Church officials have expressed concern over the rising numbers of refugees from Myanmar and internally displaced people within the country itself as highlighted in a recent UN report. By the end of 2016, refugees from Myanmar rose to 490,300, up from 451,800 the previous year, making it the eighth largest refugee producing country in the world, said the UN’s refugee agency in its annual global trends study released on June 20. Father Thomas Htang Shan Mong, director of Myanmar Catholic bishops’ office for peace building and justice, blames a range of political and economic factors for the rise in refugees, as reported by the UN. “There has been 70 nearly years of conflict and unrest in Myanmar, especially in ethnic areas,” Father Mong told. Bangladesh hosts 276,200 Myanmar refugees while Thailand looks after 102,600, Malaysia 87,000, and India 15,600.

The UN report said there are more than 375,000 internally displaced people in Karen, Rakhine, Kachin and northern Shan States in Myanmar. In Kachin and Shan States, more than 100,000 displaced people remain in camps since renewed fighting erupted between the military and the Kachin Independence Army in 2011. In 1991, a large scale Rohingya exodus began and Caritas partnered with the Bangladeshi government to assist the refugees. Gomes said Caritas could no longer assist the Rohingya because it became — from the government’s point of view — a politically sensitive issue. While the Bangladeshis were relatively warm towards the refugees they have become stricter in recent years. The UN’s report said that were 65.6 million displaced people worldwide in 2016, an increase of 300,000 from the previous year. The figure includes 22.5 million refugees, the highest number in modern history

A bishop in Quetta, Pakistan, has praised the country’s “truly heroic” security services saying that had they not been so quick and decisive the death toll in attack at a packed Methodist Church could have run into hundreds. Describing how the police and army were on the scene in Quetta “in less than five minutes,” Bishop Victor Gnanapragasam said the security services killed one of the jihadi bombers outside the church and injured the other as he approached the main entrance, where he detonated his suicide vest. Bishop Gnanapragasam’s comments to Catholic charity Aid to the church in need came just after he attended funerals of several of the eight people reportedly killed in the blast. Saying that at least 45 were injured, the bishop spoke of the pain and grief of the Christian community, adding that a number of the 30 still in hospital were in a critical condition.

Amid reports that nearly 400 worshippers were at the church, he said many lives had been saved by the security services, adding: “The police and the army frontier corps were truly heroic. They got to the church in less than five minutes. “One of them was wounded as he tried to stop the suicide bombers.”

Bishop Gnanapragasam described visiting the wounded in hospital, including an 18-month-old boy who he said was covered in bandages from head to foot. He said that one man had a punctured lung and was unable to attend the funeral of his wife killed in the attack.” The people are very frightened. We have had a lot of people crying. We have done our very best to console them.”

A bomb went off at the main gate of a Christian colony in the Pakistani city of Chaman on Dec. 2, killing a 7-year-old boy and two others, police said, the latest incident of violence in the restive south-western province of Baluchistan. “It was a hand grenade which caused the explosion at the colony’s gate,” Gul Mohammad, a police officer, told English daily Dawn. “The blast also smashed windows in nearby homes,” he said.

The Christian boy killed in the blast has been identified as Lucky Saleem, according to the police officer. The injured were rushed to the Chaman Hospital for medical treatment.

The attack in Chaman took place the day after Taliban gunmen wearing burqas stormed a college in the country’s northwestern region, killing nine people, mostly students. A Taliban faction claimed the responsibility of the attack and said that Peshawar Agriculture Institute was a safe house for intelligence officials. Both the terrorist attacks happened as Muslims were celebrating Milid Miladun Nabi (the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad).

In a press statement, Baluchistan Chief Minister Nawaz Sanaullah condemned the blast and expressed sorrow at the loss of innocent life.

He directed the authorities to ensure the best medical care for the injured.

The chief minister ordered the security forces to apprehend those terrorist elements involved in the terrorist attack.

Shezan William, Executive Secretary of Caritas Quetta, condemned the blast.

“Christians live in scattered communities across the biggest province and are rarely attacked. The attack has raised concerns for the safety of churches especially in Christmas gatherings. We are in close contact with locals of the attacked colony and praying for the affected families,” William told.

At least a thousand people joined the funeral march for Father Marcelito Paez, a 72-year-old Catholic priest murdered on Dec. 4 on the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The activist priest was ambushed four hours after facilitating the release of a political prisoner.

More than 100 priests conducted the mass with two Filipino bishops – San Jose Bishop Roberto Mallari and Cabanatuan Bishop Sofronio Bancud – presiding at the Eucharistic celebration.

Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, the Papal Nuncio, attended the mass at the Saint Joseph Cathedral in San Jose, in the province of Nueva Ecija. He did not give any message and priests billed his presence as “a silent form of solidarity and prayer.”

Tears flowed as mourners lined up to pay their last respects to Fr Paez, a retired priest who was a national board member and Central Luzon coordinator for the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines.

He was buried in the Sto. Niño Cemetery in San Jose.

Fr Paez’s casket was placed on the floor to symbo-lize his life as a temporary gift from God.

Peers of the priest said it also symbolized Fr Paez’s humility and decades of ser-vice to the poorest Filipinos.

The bishops wore red and violet stoles to proclaim the priest’s “martyrdom.”

Bishop Mallari said that Father Paez’s, when gravely wounded, told one of his assailants, “I am a priest,” prompting a retreat by the man preparing to give him the final shot.

“Father Paez, like a shepherd, vowed to die first before harm reached his flock,” the bishop said.

He did not retreat from danger.

