Raipur, Dec 22, 2022: Hundreds of indigenous people who follow the Christian faith have been driven out of their homes in the Maoist-infested Bastar region of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
“At least 300 families who lived in Narayanpur and Kondegaon districts were ousted from their homes in the past two months,” says Pastor Moses Logan, president of the Chhattisgarh State Christian Welfare Society.
The persecuted include women and children who were beaten up in public when they refused to give up their new faith.
“The persecution against Christian faithful has increased manifold in the past couple of months,” Pastor Logan told Matters India December 20.
He also pointed out many among the persecuted people are not Christians.
The attackers have destroyed Christian houses and forcibly taken away household items and other live stock. They also destroyed the Christians farms and crops.
“We used to face persecution earlier also but now it has reached a new height with people forced to give up their faith and those opposing such pressure are driven out from their homes,” Logan bemoaned.
Quoting from reports he gathered from his people ín villages, the pastor said, “At least 300 families were driven out from their homes and most of them have taken shelter in different places including government facilities.”
Church leaders in the state say organized violence against Christians has increased alarmingly as the state police and district administration remain silent spectators.
The police refused to register cases against the attackers, instead tell the Christians to make peace with their tormentors.
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Taliban suspend university education for women in Afghanistan
The Taliban government has suspended university education for all female students in Afghanistan, the latest step in its brutal clampdown on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women.
A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education confirmed the suspension to CNN on Tuesday. A letter published by the education ministry said the decision was made in a cabinet meeting and the order will go into effect immediately.
Girls were barred from returning to secondary schools in March, after the Taliban ordered schools for girls to shut just hours after they were due to reopen following months long closures imposed after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
Demand to end caste-based discrimination in Bangladesh
A rights body in Bangladesh has called for lifting the unwritten ‘ban’ on the entry of Dalits – the lowest outside the four main castes in the Indian subcontinent’s social order– into restaurants and eateries after a youth burnt his hand in a scuffle over the issue. The Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement (BDERM) made the demand during a press conference held at the Bogra Press Club on Dec. 17 days after Mithun Bashfor, 23, suffered burn injuries at a local hotel in the Santahar municipal area of the northern Bogra district.
The next day, on Dec. 18, police arrested Masud Rana, 33, a Muslim youth for allegedly pushing Bashfor and causing him to fall on boiling oil, after a heated argument over serving him inside the restaurant. “This age-old rule, this racist treatment of a specific class of people who are in a minority is a violation of human rights.
Selling Christmas in Muslim-majority Bangladesh
Some 20 years ago when Mohibul Hasan began his textile shop in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, Christmas was largely unknown in Bangladesh but now it has become a season for brisk sales.
“If I sell 100 sarees a month, in the week before Christmas it would be around 300 sarees,” the 52-year Muslim said from his shop adorned with Christmas decorations in the capital of the Muslim-majority nation.
The acceptance of Christmas festivities in mainstream society shows a major social change in the country and it could help build a non-sectarian nation, say sociologists and Christian leaders.
“It is actually a social change and through it, the universality of Christmas is increasing and this change is very positive for us,” said sociology Professor Shah Ehsan Habib of Dhaka University. He said Christmas decorations have become normal in hotels, restaurants, or shopping malls during the Christmas season, which was not the case a decade ago.
“We now see different kinds of Christmas decorations because people like Christmas” in this country for its universal festive spirit, he said.
The city’s top five-star hotel, the Pan Pacific Sonargaon has celebrated Christmas every year for decades, said Mohammed Nefeuzzaman, its public relations manager.
“Christmas Day is celebrated in our hotel gorgeously. People of all religions celebrate this event together,” he said adding that they organize special programs and “the response has been great.”
Its lobby is decorated with lights of different colours, complete with Christmas wishes and images of a red-and-white-clad Santa Claus.
“Our most popular program is the Kids Carnival, which offers a variety of rides for children on Christmas Day,” he said. They organize magic shows, puppet shows and various rides, including horse rides.
Vietnamese converts bring others to Christmas
Nguyen Van Hai walked around watching hundreds of converts from other faiths making different styles of creches with colourful lights, pretty stars, evergreen trees, Santa Claus figures and other decorations in the compound of Rach Vop church in Soc Trang province on Dec. 18.
Those people, who have been attending courses in catechism for years to join the church, annually erect nativity scenes to decorate the church and celebrate Christ-mas.
“I am too old to put up creches but I am here to encourage people to make beautiful nativity scenes to mark Jesus’ birthday,” Hai, an 85-year-old convert, said.
Fourteen creches erected by groups of converts and children will be displayed around the church to attract people to visit the church and watch Christmas vigil performances. Groups that create the most beautiful creches will be given awards as a way to foster the tradition of making nativity scenes.
“I will invite my neighbours to visit the church on Christmas Eve so that they can see our creches and feel Christmas joy and peace,” the old man, who attends a course for catechumens at the church, said.
Christmas under the shadow of terrorism in Pakistan
Children at the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta have rehearsed well for a traditional Christmas play they were forced to abandon by a terror attack five years ago.
The mayhem caused by two suicide bombers at the church in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province in 2017 is still fresh in the minds of the survivors.
“My eldest daughter was acting as Mary and the son was playing an angel. The terrorists jumped over the church gate, killing nine people and wounding 57. The costumes of some of their friends were stained with blood,” recalls Pastor Simon Bashir.
