Philippine Bishops have urged voters not to gamble with the country’s future in national elections in May by voting for corrupt and incompetent candidates.
Their call came as senior Catholic officials, together with religious congregations and lay-people, gathered in Manila on April 6 for a solidarity Mass on the Catholic Church’s role in the polls.
The “Solidarity Mass for Moral Choice,” held at the National Shrine of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Baclaran, Manila, was presided over by Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jose Advincula and members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
The prelates said the aim of the Mass was to have one heart and mind as priests, religious and laypeople on the Catholic Church’s role in politics.
“If faith cannot guide us in our role in politics, then perhaps we have not done enough in our duty. It is easier to just name a candidate to vote for rather than to teach our people how they should vote,” Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, president of the bishops’ conference, said in his homily.
He said that there is no division between faith and politics, especially when issues in politics are moral in nature such as truth and falsehood.
“Truth is like lime pressed on one’s wounds. It hurts but it keeps us awake. But sometimes, if the truth hurts and causes us inconvenience, we choose to be blind and deaf … we choose to be neutral”
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Sri Lanka urged to respect people’s right to protest
A global civil society alliance has expressed serious concern over Sri Lanka’s clampdown on civic space and urged the government to release those detained arbitrarily and investigate and punish abuses by security forces.
“We urge the government to refrain from deploying violence against protesters and instead respect and protect people’s rights to peaceful protest,” said Josef Benedict, Asia Pacific researcher of CIVICUS, in a statement on April 5.
He called the restrictions on access to the internet and social media platforms and the arrest of Thisara Anuruddha Bandara, a youth activist, for promoting the #GoHomeGota social media campaign against the president “a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression and information guaranteed by the constitution and under international human rights law.”
Benedict urged authorities to drop all charges against Bandara immediately.
“CIVICUS has documented how the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration has led an assault on civic space and fundamental freedoms since the president assumed power more than two years ago,” the statement said.
In March, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet had similarly reported to the Human Rights Council that “the government’s response to criticism has constricted democratic and civic space.”
The protests and escalating economic crisis have led to the resignations of 26 ministers in the current cabinet, leaving only the president and his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the prime minister, to manage affairs.
Myanmar Buddhist finds Christ after fleeing conflict
When Buddhist San Shwe Mya’s uncle, a Christian, tried to speak about Jesus Christ, he was annoyed and paid little attention.
“I told my uncle he couldn’t persuade me to convert to Christianity as I had no interest in it,” San Shwe recalled.
Living in a remote village in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, work was the first priority for the 43-year-old father of three children. “We have to rely on ourselves for our livelihood, so work was the only thing on my mind,” he said.
San Shwe belongs to the ethnic Chin tribe and grew up in a Buddhist neighbourhood in a village in Minbya town. He followed his parents’ Buddhist religion.
His Buddhist-majority village has a few Christians including some Catholics. He could see how the Christians faced daily challenges while practicing their faith. “But I had no idea about Catholicism or Christianity,” he recalled.
San Shwe remembered some radical monks and laypeople warning Christians and not allowing them to use loudspeakers during celebrations such as Christmas.
“I wasn’t involved with the group who opposed Christian celebrations but I witnessed the challenge of being a Christian in a predominantly Buddhist com-munity,” he told.
His native village was remote but it was close to where intense fighting between the military and the Arakan Army had been going on since December 2018.
More than 90,000 people had been displaced due to the conflict in Rakhine that also spilled into neighboring Chin state, home of many Christians, mostly ethnic Chin.
The violence forced even San Shwe to leave for Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub, looking for employment and, more importantly, education for his children.
Prevent Sri Lanka becoming failed state: Bishops
As Sri Lanka continues to sink hopelessly into the worst economic crisis in memory, the country’s Catholic Bishops are calling for unity among politicians to save the nation from becoming a failed state. The country of some 22 million is facing its worst economic nightmare since its independence, with foreign exchange reserves falling abysmally by 70% in the past two years. This has left the country struggling to import essential goods, such as food, fuel, cooking gas and medicine, and is causing power cuts of up to 13 hours a day. The devaluation of its currency has sent inflation soaring to 17.5% in February, the highest so far, hitting the already struggling businesses and exporters but especially the people. “All successive governments to date are responsible in varying degrees for the present state of affairs,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Sri Lanka said in a statement, adding that “the present government as well as those in the opposition … must adopt a conciliatory not a confrontational approach” and they should not “play the blame game.”
“The country is fast approaching the precipice of a failed state that will in its wake inflict irreversible injuries on the people,” the bishops warned, calling on their faithful and Church institutions to come to the aid of the most vulnerable and affected groups.
Ukrainian and Russian families to carry cross at pope’s Good Friday Way of the Cross
Ukrainian and Russian families will carry the cross together during the Stations of the Cross led by Pope Francis at Rome’s Colosseum on Good Friday.
The Vatican has published the meditations and prayers for the Pope’s Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, which will focus this year on the many “crosses” of family life.
The meditations include reflections from a couple without children, a family with a disabled child, a family with an ill grand-parent, a family of migrants, and families suffering due to the Ukraine war.
For the 13th station, “Jesus dies on the Cross,” a Ukrainian family and a Russian family will read a reflection that they wrote together about how their lives were upended by the pain of war. “Why has my land become as dark as Golgotha? We have no tears left. Anger has given way to resignation,” the text of the reflection says.
