Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta called Pope Francis’ Se-ptember visit “an opportunity for Indonesian Catholics to explore and practice his humanitarian messages.”
“Indeed, the physical presence of Pope Francis is very important and very happy [occasion] for us,” Suharyo said in a video that the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference released on April 8, six months ahead of the visit.
The 73-year-old Church leader wanted Catholics to pay attention to Francis’ messages and thoughts as they prepare to celebrate his physical presence in the country. Papal messages “should also concern us, and we intend to study those messages,” he added. Suharyo said the last two critical papal messages in the Indonesian context were on human respon-sibility to protect the environment in his encyclical Laudato si and about the importance of maintai-ning brotherhood in Fratelli tutti. Suharyo described them as bri-lliant ideas “not in the sense of being great, but very important for the history of mankind in our time.”
The cardinal further hoped that the physical presence of the pope would encourage Indonesian Catholics to study his teachings and try to find ways to implement them.
The video showed Suharyo speaking with Bishop Antonius Subianto Bunjamin of Bandung, president of the bishops’ confe-rence. Subianto said the confe-rence deliberately announced the pope’s visit on Annunciation Day because it was good news for In-donesia.
He said Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Indonesia from Sept. 3 to 6, as communicated by Msgr Piero Pioppo, the apostolic nuncio to Indonesia, in a note to the country’s minister of foreign affairs on March 5. “Of course, the certainty of Pope Francis’ arrival to Indo-nesia is still waiting for an official announcement from the govern-ment and the Vatican,” Subianto said.

Kuala Lumpur is mourning the death of Sr. Enda Ryan, Fran-ciscan Missionary of Mary (FMM) who passed away on April 7 at the age of 95. She is originally from Ireland and since 1966 she had become a citizen of Malaysia, a country in which she has provided tireless service for women’s education for decades, she is leaving a great void among people, of every ethnicity and religion, who they got to know each other.
Sr. Enda leaves the Assunta primary and secondary schools she founded, as well as the Ave Maria Welfare clinic, which later be-came a hospital. But above all she remains the example of her faith, as well as her commitment and care for unity among students, regardless of their beliefs or ethnic origins.
There are numerous testi-monies released by those who knew her passionate ministry: proof of what was sown in 31 years of mission by the educator, religious and director, born Eileen Philomena Ryan, on 30 December 1928 in Galbally, in the county of Limerick in Ireland.
She joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (an institute founded by Helene de Chappotin) in 1947 and arrived in the then Malaya in 1954, following the request of Sir Michael Hogan – the then President of the Court of Justice of Malaysia – to establish schools for girls whose education had been interrupted during the communist insurgency in the country. Sr. Enda Ryan had just received her Bachelor of Arts and Higher Diploma in Education.
“The maternal love that shone through her always touched everyone. Her grit, her enthusiasm and her zeal for life inspired us to live our lives to the fullest,” writes on the alumni portal of Assumption School Vimalathevi Perumal, a former student.
“All of us, her students, owe this unique, great icon immeasurable gratitude for having trained us to be good and responsible citizens of this nation,” she added. Another student, Regina Morris, told that Sr. Enda was nicknamed “the singing nun” because she never hid her love for singing.
“Make me an instrument. The singing sister” is the title of her 2013 biography edited by Nesamalar Chitravelu. The missionary composed the school hymn; whose lyrics embody her values. Despite her Irish origins, she sang Malay folk songs, such as “Rasa Sayang,” with the same gusto as “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” “She was tireless in her mission to spread truth and charity, which is the school motto imprinted in our hearts (Ad Veritatem Per Caritatem, ed.) – added Morris -. She was a teacher, a principal and a mother to all of us.”

The official portrait of Servant of God Niña Ruíz-Abad was presented April 7 during the opening of the dio-cesan phase of her cause for cano-nization at St.William Cathedral in the town of Laoag located in the Ilocos Norte region of the Philippines. If canonized, the young Filipina, who died in 1993 at age 13, could become one of the youngest saints in history.
The proceedings, including the Mass celebrated by Renato Mayugba, the bishop of Laoag, were posted on Facebook. The ceremony began with a procession of members of the Diocese of Laoag followed by the reading of Ruíz-Abad’s biography and the pre-sentation of documents to the bishop, who approved them as legitimate.
Next, the documents were handed over to the officials of the diocesan tribunal, appointed by the local bishop, who will receive the testimonies of the people who knew the servant of God. This tribunal does not issue any ruling because it is reserved to the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
The documents also included testimonies of alleged miracles that may have occurred through the intercession of Ruíz-Abad before the opening of the canonization process. In one case, a student at Holy Spirit Academy in the city of Laoag had been seriously sick and said she was miraculously cured after praying to the Filipina teenager.
During the ceremony, Ruíz-Abad’s first relic was also unveiled, which consisted of a reliquary with a small piece of cloth that came from her clothing. Ruíz-Abad, who died in August 1993, had a great impact through her devotion to God and her acts of charity despite suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an incurable heart disease that was diagnosed with when she was 10 years old.
Thirty years after her death, in July 2023, the formal request to open an investigation into the life of the Filipina teenager was approved by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). The CBCP previously noted that Ruiz-Abad could serve as a “good model of piety and fortitude” for today’s youth.

