Days before the week of prayer for Catholics in China began on May 23 and seminarians in the country were arrested for holding Sunday, several services without the permission of the country’s Communist authorities.
In 2007, then-Pope Benedict XVI published a lengthy letter to Catholics in China in which he designated May 24, the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, as an annual global day of prayer for the Catholic Church in China.
Earlier this year, Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) asked that the entire week of May 23-30 be observed as a time of prayer for China, saying “We should ask Our Lady of Sheshan to protect all humanity and therefore the dignity of each and every person in China.”
“It is right that we should pray not only for the church but for all persons in the People’s Republic of China,” he said, voicing hope that China “continues to rise as a global power” and becomes “a force for good and a protector of the rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized in the world.”
Pope Francis in his May 23 Regina Coeli address gave Chinese Catholics a shout-out, congratulating them for the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, who he said “is invoked assiduously” by Chinese Catholic families.
More Protestant churches shut as members leave: study
With fewer than 50% of Americans holding formal memberships in churches in 80 years, more Protestant church-es are closing than opening nationwide, and further decline appears “inevitable,” new data show.
Estimates made by the Nashville-based Lifeway Research, show that in 2019, well before many churches were forced to close in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, approximately 3,000 Protestant churches were started in the US, but 4,500 Protestant churches closed. The findings came from an analysis of congregation data collected from 34 denominations and groups representing some 60% of Protestant churches in the U.S.
A previous analysis done in 2014 showed a net gain in churches that year when an estimated 4,000 Protestant churches were planted and 3,700 closed.
Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, suggested in a statement that one reason for the decline in church plants is because denominations were more focused on keeping existing churches afloat.
“Over the last decade, most denominations have increased the attention they are giving to revive existing congregations that are struggling,” he said. “This has been more than a fad. This has been a response to a real, growing need to revitalize unhealthy congregations.” Earlier this year, a Gallup analysis showed that in 1937, when they first measured formal membership in houses of worship, some 70% of Americans had formal church membership and that measure remained steady for the next 60 years until it began a steady decline in 1998. In 2020, formal membership in houses of worship stood at 49%.
Key Spanish archdiocese to combine parishes amid falling numbers
The Barcelona Archdiocese will combine most parishes into larger pastoral communities, amid falling church attendance and secularization. A statement on the archdiocesan website said most Spanish dioceses were facing the same process. It said three to six parishes would be grouped together, resulting in 48 pastoral communities.
“The intention of an eventual diocesan reorganization is better distribution of pastoral resources, to obtain maximum pastoral efficiency and adequate support for the resulting pastoral units,” said the May 18 statement. “The aim is to reinforce common work and synodality among priests, laity, religious and deacons, when it is more difficult today for parishes to offer a full range of services.”
News of the reorganization comes amid continuing disputes over plans by the Spanish government to make the Catholic Church — whose members make up 61 percent of Spain’s 47 million inhabitants — relinquish what Spain says are improperly acquired assets.
Pope moves youth seminary out of Vatican amid abuse trial
Pope Francis has decided to move a youth seminary outside Vatican City, taking action before the Vatican’s criminal tribunal renders a verdict in a sex abuse trial involving a former seminarian and an ex-rector. The Vatican made no mention of the ongoing trial in its announcement that the St Pius X pre-seminary would relocate somewhere in Rome starting in September. The facility serves as a residence for altar boys ages 12-18 who serve at papal Masses in St Peter’s Basilica.
Pakistani Christians protest over poisoning case
More than 300 mourners protested for several hours alongside the body of a Christian laborer allegedly poisoned by Muslims as officials urged them to bury their dead. “O Lord we are helpless” and “Injustice with Christians” stated placards as villagers from Tariqabad blocked a major road near Gojra city of Pakistan’s Punjab province on May 24 demanding registration of a police case for the killing of 32-year-old Arif Masih, who was kidnapped on May 23.
“Two men from Gujjar community raided our house and forcefully took him on a motorcycle. About an hour later, they threw him in the market at our front door. He was semi-conscious, hospitalized and died the same night,” said Rizwan Masih, his brother, in a police first information report filed following the three-hour protest.
“Last week the accused physically harassed our sister. My brother had been receiving death threats since we reported the incident at the police station. He was being forced for a truce.”
Tariqabad, a Muslim-majority village, is home to 45 Christian families. Minorities Alliance Pakistan (MAP) is providing legal aid to the dead man’s family.
“Arif Masih was murdered for demanding justice. The panchayat [local village assembly] scolded the Christian family for filing the case and threatened them with a social boycott for pursuing it. The influential accused easily attained pre-arrest bail,” MAP chairman Akmal Bhatti told.
“We condemn the murder reported earlier as a suicide. The local police were reluctant to record a report. Our people are tired of protesting with dead bodies. They were forced to protest under the scorching sun irrespective of the Covid pandemic.”
