity against women in Manipur is the most shameful,” acknowledged Modi while entering the Indian Parliament on July 20 for its monsoon session, reacting to the shocking May 4 video. Amid the national outcry, Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has banned viewing of the video in India.
“The Manipur incident has shamed the entire humanity and [1.4 billion] people of the country are feeling shamed,” added Modi.
Modi’s delayed response was criticized by Catholics leaders.
“The Prime Minister’s reaction has come too late. He should have spoken out when the bloodshed started but just kept quiet all through,” Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal, who heads the Catholic Church in the strife-torn state, told the Register.
“Fear is pervasive even now [after 79 days] and peace remains a dream for us. Everyone is living in fear as violence keeps erupting in the [Imphal] Valley and its peripheries frequently,” added Archbishop Lumon, who heads the 100,000-member local Catholic Church in the tiny state in northeast India, which has a total population of less than four million people.
“On some days, there is relaxation of curfew. But yesterday it was strict curfew due to fresh violence.”
Reports of tribal Kuki attacks on ethnic Meiteis circulated immediately after the protest, which in turn plunged the Imphal Valley that accommodates 90% of Manipur’s population into an outburst of violence against Kuki tribal Christians. At the same time, ethnic Meitei settlements in the Kuki-dominated hills surrounding the valley also were the targets of violence.
While the official death count now totalling around 150, with the overwhelming majority of the victims being Kuki Christians, human rights observers estimate the figure to be underestimated.
Estela Padilla: ‘My Experience with Filipino Basic Ecclesial Communities at the Synod’
According to Estela Padilla, one of the ten non-bishop members from Asia for the forth-coming Synod of Bishops this October, it will be an occasion for the church’s authentic renewal.
She has been a consultant to the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the Executive Secretary of the Office for Theological Concerns in the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC).
When asked what her feelings were when Pope Francis included her as one of the non-bishop members from Asia for the Synod of Bishops, Padilla told AsiaNews, “I felt deep joy and an even deeper sense of responsibility. The Synod has fascinated and energized me from the start. Since I have participated in the local, national, and international Synodal processes, I am looking forward to seeing the seeds planted grow and nourish towards authentic renewal.”
“I hope the Synod will be a space for aware-ness-raising, graceful listening, and speaking with parrhesia. The participation of the non-bishops will be an exercise in authentic communal discern-ment and decision-making, guided by the question, ‘Where is the Spirit leading us’?”
Lay people await participation in Pakistan Church
Mushtaq Asad was among the first five Pakistani lay people sent for a two-year study program in Rome in the early 1980s to ensure lay participation. That was two decades after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which stressed the role of lay people in the Church’s mission.
Only two of those five returned home. And since then, the hierarchy stopped sponsoring lay people for studies abroad, says 65-year-old Asad, who prefers to wear the traditional shalwar kameez (tunics with pleated trousers) just like other Pakistani men.
After returning home, Asad taught for over a decade at the National Catechists’ Training Centre in Khushpur, in Faisalabad district. Now he spends time giving biblical reflections on his YouTube channel to over 4,000 subscribers, from his modest house in Malkhanwala, a village in Punjab province.
Seven decades after the Second Vatican Council, “there is no lay participation in the Church’s decision-making bodies. Their only job is to come to church, listen and return home. It is as if we are born to listen, while the clergy do all the talking,” Asad said.
In the Muslim-majority nation, the role of the laity has been “consciously limited to recitations, collecting tithes and presenting garlands to priests and bishops,” he said.
“Even catechists are not consulted while making decisions. They are considered paid workers. The Church doesn’t accept the participation of the laity, especially women. It is still not ready to see them in leadership roles,” said Asad, a lay theologian.
Emmanuel Neno, the only other person who returned home after studies in Rome, said the Church in Pakistan lacks a clear pastoral vision resulting in poor lay participation.
Pakistan Claims 400,000 Social Media Accounts Spread Blasphemy
We know Pakistan punishes blasphemy with the death penalty, but how many blasphemers are there in Pakistan? From July 13, we have an answer, thanks to a report by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony.
It claims that 400,000 social media accounts spread “extremely blasphemous material against the most revered figures, including Allah Almighty (God), the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the Ahl al-Bayt (Prophet’s family), the Mothers of the Believers, the Companions of the Prophet, the Holy Quran, and the national flag [of Pakistan, which includes Islamic symbols].”
