The 300-bed Divine Mercy Hospital near Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka will become the biggest Christian-run healthcare facility in the Muslim-majority nation when it opens in November this year.
The hospital, being built at a cost of 3 billion taka (US$ 28 million), is the signature project of Christian Cooperative Credit Union Limited (CCCUL) and has about 50,000 Catholic and Protestant members with total assets of 12 billion taka (US$ 110 million).
Founded on July 3, 1955 by American Holy Cross missionary, Father Charles J. Young, this lay-run organization is the largest non-banking financial organization in Bangladesh aiming to promote the socio-economic welfare of people, including the minority Christian community.
Young allowed clergy to be advisers of the union but ensured that decision-making powers rested with laypeople, which became the key to its success, says Nirmol Rozario, 62, the union’s former president and a lay Catholic.
Rozario, currently the president of the Bangladesh Christian Association (BCA), the country’s largest lay-run Christian forum, however, says the Church hierarchy lags behind in promoting lay people like Young did more than seven decades ago.
A democratic mind-set “does not exist in the hierarchy and its structure,” Rozario told UCA News.
Lay involvement is limited to membership in parish councils and diocesan advisory committees. And, most lay members of parish councils are selected based on “loyalty to clergy and the decision-making powers rests with the parish priest,” Rozario said.
“Clergymen should not consider themselves as super humans and look down upon laypeople,” he said, adding that priests should join hands with the laity for the common good of the Church “without egoism,” he said.
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Lefebvre priests’ push spreads Malaysian Church confusion
In a busy commercial hub outside Kuala Lumpur, above a row of shops, sits the chapel where Elizabeth attends Sunday Mass. But the 27-year-old Catholic, who would identify only as Elizabeth, is discreet about her newfound love for the traditional Latin language Mass.
She is not alone. Some 120 Catholics gather regularly for Sunday Mass in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus celebrated by a priest of the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX).
They follow the 1962 edition of the Tridentine Mass and liturgical forms used prior to the Second Vatican Council, spreading confusion among the laity about the validity of the SSPX’s ministry.
“We are attracted to it because it nourishes our faith. Many young Catholics struggle with the watering down of the faith in many parishes,” Elizabeth said.
The Mass she attends is in Latin, which probably not many in her congregation understand. But they follow a book where the English translation is given to help them understand.
Elizabeth and others who prefer to attend the Tridentine Mass, which was abrogated in 2021, know that they are part of a schism started by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
But Elizabeth has her own reasons to reject her parish under Kuala Lumpur archdiocese.
Christians flee fresh violence in Myanmar’s Kachin state
More than a thousand people, most of them Catholics and Baptists, have fled their village in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state after fresh fighting erupted between the military forces and ethnic Kachin rebels.Those who fled belong to some 160 families from Nan San Yang village, located barely 20 km from Laiza town, which is the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) close to the China border. The fighting began on July 3 and those who fled have taken refuge in the Catholic Church compound at Wai Mai town. Gam Aung, who led the villagers from Nan San Yang, said more villagers were likely to flee as reports of violence continued to pour in on July 6.
“We escaped with only a few clothes, leaving behind our homes and livestock. Hope we might be able to return to our village in a week or two,” Aung told UCA News on July 7.
Amid the uncertainty, those who fled the village were worried about how long the church groups and local authorities will continue to feed them.
“We will certainly need food, medicines and arrangements for school children for a longer term,” Aung said.
Father Vincent Shan Lum, the parish priest of Nam San Yang village, said he fled with the villagers on July 3 and they may need to stay in the church compound for weeks amid the tense situation.
Christian widow raped and killed in Lahore for refusing to convert
Shazia Imran, a Christian woman, was kidnapped, raped and killed by four Muslim men because she refused to convert to Islam and marry a man who had set his eyes on her.
Mani Gujjar is the main suspect in the death of the 40-year-old Christian widow. After failing to get her to do what he wanted, he and others gang-raped her and, after killing her, tried to destroy her body with acid.
Shazia worked at a day-care centre at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) where she first met the man who now stands accused of her death.
On 6 June, when she did not return from work, her family searched for the mother of three – two boys, Salman (16) and Abrar (6), and one daughter, Aliza (7) – without success.
The next day, they went to the police to file a report, concerned because Shazia and her family were convinced that her husband was beaten to death 18 months earlier, not by “thugs”, as the police asserted, but by the same people who killed Shazia.
Physical attacks and rape have been used countless times as coercive methods of conversion, above all, against women from religious minorities in Pakistan.
Shazia’s case, her rape and murder for refusing to convert, have sparked a new wave of fear but also anger and protests among the country’s Catholic minority.
Her relatives say that she had told her sister-in-law about Mani Gujjar’s harassment and attempts to get her to convert and marry him.
So far police have arrested only one of the four suspects, Mani Gujjar himself; his brother and two cousins, who allegedly participated in the crime, are still at large.
Joseph Jansen, president of Voice of Justice, said he was concerned about the incident, and urged the authorities to take strong action against the perpetrators.
For Jansen, whose NGO provides legal counsel through Pakistan’s first digital legal portal, the persecution of religious minorities needs to be curbed as soon as possible.
Living on a prayer? How attending worship can improve your physical and mental health
People who attend worship services regularly tend to have more close friendships, which can in turn lead to better health outcomes.