Human rights groups often complain of a biased criminal justice system in Pakistan.
Cemetery of sorrow: Catholics care for babies who never lived
A group of Vietnamese women whose husbands died or work far from home devote themselves to burying the fetuses of babies resulting from abortions or miscarriages.
The women, from Nam Vien Parish in Tien Du district neighbouring the northern city of Bac Ninh, provide a service that other married women who are busy looking after their husbands and children could not be involved in.
At night they have to work at full stretch. They will immediately travel 100 kilometrs from home to visit pregnant women in spite of chilly or rainy weather when they receive calls from people in need. They do not miss any call even when they are tired from their own work.
In the dead of night, a female doctor from a local hospital phoned Mary Pham Thi Hoai, one of the members, asking her group to help a young mother who gave premature birth to a baby who died after being placed in an incubator for 10 days. The baby’s father, with a low weak voice, also appealed to the group to bury his newborn baby.
Hmong village boy takes first vows as Oblate religious
At the chapel of Mai Thien Loc Theologate of the Oblates of Mary of Immaculate Conception (OMI), the superior of the Vietnam Mission received the vows of eight novices, including Brother Joseph Tinh A Senh, a son of Dien Bien Parish in Hung Hoa Diocese.
He belongs to the Hmong ethnic group. This is good news not only for the newly professed brother, his family and the OMI congregation but is also an indescribable joy for members of the Hmong community.
Brother Senh was born on June 10, 1996, in Dien Bien, the seventh child of 10 children. His family are poor like many other families in the area. Poverty is rife, from one corn season to another. Nothing has changed. The local people have a joke: just the piglet and buffalo grow up, but we grow old and then die.
After graduating from the village school, he intended to go to the fields like many other boys. But Father Peter Pham Thanh Binh, parish priest of Sapa, saw that this boy was smart and virtuous, so he invited him to live and study at Sapa boarding house. He agreed to live there with his friends to study. There are very few who hear the voice of God and respond.
Philippine Church issues warning over fake social media
Manila Archdiocese has issued a notice warning Catholics not to be fooled by fake social media accounts purportedly owned by the Philippine capital’s recently appointed archbishop, saying he has no social media account on any platform.
People have reported several accounts on Facebook using the name and photos of Cardinal Jose Advincula. One Facebook page has gathered hundreds of thou-sands of likes from Catholics in the Philippines and abroad. It also posts the cardinal’s homilies and speeches as well as providing information on his public engagements.
The Archdiocese of Manila and the Archdiocese of Capiz have not yet created a Facebook page or social media account under Cardinal Advincula’s name, the archdiocese’s chancellor Father Reginald Malicdem said in the May 24 notice.
The cardinal was archbishop of Capiz in the central Philippines before being appointed Manila’s archbishop.
In April, Cardinal Advincula himself warned against fake solicitation letters being circulated online using his name to ask for donations for his installation.
Christian leaders offer to mediate Papua peace talks
Churches in Papua have offered to mediate talks between the Indonesian government and separatist groups in a bid to ease tensions in the restive region.
The offer comes amid an escalation in violence in Papua that has seen hundreds of troops deployed and many people dis-placed in a crackdown following the government’s decision on April 29 to declare pro-separatists as terrorists. This followed the death a week earlier of an Indonesian intelligence chief in a shootout with members of the rebel West Papua National Liberation Army.
Church leaders conveyed their concern over the deteriorating situation during a meeting with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mini-ster Mahfud MD in Jakarta on May 25.
The leaders included Sacred Heart Abp Petrus Mandagi of Merauke in Papua, Indonesian bishops’ conference president Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, and Reverend Ronny Mandang, chairman of the Fellowship of Indonesian Evangelical Churches and Institutions.
During the meeting, they offered to act as a mediator in peace talks.
“Many church and ordinary people in Papua are praying the government will hold talks to end the violence immediately,” Reverend Mandang said.
Dialogue must involve all elements to end the conflict
Mahfud responded by saying he was open to Christian leaders acting as mediators.
“If there are parties wanting to become mediators and they are welcomed by various groups in Papua, then we will facilitate that,” he said.
“We ask for dialogue and will exchange ideas with anyone including church leaders who can help forge peace and security for the Papuan people.”
Myanmar’s Junta soldiers are ‘terrorists’
More and more people on social media are describing the military junta responsible for the coup d’état and its soldiers as “terrorists.” The label is not only used to counter the military regime’s use of the “terrorist” label against its opposition, but reflects a broadly held view in the population that the military is reverting back to its cruel old methods, typical of the dictatorship that ruled before the recent short-lived period of democratic government. Increasingly, soldiers walk through markets taking food without paying, stealing valuables from the homes of suspected activists they search, beating defenceless civilians to a pulp, not to mention abducting people of all ages who go missing without leaving a trace.