Asian

Card. Parolin in Lebanon: failure to elect a president weighs heavily on today’s Middle East

At the invitation of Marwan Sehnaoui, President of the Lebanese Association of the Sovereign Order of Malta, the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was in Lebanon on a five-day visit (23-27 June) to see the Order’s humanitarian activities, as well as meet with the country’s authorities, the local Church, and […]

3 in 5 children in Middle East suffering severe food poverty

3 in 5 children in the Middle East and North Africa, 34 million in total, are living with severe food poverty. That’s according to a new report by UNICEF entitled Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood, which analyses the consequences and causes of food deprivation among the world’s youngest children. The report notes that around […]

Church’s votes ‘no’ to mining permits for religious organisations

Indonesia’s Catholic Church has rejected President Joko Wido-do’s plan to allow religious organisations to manage mining deposits whose concessions have been withdrawn from companies. Last week Jokowi – as the president is known at home – signed a decree to make the proposal official, as a gesture of appreciation for the contribution made by religious […]

Christians join global calls for repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws

Some 300 Christians marched on the legislature in Pakistan’s Punjab province, joining global calls for the repeal of the country’s draconian blasphemy laws days after a Christian lynching victim died in hospital. During the protest on June 8 in Lahore, the provincial capital, the protesters condemned the government for failing to stop recurrent Muslim mob attacks based […]

Climate change exacerbates poverty in vulnerable Asian communities, says Gariguez

“Climate change hits hardest at the poorest communities, fundamentally because they lack the resources to adapt,” said Fr. Edwin A. Gariguez, social action director of the Apo-stolic Vicariate of Calapan, south of Manila. Gariguez was the keynote speaker at the Caritas Asia Regional Conference, which took place in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 11, attended by […]

Christian communities wishing Buddhists well for Vesak

As Buddhists today mark the start of Vesak, their most important holy day, some Christian leaders in Southeast Asia have sent messages of good wishes as a way to promote interfaith dialogue. The Association of Churches of Sarawak (ACS) extended its best wishes to the Buddhist community in the Malaysian state and throughout the Southeast […]

Christians in Pakistan protest yet another attack over blasphemy

Christians in Pakistan have taken to the streets across the Muslim-majority nation following yet another mob attack over false blasphemy accusations in the central Punjab province. Uca news agency reported that from Peshawar city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to southern Karachi in Sindh, Christians gathered in large numbers this week-end to protest the attack on two […]

Myanmar conflict: a state of unprecedented turmoil and suffering, Cardinal Bo says

In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon in Myanmar, said there is an “unprecedented state of turmoil and suffering, which seems to have no end” in the country resulting from a coup d’état at the beginning of 2021 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

Eviction-facing Indian Catholics to fight Muslim charity’s claims

Goans oppose tourism project near 16th century basilica