“Lord, where are you? Speak to us amid the silence of death and division, and teach us to be peacemakers, brothers and sisters, and to rebuild what bombs tried to destroy,” it says. The prayer following the meditation calls Jesus’ pierced side a “wellspring of reconciliation for all peoples” and asks God that “families devastated by tears and blood may believe in the power of forgiveness.”
The two families, whose home countries are at war, will carry a wooden cross together for the 13th station in the Colosseum before passing it to a family of migrants, who will carry the cross for the final station.
On April 15 at 9:15 p.m., Pope Francis will preside over the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum, a Roman practice dating back to the pontificate of Benedict XIV, who died in 1758.
This is the first time that the pope is returning to the Colosseum on Good Friday since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past two years, papal liturgies during Holy Week were kept very small due to pandemic restrictions.
Pope Francis praises pope’s attempt to reconcile with Martin Luther
Pope Francis on April 7 recalled the 500th anniversary of the election of Pope Adrian VI, who sought reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Martin Luther during his short pontificate.
“In his brief pontificate, which lasted only a little more than a year, he sought above all reconciliation in the Church and the world, putting into practice the words of St. Paul, according to which God entrusted precisely to the Apostles the ministry of reconciliation,” Pope Francis said on April 7.
For this reason, Adrian VI sent the nuncio to the Imperial Diets of Nuremberg “to reconcile Luther and his followers with the Church, and expressly asking forgiveness for the sins of the prelates of the Roman Curia,” he stated.
“Courageous,” Francis add-ed. “He would have plenty of work today.”
Desire to restore ‘imperialist power’ leads to death, Vatican cardinal says
Without naming names, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri lamented how a national leader, yearning to restore “a past of imperialist power,” can sow death and destruction.
The cardinal’s apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine came during a homily April 5 at a Mass in Orvieto with officers and cadets of Italy’s Finance Police, who were attending an anti-terrorism training course.
Before celebrating the Mass, Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, gave an overview of the situation facing Eastern Catholics in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, his office said.
The Old Testament reading at the Mass recounted how the Israelites complained to Moses and to God after they had been led out of Egypt and slavery and, the cardinal said, seemed almost to long for what they had when they were enslaved.
Mel Gibson, Mark Wahlberg talk about ‘Father Stu’ – and the ‘Passion of the Christ’ sequel
When can devotees of “The Passion of the Christ” be able to see the sequel?
Not anytime soon, from the sounds of it.
In an interview on “The World Over” that aired April 7, Gibson, who produced, co-wrote, and directed the hugely successful 2005 film about the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo that he hasn’t yet settled on a script for the sequel, which picks up the story with Jesus’ resurrection.
“So when can we expect a script, Mel?” Arroyo asked.
“Well, I’ve got two scripts,” Gibson revealed. “So I’ve got the pair of them, and they’re both good.”
Arroyo interviewed Gibson, actor Mark Wahlberg, and writer-director Rosalind Ross about the launch of their new film, “Father Stu,” a biopic about the late Father Stuart Long, a no-nonsense Montana priest who died of a rare muscular condition in 2014.
Wahlberg plays the role of Father Stu in the film and Gibson plays the role of Bill Long, the late priest’s father. The film comes out nationwide April 13, to coincide with the start of Holy Week.
“Father Stu was a living embodiment of grace and strength and suffering. And you hear it from anybody whose life he touched, that he was incredibly grateful for what afflicted him and had such dignity and strength in it,” Ross told Arroyo.
American nun abducted in Burkina Faso
Prayers are being sought for the safe release of Sister Suellen Tennyson, 83, an American Catholic nun who was reportedly kidnapped in Burkina Faso the night of April 4.
“On the night of Mon-day 4 to Tuesday 5 April 2022, Unidentified Armed Men (UAM) visited the community of nuns in Yalgo Parish of the Diocese of Kaya. They abducted Sister Suellen Tennyson, from the Congregation of Marianite Sisters of the Holy Cross,” Bishop Théophile Nare of Kaya said in an April 5 statement shared with ACI Africa.
The bishop added, “Sr. Suellen Tennyson was taken to an unknown destination by her kidnappers who, before leaving, vandalized rooms (and) damaged the community vehicle, which they attempted to take with them.” “Until the search for her is successful, we remain in communion of prayer for the release of Sr. Suellen Tennyson,” Bishop Nare stated.
Months later, nine Egyptian Christians still detained after protests to rebuild church
Months after protests of the government’s apparent refusal to approve the rebuilding of a damaged church, nine Christian protesters in Egypt remain in detention as supporters call for their re-lease.
“Instead of arresting a number of residents of the estate, official and security authorities should have responded promptly to their demands and issued a decision to rebuild the church,” Ishak Ibrahim, a freedom of religion and belief expert at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said March 13.
He noted that the villagers had taken a legal path to seek the permit.
At the centre of the matter is the Coptic Orthodox St. Joseph and Abu Sefein Church in Ezbet Farag Allah village in the Minya governorate. In 2016 the church was severely damaged by an unexplained fire that some locals fear was deliberately set. It was the only church for the 800 Christians in the area.