With a solemn Eucharistic celebration, the Archdiocese of Lahore closed the diocesan phase of the process for the recognition of the martyrdom of Akash Bashir. The young Pakistani man died at the age of 20 trying to protect worshippers outside Youhanabad’s St John Church during an Islamist attack nine years ago against the Catholic church and a nearby Protestant church, which resulted in a massacre with scores of dead and wounded.
Bashir is the first Pakistani Catholic to be accepted as a Servant of God towards the honour of the altars. His Christian life, marked by service to others in the youth group organised by the Salesians in Lahore, has been examined in the past two years by the diocesan tribunal for the causes of saints, which established in 38 sessions that his act of great courage on 15 March 2015 is the fruit of a life wholly spent bearing heroic witness to Christian virtues.
In his homily, Archbishop Shaw expressly thanked the parents of the Servant of God for the Christian education passed onto Akash. “We pray for this grace for all parents to raise peaceful youth strong in their faith,” the prelate said. “His humility, simple life and determination are a source of bravery and courage for us all. We know that it is difficult to lead a Christian life in our environment. Akash has set a powerful example for young people. He will remain alive in our lives and church,” he added.

Nine Chinese Christians be-longing to a Protestant house church have remained in police detention following their arrest ten days ago for allegedly carrying out activities in the name of “an illegal social organization.”
Christians from the Fuyang Maizhong Reformed Church in Fuyang city in northwestern China’s Anhui province were arrested on March 10 during a Sunday gathering, a report from China Aid said on March 21. Plainclothes police officers and officials from the local religious affairs bureau carried out the raid and detained total of 18 Christians, including two children. Eight of them were placed under 13-day administrative detention and the church’s Elder Chang Shun was slapped with a 15-day detention.
Fuyang Maizhong Reformed Church and its members have been targeted several times since 2018 for refusing to join the state-sanctioned Three-Self Church, which oversees Protestant chur-ches in China. Raids became fre-quent after the leader of the Chur-ch signed a “Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith” by Pastor Wang Yi of the Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church in 2018. The document condemned the persecution of Christians in China and openly refused to obey the government’s order asking all Protestant Churches to join the Three-Self Church.
Officially atheist China’s con-stitution allows freedom of reli-gion or belief. It legally recogni-zes five organized religions – Bu-ddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholi-cism and Protestantism. All reli-gious groups are required to regi-ster with the government and shou-ld obtain prior permission for acti-vities as per the rules. The Chine-se Community Party is accused by rights groups as one of the world’s worst violators of religi-ous freedom due to the persecu-tion of both recognized and unre-cognized religious groups. China has intensified its crackdown on religious groups and activities since Xi Jinping became president in 2013.

Global rights group Amnesty International has called for cross-border cooperation to reduce the widening impact of air pollution in South Asia. “We reiterate our calls to the affected South Asian countries to urgently create and implement cross-border pollution action plan,” Amnesty International’s Climate Adviser Ann Harrison said in a press statement on March 20.
There has been “little conce-rted action by both the affected countries as well as the high-income fossil fuel producers that are planning to expand, not reduce production,” Harrison added. She pointed out that the issue of air pollution “is largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.” Earlier, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India occupied the top three spots for having the worst air quality among 134 nations surveyed in the 2023 World Air Quality Report releas-ed by IQ Air.
Bangladesh occupied the top spot with an average PM2.5 con-centration of 79.9 ìg/m³ (micro-gram per cubic meter) roughly 32 times higher than the World Health Organization limit of 2.5 ìg/m³. Pakistan occupied the second spot with an average PM2.5 concentration of 73.7ìg/m³ followed by India at the third spot with 54.4ìg/m³. The IQ Air report assesses the PM2.5 concentration – fine particulate aerosol particles measuring up to 2.5 microns in diameter – which is the primary air quality indicator for the World Air Quality Report.
PM2.5 is one of six common pollutants monitored and regulat-ed by environmental agencies worldwide due to its significant impacts on human health and the environment. “The climate ‘red alert’ in addition to prolonged exposure to toxic air quality in many parts of the South Asian region illustrates the risk of harms to life and health of more than a billion people from accelerating climate chaos,” Harrison warned.
Fossil fuels comprise about 80 percent of the world’s energy use, according to a 2023 report publi-shed by Boston University’s Insti-tute for Global Sustainability.