The nativity play was never held thereafter due to the looming fear of terrorism and then the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, Pastor Bashir encouraged his three children to participate along with their friends, some of whom belong to families of the victims.
The kids performed the nativity play at the jam-packed church on Dec. 11.
“Their spirits were high thanks to the Sunday school training. Even those injured sang jingles. We are not afraid of terrorists,” Bashir to UCA News.
The Methodist Church has dedicated the fourth Sunday of Advent to the martyrs.
Philippine Church is forced to work with dictator’s son
In ancient times, the phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” — the voice of the people is the voice of God — was almost a sacred incanta-tion of every monarch.
When a king’s legitimacy was being questioned, all he needed to do was to resort to divine teaching that his rule was ordained by God because he was chosen by the people to be their ruler.
To seal the cap, the pope himself or a Catholic bishop crowns the king to symbolize the Catholic Church’s imprimatur of his king-ship.
In the recent Philippine elections, however, the “vox populi” statement was put to the test. Many Catholic clergymen and the country’s most influential prelates openly supported the candidacy of former vice-president Leonor Robredo.
For them, it was a moral crusade — a battle between good and evil — where no Catholic could stand on the middle ground.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said there was no room for neutrality in the face of evil, where one is faced with a moral choice to side with the good.
“Supposing there is a troll farm [that spreads lies] and here is a truth farm, can you remain neutral there? You cannot be neutral. When we are neutral and there is oppression, we end up empowering oppressors,” the archbishop said in a homily.
Catholic prelates called these efforts a “pandemic of lies” that led to historical revisionism.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us stand up for truth. Remember: goodness without truth is pretense. Service without truth is manipulation. There can be no justice without truth. Even charity, without truth, is only sentimentalism,” the bishops said in a pastoral statement.
Will Messi keep his promise to the Virgin Mary after winning the World Cup?
After Argentina’s victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a promise made by soccer superstar Lionel Messi to the Virgin Mary has resurfaced. Will he fulfill it?
Lionel Messi, 35, played his fifth World Cup wearing Argentina’s jersey and the team became world champion by beating France on Sunday.
Considered one of the best players in the world, Messi has won 40 titles, 34 with Futbol Club Barcelona (FC) in Spain, two with Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in France, and four with the Argentine National Team. In his career, according to his own words, “this was missing” — to be world champion as a member of his country’s team.
In 2014, the team of which he is captain reached the final in the World Cup in Brazil, where they lost to Germany. In Russia in 2018, Argentina was left out of the competition in the Round of 16.
It was precisely at that World Cup that he made a special promise to the Virgin.
In an interview in Moscow with the Argentine journalist Martín Arévalo, Messi was challenged by the reporter to walk “to Luján or to San Nicolás,” two of the most important shrines in Argentina, if the team won the World Cup.
Lujan, Argentina, is the site of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, the patroness of the country, which every year attracts millions of pilgrims.
In San Nicolás — a city near Rosario, Messi’s birthplace — is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás, which has a history of Marian apparitions that began in 1983 with messages from the Virgin to Gladys Quiroga de Motta During his career, Messi has shown devotion to God and to be a believer. After winning the World Cup, his statements to the press did not omit the role that he attributes to the Lord in the victory: “I knew that God was going to grant this gift to me, I had a presentiment that it was going to be this,” he told the TyC Sports television channel.
Christmas reborn in Bethlehem after pandemic years
With a giant evergreen tree, colourful balloons in the streets and selfies in the Church of the Nativity, Christmas tourism has returned to Bethlehem after two years of Covid-related restrictions.
Revered in Christian tradition as the birthplace of Christ, the town of Bethlehem welcomes thousands of pilgrims and tourists for Christmas every year, a windfall that dried up over the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and travel restrictions.
Now with restrictions lifted in the Palestinian territories and Israel, where the closest international airport with access to Bethlehem is located, the southern West Bank town has taken on a festive air.
Scouts marched with bagpipes as thousands of onlookers lining the streets held balloons and cotton candy.
With travel restrictions lifted in the Palestinian territories and Israel, where the closest international airport with access to Bethlehem is located, the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem has taken on a festive air.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, greeted worshippers upon his arrival to the town, ahead of leading the annual Christmas eve procession at the Church of the Nativity.
“Christmas is the town’s celebration, and we put in a lot of time and effort to prepare for it,” Bethlehem mayor Hanna Hanania told.
Ortega’s Brutal Catholic Crackdown – Where’s the Outrage?
For millions of Christians around the world, the official religious Christmas season kicked off this week with a renewed sense of normalcy – an abundance of colourful lights, parades and processions, family and church gatherings, and even fireworks in some areas.
Many believers in countries where Christians are religious minorities such as China and India are embracing the festivities with new enthusiasm. Early December marks the first time annual public and private advent gatherings have been allowed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet, in Nicaragua, a predominantly Christian nation, festivities planned by some of its most devout believers are running afoul of harsh new government restrictions that have nothing to do with the pandemic.
A parish in the Archdiocese of Managua reported on its Facebook page that the National Police, which operates under the orders of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, prohibited it from going ahead with a planned procession commemorating the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Celebrated on Dec. 8, the feast is one of the most important in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, venerating the Virgin Mary and marking the start of the Christmas season in many countries, including Italy, where it’s a national holiday.