Even considering that the same individual may have multiple accounts, the number of those risking the death penalty is enormous. Through which method the Ministry arrived at the figure of 400,000 and the claim that an “epidemic” of blasphemy is hitting Pakistan is not explained.
Doubts arise when we read in the report that, among the owners of these 400,000 accounts spreading blasphemy, “the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] Cyber Crime Wing has already apprehended 140 individuals involved in these crimes, with 11 of them having received the death penalty from trial courts and two having their death sentences confirmed by the High Court.”
Seven-year-old girl raped because she is Christian
In early July, Javeria, a seven-year-old girl, was raped in Chichawatni, a rural subdistrict (Tehsil), in Sahiwal district, in what is the latest and most chilling example of violence against women.
This problem is widespread in Pakistan, with tens of thousands of cases each year, affecting mainly girls and women from ethnic and religious minorities, this according to local human rights activists.
Javeria is from a Christian family. On the day of the attack, she had gone to a store to buy certain things. When she did not return, her father, Javed Masih, started looking for her, eventually finding her in an abandoned building while a man was raping her.
The man fled the scene but was later apprehended by police, while the girl was admitted to Sahiwal District Hospital for a few days.
Voice for Justice, a Pakistani organisation that provides legal aid to those who cannot afford it, offered to represent Javeria, whose family is destitute.
Like Javeria, “girls from to religious minorities are specifically targeted because they are less likely to receive help from police and other officials in the search for justice,” Voice of Justice chairman Joseph Jansen explained.
“Often in these cases the culprits are not prosecuted and police agents tend to side with the people from the majority religion, i.e. Muslims,” he lamented.
Card Sako forced to leave Baghdad and move to Erbil
The highest authority of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, has been forced to leave the patriarchal see in Baghdad and move to a monastery in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, via Istanbul.
This is a direct consequence of the “deliberate and humiliating campaign” against the Chaldean patriarch by the Babylon Brigades, a pro-Iranian Christian militia.
Such persecution is compounded by the decision of Iraq’s president to withdraw “the Republican Decree (147), an unprecedented [act] in Iraqi history”, Card Sako says in a statement in Arabic and English posted on the patriarchate’s website.
A few days ago, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid withdrew what could be called the “institutional recognition” of the office of the patriarch.
According to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Arab, al-Kildani wants to include the Christian question in its political agenda and use it “in the service of the militias that control Iraq behind whom is Iran”, unlike the patriarch who has always tried to “preserve the independence of the Chaldean Christian community.”
According to the governor of Wasit, Muhammad Jamil al-Mayahi, Cardinal Sako “is a symbol of unity and brotherhood, and his departure from Baghdad is a loss for all of us.”
Meanwhile, in the cities of Karamlesh and Erbil Iraqi Christians have rallied in support of the Chaldean patriarch.
“The entire Christian community of Iraq is threatened, and Chaldean and Syriac Assyrians have united to affirm their support for the patriarch of the Chaldean Church,” said several associations, such as the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the Popular Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Council, the House of Mesopotamia (Bet-Nahrain) Patriotic Union, the Sons of Mesopotamia (Bnay Nahrain) Party, and the Assyrian Patriotic Party.
Lebanese saint who unites Christians and Muslims
St. Charbel Makhlouf is known in Lebanon for the miraculous healings of those who visit his tomb to seek his intercession — both Christians and Muslims.
“St. Charbel has no geographic or confessional limits. Nothing is impossible for [his intercession] and when people ask [for something], he answers,” Father Louis Matar, coordinator of the Shrine of St. Charbel in Annaya, Lebanon, told CNA.
Speaking in Arabic with the help of an interpreter, Matar said the shrine, which encompasses the monastery where the Maronite Catholic priest, monk, and hermit lived for nearly 20 years, receives approximately 4 million visitors a year, including both Christians and Muslims.
Lebanese Catholics pray at the shrine of St. Charbel, the country’s patron saint. EWTN News
Matar, who is responsible for archiving the thousands of medically-verified healings attributed to the intercession of the Maronite priest-monk, said that many miraculous cures have been obtained by Muslims.
Since 1950, the year the monastery began to formally record the miraculous healings, they have archived more than 29,000 miracles, Matar said. Prior to 1950, miracles were verified only through the witness of a priest. Now, with more advanced medical technology available, alleged miracles require medical documents demonstrating the person’s initial illness and later, their unexplainable good health.
One of the miracles documented by Matar at the end of December 2018 was that of a 45-year-old Italian woman. Suffering from a neurological disease, she was hospitalized after it was discovered she had tried to commit suicide by consuming acid.