The demographic decline no longer affects only the countries where well-being is more wide-spread. It is a global phenomenon, spanning every continent. And if it continues to a pace according to current dynamics, in 2100 only 6 countries in the world will still reach a fertility rate of 2.1 child-ren per woman, the so-called “replacement threshold” which allo-ws them to keep their population stable.
This is supported by a new study based on statistical models and published by the British scie-ntific journal Lancet. This is a demographic analysis on the gigantic amount of data from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factors Study, carried out by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington.
Precisely those scientific circles that have long shouted about the “demographic bomb”, therefore, today send out exactly the opposite message: births are dra-stically reducing on a global level. By combining thousands of studies relating to demographic dynamics in 204 countries with sophisticated systems, they certify not only that the fertility rate at a global level has halved in the last seventy years, falling from 4.84 in 1950 to 2.23 in 2021.
The most interesting data from the research published by the Lancet concerns the dynamics taking place in individual geographical areas. Because if on the one hand the slowdown (which exists) follo-ws a slower pace in sub-Saharan Africa, the collapse in the birth rate in South Asia would make the difference in the coming years.
According to these project-ions, countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are on track to very quickly reach the low birth rates of Western Europe and the Far East. If in 2021 there were a total of 32 million births in South Asia, by 2050 they could already drop to 18.7 million.

The Communist Party of Vietnam has accepted the “resignation” of President Vo Van Thyang over unspecified “shortcomings” that show the extent of the cou-ntry’s political turmoil.
For international analysts, the situation risk undermining the confidence of foreign investors and the possibility of dialogue with various partners, including the Vatican. Major steps have been taken under the out-going head of state, including his recent invitation to Pope Francis to visit the country.
In a statement released, the government accused the president of violating the party’s rules, stressing that his “shortcomings had negatively impacted public opinion, affecting the reputation of the party, state and him per-sonally.” The party’s Central Committee, one of Vietnam’s top decision-making bodies, approved Thyang’s resignation not more than a year after his election. The Vietnamese president plays a largely ceremonial role, but remains one of the top four main political offices in the Southeast Asian country.

On a spring afternoon in early March, Usha Rokka took a break from sewing ladies’ handbags ordered by a customer to give snacks to her seven-year-old son who just returned from school.
The 25-year-old single mother has been living in a tiny, rented one-room house in Pokhara, the tourist city in western Nepal since leaving her abusive husband and in-laws seven years ago.
She and her son have a simple, happy life thanks to Rokka’s thriving home-based business that a group of Good Shepherd nuns helped her start as part of their project supporting vulnerable women.
The business yields up to 30,000 rupees (US$277) a month, enough to pay for Rokka’s house rent, daily essentials, utilities, and schooling.
Rokka still remembers her nightmarish days years ago when she attempted to commit suicide twice out of frustration as she failed to find a job to support the family. She fled her in-law’s house in Kushma, a two-hour drive from Pokhara and came to the city in 2018.
“The first time, a fisherman saved my life when I jumped into Phewa Lake and then a neighbor took me to the hospital when she heard my son crying after I drank poison,” she said.
“I couldn’t feed my son properly. I was being mentally tortured by my husband and the people in the village,” she added.
Dowry is considered a social malpractice in many countries as it is blamed for endemic domestic abuse against brides. Despite being illegal in most countries the practice is still prevalent in many parts of South Asia.

A police officer who saved a woman accused of blasphemy from a mob of 200 men in eastern Pakistan has described how she had to negotiate with the crowd to lead her to safety.
The woman, who has not been named for security reasons, was surrounded in a Lahore restaurant by men who wrongly claimed her shirt was adorned with verses from the Koran.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in ultra-conservative Pakistan, where mobs have lynched people they deem to have insulted Islam.
Syeda Shehrbano Naqvi, an assistant superintendent with Punjab police, was among the first officers on the scene on Sunday.
“The crowd was pretty charged, and they were chanting slogans. They were talking about how people who commit blasphemy must be punished,” Naqvi told AFP.
A video shared on social media showed the woman sitting in a corner of a cafe protecting her face with her hands.
Crowds were later heard chanting: “The only punishment for blasphemy is beheading.”
“There was a confusion and nobody was willing to listen to us. We feared that if the dialogue didn’t begin, the woman’s life would be in danger,” Naqvi added.
In the end, Naqvi appealed with the crowd to let police determine whether Pakistan’s blasphemy laws had been breached.
Officers then formed a human chain to help lead the woman out of the restaurant.
The woman was in fact wearing a shirt with the Arabic word for “beautiful” written on it.