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Indonesian Catholics not letting garbage go to waste

Since Jakarta Archdiocese introduced an anti-plastic waste campaign back in 2006, many parishes and individuals have taken it seriously. The campaign to “collect waste, and make it a blessing” has inspired many Catholics, including Lucia Mona Hartari Windoe from the Holy Family Parish in Rawamangun, East Jakarta. In February 2016, Mona launched a waste management […]

Catholics told not to touch Cross on Good Friday

Catholics in the Philippines have been asked not to kiss or touch the cross when they venerate it on Good Friday because of concerns about the corona-virus. Instead, they should “genuflect or make a profound bow” before the cross during the veneration of the cross, according to updated liturgical guidelines issued on Feb. 20 by […]

Shot for trying to build a church

Azeem Gulzar has been left half-paralyzed after being shot in the head in a mob attack on a church under construction in Pakistan. Gulzar, 25, was released from the Civil Hospital Sahiwal on Feb. 24, three weeks after his family tried to resist 15 armed men from pulling down the wall of the church. The […]

Pakistan’s Asia Bibi Asks France For Political Asylum

Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman who spent years on death row after a 2010 conviction of blasphemy, said on February 24 that she was seeking political asylum from the French government. “My great desire is to live in France,” Bibi said in an interview with RTL radio, her first trip to France since fleeing […]

Document confirms brutal treatment of Uyghurs in China

Fresh reports have emerged about the extent of the crackdown by Chinese authorities against Muslim Uyghurs in the central region of Xinjiang after a leaked internal Communist Party document was obtained by German media. And on Feb. 21 Amnesty International released case studies showing how China is systematically harassing Uyghurs and other Chinese Muslim minorities […]

Germany’s synodal assembly draws praise, criticism from participants

The first Synodal Assembly on the future of the Catholic Church in Germany drew both praise and some criticism, with many of the 230 participants lauding what they called a special atmosphere in the debates on key reforms. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, said the spirit of the talks had been […]

Letter from Rome: The shadow pontificate is drawing to a close

It was only a matter of time. Pope Francis has finally lost his patience and gotten rid of Arch-bishop Georg Ganswein as prefect of the Papal Household. According to German weekly Die Tagespost, the Pope put the 63-year-old on “indefinite administrative leave.” He did so, the paper said, because of the German prefect’s involvement in […]

Forum examines religious persecution 75 years after Auschwitz liberation

As the world recognizes the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, the vows of “never again” after the Holocaust’s horrors became known threaten to be swallowed up by religious persecution against Christians, Muslims and other groups, said panellists at a Feb. 5 forum at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. […]