Fr Paez’s death, the bishop said, should prompt clergy and laity to question the meaning of his sacrifice in terms of both personal change and change within the church.

For the past five years, Father Joseph Kalathil has been deli-vering letters to students in India and Pakistan, despite deep politi-cal animosity between the regi-onal arch-rivals. And this year, the Jesuit priest based in Chandig-arh, northern India, arrived at the Pakistani border on foot.

He informed fellow Jesuits in Pakistan about his presence at Wagah border crossing, located 24 kilometres from Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.

“After getting through the passport control, it was only a five minutes’ walk and I was in another country,” Father Kalathil told.

The director of his self-styled “Peace Mission” delivered hand-written letters from 32 students at three Indian schools to two Catholic schools in Faisalabad diocese in Pakistan during his Oct. 22 to Nov. 9 visit.

He returned with parcels and replies to the letters he delivered.

Since 2012, he has delivered hundreds of similar colourful letters between students at educational institutes in the neighbouring countries. “I wanted to start with children,” he said. “I do not discuss religion or politics. Instead we discuss human rights, peace and friendship.” Sometimes young people rejected him, calling India an enemy.

Pope Francis waved to crowds from the backseat of one of Bangladesh’s typical bicycle pulled rickshaws en route to a meeting of interfaith leaders at the residence of Dhaka’s archbishop.

Bangladeshi dancers serenad-ed him as he made his way to the stage for the event, where he was to meet with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

Francis has shunned the bullet-proof popemobiles of his predecessors, opting instead for open-sided vehicles so he can personally greet the crowds when he goes on foreign trips. In South Asia, that has meant a few spins in modified golf carts.

Francis isn’t the first Pope to ride a rickshaw. However St John Paul II rode in one when he visited Bangladesh in 1986.

Pope Francis led a giant open-air mass in Dhaka on Dec 1 ahead of finally coming face to face with Rohingya refugees whose desperate plight has dominated his landmark tour of Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Around 100,000 Bangladeshi Catholics crammed into a park in central Dhaka, cheering and chanting “viva il papa” (“long live the Pope”) as Francis was driven through the crowd in an open-sided popemobile made specially for the occasion.

A Bangladeshi Catholic priest who was abducted in the north-east on Nov 27, ahead of the visit of Pope Francis to the country, was found alive in Sylhet city on December 1. Fr Walter William Rozario is said to have fled from his kidnappers and got in touch with his family, his elder brother Bimal Rozariao told Star Online.

Vatican reporter in Dhaka, Sartre Xavier who has been in touch with the assistant parish priest of Fr. Walter, said Fr. Walter’s elder brother and the police have talked to the assistant parish priest about the rescue.

Father John Luu Ngoc Quynh from the Redemptorist Community in Hanoi was stopped by security officials at Noi Bai Airport on Dec. 5 and prevented from traveling to France, the community said in a statement. He is the second Redemptorist priest to be prevented from leaving the country this year. Father Quynh was invited to attend the vow-taking ceremony of a Vietnamese Cistercian on Dec. 8 in France, the statement added. The Cistercian is one of the priest’s alumni. Security officers told Father Quynh that he “was banned from traveling abroad for the protection of national security, social order and safety.”

Officials in China’s Eastern Jiangxi Province have replaced religious images dis-played by Christian families with portraits of the country’s leader Xi Jin-ping. On November 12, pictures were uploaded to an account on the popular social messaging service WeChat account of Huangjinbu town government, Yugan County, showing officials removing images of the cross and other religious subjects.

The message from officials stated that the Christians involved had “recognized their mistakes and decided not to entrust to Jesus but to the (Communist) Party” claiming the Christians voluntarily removed 624 religious images and posted 453 portraits of Xi.

The officials also claimed they were “converting” Christ-ians to Party loyalty through poverty alleviation and other schemes to help the disadvant-aged. Nearly 10% of Yugan County’s largely impoverished one million population is Christian.

In 2006, while he was visiting Regensburg, Germany, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI delivered an address in which he cited a 14th century dialogue between a Byzantine emperor and a Persian, unleashing a firestorm of protest across the Islamic world.

Benedict’s quote cited the emperor saying: “Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The citation was shot out of a media cannon with deadly consequences. An Italian nun was shot to death in Somalia, churches were firebombed on the Gaza strip, and the pontiff was burned in effigy in the streets of Ankara.

Myanmar’s first-ever cardinal, Charles Maung Bo, who will be hosting Pope Francis during his Nov. 27-30 visit to the Asian nation, fears that a similar situation could unfold, though this time Muslims wouldn’t be the protesters but the victims.

Bo, created cardinal by Francis in February 2015, spoke with Crux in Rome ahead of the papal visit to Myanmar, the first by a Pope, and Francis’s first to a Buddhist majority country.

During the 30-minute conversation with the pontiff, the cardinal acknowledged that if Francis chose to use the term ‘Rohingya,’ “there could be demonstrations at once, going after the Muslims.”

The “R” word, used by a Muslim minority in Myanmar to define themselves, is causing controversy ahead of the Pope’s visit.

The United Nations is accusing Myanmar’s military of carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, and the international community is concentrating its energy on the persecuted minority. Yet Bo is all but begging the Pope not to call the Rohingya by their name.

“If he doesn’t use it, the international community will say something,” Bo acknowledged. “If he does use it, then it could be very bad for the military, the government and the Buddhist community.”

By political connotation, Bo explained, he meant that the Pope wouldn’t be supporting the idea the estimated million Rohingya living in Myanmar – though it’s believed that half of them have fled to Bangladesh in recent months – should be given citizenship.