Most health care professionals know they can’t fully assess patients’ health without looking at social determinants, the nonmedical factors that influence health outcomes. Income, housing, quality of schools, access to fresh produce and other factors play an important role in wellness. But there’s one we don’t fully acknowledge: the role of faith.
Faith, spirituality and a sense of purpose all have a beneficial effect on one’s emotional, physical and mental health.
This connection is well-established by researchers. Belief in a divine plan for one’s life can foster optimism and hope “ attitudes that can boost mental and physical health, according to an analysis of more than 40 studies. Spiritual practices, such as prayer, can reduce stress and anxiety.
Spirituality and faith can even affect our physical health. According to a study published in the Journal of Health Psychology, religiosity, spirituality and frequency of prayer have been tied to lower cortisol levels.
In a study of more than 1,700 older adults, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found that those who practice religion had better immune function than those who didn’t. The findings persisted even when researchers adjusted for other factors that could impact immune system function, such as depression or chronic illness. The researchers suggest that the shared promotion of positive thoughts or experience of worship and adoration may help explain the physical health benefits.
Here’s how physicians at the Mayo Clinic sum up research on the topic: “Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide.”
We also know that some health benefits can be more pronounced in organized religion than in belief itself. For example, if you’re a member of a house of worship, you’ve likely noticed that few people attend services alone. Just as important as the internal attitudes religion can foster are the social connections it can bring.
An epidemic of loneliness and a lack of community have contributed to a rapid rise in “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse. Belonging to a faith organization can foster the sense of community that’s missing in so many people’s lives.
People who attend services regularly tend to have more close friendships, which can in turn lead to better health outcomes. One study found that cancer patients who belonged to a church choir reported better vitality and mental health despite no changes in their physical condition. Simply having social support and coming together to sing was enough to improve their sense of well-being.
Women Process With Monstrance, Sparking Scandal
Female pastoral workers in a German parish are triggering outrage among faithful Catholics after the women processed with the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi.
Marita Franzen and Sandra Ostermann, who hold the position of gemeindereferentin (pastoral officer) in the Catholic parish of St. Joseph and St. Medardus in Lüdenscheid, were photographed carrying the sacred monstrance in violation of canon law. The parish of St. Medardus bragged on its website that the women lay assistants processing with the Blessed Sacrament constituted a “new achievement.”
Pope charges new doctrine czar to spurn ‘immoral methods’ in defense of the faith
In what’s likely to be seen as a classic example of the adage that “personnel is policy,” Pope Francis on Saturday tapped an Argentine archbishop widely seen as a close ally and ghostwriter for several major papal documents as the Vatican’s new doctrinal czar.
In a July 1 statement, the Vatican said the mandate of Spanish Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria as head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and head of the International Theological Commission has come to an end.
The announcement said that Pope Francis has named Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, to succeed Ladaria, formally taking over in mid-September.
A long-time protégé of Francis, Fernández is widely seen as one of the pontiff’s ghost-writers, including for major landmark texts such as his 2015 eco-encyclical Laudato Si’; his 2016 post-synodal exhortation on the family Amoris Laetitia; and his first-ever apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudim, published in 2013 and widely considered a tone-setting text for the rest of Francis’s papacy.
A priest at the time of Francis’s election, Fernández was appointed by the pope as rector of the Pontifical University of Argentina, and he was Francis’s first episcopal appointment.
Pope says imitating Jesus is more than ‘rigid observance’ of rules
Honoring Saints Peter and Paul, the patrons of Rome, on their liturgical feast day, Pope Francis said understanding and imitating Jesus is not a matter of following doctrinal formulas or the “rigid observance” of rules and norms.
Rather, it means letting go of preconceived convictions and daily being transformed by his love in order to spread the Gospel to others, the pope said.
Speaking during a Mass for the June 29 Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Francis said the two apostles answered the most essential question for a Christian, “Who is Jesus for me?” in a very specific way: “By following him as his disciples and by proclaiming the Gospel.”
“It is good for us to grow as a Church in the same way, by following the Lord, constantly and humbly seeking him out. It is good for us to become a Church that is also outgoing, finding joy not in the things of the world, but in preaching the Gospel before the world and opening people’s hearts to the presence of God,” he said.
He urged faithful to bring Jesus everywhere they go “with humility and joy: in our city of Rome, in our families, in our relationships and our neighborhoods, in civil society, in the Church, and political life, in the entire world, especially in those places where poverty, decay and marginalization are deeply rooted.”
Pope Francis names 21 new cardinals, including Archbishop Fernández
Pope Francis said on Sunday that he will create 21 new cardinals, including the Vatican’s recently appointed doctrinal chief Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, at a consistory on Sept. 30.
The 86-year-old pope made the announcement from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square after reciting the Angelus prayer on July 9.
This is the full list:
• Archbishop Robert Francis Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops (United States)
• Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Argentina)
• Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. (France)
• Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem (Italy)
• Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, Apostolic Nuncio to Italy (Switzerland)
• Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan, S.J., Bishop of Hong Kong (China)
• Archbishop José Cobo Cano, Archbishop of Madrid (Spain)
• Archbishop Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Cape Town (South Africa)
• Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches (Italy)
• Archbishop Ángel Sixto Rossi, Archbishop of Córdoba (Argentina)
• Archbishop Luis Rueda Aparicio, Archbishop of Bogotá (Colombia)
• Archbishop Grzegorz Ry, Archbishop of Lodz (Poland)
• Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, Archbishop of Juba (South Sudan)
• Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, Coadjutor Archbishop of Tabora (Tanzania)