“In our convent we also felt the effects of the explosion at the al Ahli hospital, we are close to the affected area. The people we host are afraid that it could happen to us too,” recount the Missionaries of Charity, the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, present in Gaza for 50 years. They share their plight with AsiaNews through our contact with Fr. Francis Xavier, Franciscan, Indian Commissioner of the Holy Land.
“I celebrate the morning Mass at the Holy Sepulchre and the nuns of Mother Teresa also participate,” he says. ”In their convent in Jerusalem, there are two Indian nuns, one European and one local. Yesterday, after this celebration, in the Old City, I came to me and asked for help, telling us how extremely serious the situation in Gaza is.”
“We are not worried about ourselves – they told Fr. Francis Xavier – but for disabled children and elderly people bedridden with bedsores. And also for the 600 people who took refuge in our convent after losing their homes in recent days due to the bombings. Where will they go now?”
“Even if my body is in Jerusalem – concludes the Indian Commissioner of the Holy Land – my heart and my mind are in Gaza. May the Prince of Peace give peace to this Earth.”
Mother Teresa’s nuns have been present in Gaza since February 1973. A presence marked from the beginning by sharing the suffering of this tormented land.

A parliamentary body in Pakistan has sought clarifications on cases under the country’s blasphemy laws in its attempts to end ‘unjust’ detentions and to develop standard procedures to address the suffering of religious minorities.
A total of 179 Pakistani citizens are currently in detention, awaiting trial for blasphemy, according to the Standing Committee on Human Rights of the Pakistani Senate, the upper house of the parliament, Vatican’s Fides news agency reported Oct. 19.
The committee also noted that 17 people have been convicted of blasphemy and are awaiting a second trial.
It referred to recent data from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which described the statistics as “heart-breaking.”
The NHRC data were released following anti-Christian mob violence in Jaranwala of Punjab province which left 22 churches and some 91 houses of Christians destroyed in August over alleged desecration of the Quran by two Christians.
Senator Walid Iqbal, chairman of the senate standing committee, sought clarification on blasphemy cases and called for the formation of a national coordination committee within the human rights ministry to develop standard operating procedures to address issues that cause suffering and unjust “collective punishment” to minority communities, the report said.
Iqbal said he was concerned about “the misuse of blasphemy laws as a means to resolve personal issues.”

The Indonesian government will no longer use, in Bahasa, Indonesia’s national language, the term “Isa Al-Masih,” a word of Arabic origin, to refer to Jesus Christ and Christian holidays. An end will thus be put to the decades-long practice of using the term routinely used by believers of the Islamic religion, who draw from the Arabic terminology in the Quran. Beginning in 2024, public institutions will use the term “Yesus Kristus in both documents and speeches,” which baptized Indonesians of all denominations use in their prayers and liturgies. “There will be a change in nomenclature, as far as the names of holidays are concerned, in accordance with the Minister for Religious Affairs,” said the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture, Muhadjir Effendy, in recent days, reporting that “the name Isa Al-Masih will be changed to Yesus Kristus.” The deputy minister for religious affairs, Saiful Rahmat, specified that the change was requested by representatives of Indonesian Christians.
The measure has generated mixed reactions and opinions in the public, which have also emerged in the Indonesian media. According to some Christians, it is the right decision because, in Christian liturgies the word “Isa Al-Masih” is never used, but “Yesus Kristus” is used. According to others, the change was unnecessary because “people already know that saying Isa Al masih refers to Jesus Christ, and the name is interchangeable.”

Asia’s sufferings but also its gifts echoed yesterday at the Synod Assembly in the Vatican through the words of Vanessa Cheng, a lay woman from Hong Kong and a member of the Focolare movement, and Fr Clarence Devadass, a priest from Malaysia, during the public session that opened the days dedicated to the examination of the second part of the Instrumentum Laboris.
“Hong Kong society has been torn apart after two years of social unrest, the synodal process has helped the Church to restart. ‘Walking together” bears the fruit of healing’,” said Vanessa Cheng, citing the continent-level report.
In her description of the synodal path in Asia, she cited the image of “taking off our shoes”, which is deeply connected to the sense of the sacred that inhabits local communities.
Although Christians are but a “small flock”: 6.5 %, with Catholics just above 3 % they stand side by side with other great religions born in the continent, as well as all those who have no faith of their own and await the Good News. This is why listening rooted in respect is so central.
For Vanessa Cheng, “we must also be aware that many Asian cultures do not favour outspokenness for a variety of reasons, such as the fear of making mistakes and losing ‘face’, of not being accepted by one’s social circle, of being identified as problematic, disrespectful and challenging in front of all kinds of authority, and so on.
“As a result, many faithful may tend to remain silent instead of voicing their own views and concerns. Therefore, we need to pay even more attention to those who are silent for some reason. It is very important that the experiences of joy and wounds and the issues raised in the Report should be taken seriously.”
For his part, Fr Devadass notes, “Some may see us as small and insignificant, but we consider ourselves as unique and valuable parts of not just the church but also building and transforming human society.”
“In many parts of Asia, the Church takes the lead in the service of integral human development and the common good, especially in the fields of education, healthcare, and reaching out to the poor and marginalised groups in society beyond the boundaries of our churches.”

Lawyers have decided to boycott court proceedings as protesters took to the streets in support of a judge who fled Sri Lanka after an order on a disputed religious site.
Rallies have been taking place in Northern and Eastern provinces almost all days this week, demanding independence of the judiciary after district judge T Saravanarajah quit and fled the nation.
He was handling the case of a disputed archaeological site, claimed by both Buddhists and minority Tamil Hindus as their place of worship with historical importance.
Saravanarajah’s resignation letter, dated Sept. 23 and addressed to the secretary of Sri Lanka’s Judicial Services Commission, said he was resigning because of  the “threat to my life and stress.”
Civil society groups and lawyers organized a human chain on Oct. 4. covering 10 kilometers on the main road from Jaffna town to Maruthanarmadam in the Northern province.
Meanwhile, lawyers attached to the Bar Associations across eight districts in the two provinces have decided to boycott court proceedings till “a transparent and independent probe” is conducted.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has called for a report after criticism from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and civil society outfits.

Victims of a conflict that is not theirs. There are also many Asian families among those mourning the dead of the Hamas incursion into the kibbutzim around Gaza or anxious about the kidnapping of loved ones.
It is no coincidence: the agricultural settlements of southern Israel are one of the areas where the work of migrants arriving from the Far East is most concentrated.
Migrants we have often talked about due to the harsh working conditions imposed by one of the most restrictive legislation in the world: they have residence permits strictly linked to temporary work contracts, without any possibility of accessing Israeli citizenship. Yet they too were treated as “collaborators”, without any mercy on the part of the Palestinian commandos.
Two deaths have been confirmed so far by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok, as communicated by the deputy minister Jakkaphong Sangmanee, but according to various sources, including Israeli employers, there are a dozen in total, to which should be added eight injured, two of whom are serious and 11 kidnapped by militiamen, the details of three of whom have been released.

Bishop Sebastian Fran-cis of Penang (Malaysia) is among the 21 new cardi-nals created by the pontiff on 30 September during a ceremony held in St Peter’s Square.
Speaking to AsiaNews, he said, “Pope Francis told me to concentrate and focus my mission on the inculturation of the faith” in his country, promoting the path of evange-lisation in the local culture and “work for the universality, not uniformity of the Church.”
In his view, “These fa-ctors are the starting points of my mission in a new context, but always linked to the direction indicated by the pope, which we must follow.”
Card Francis was born on 11 November 1951 in what was then the Feder-ation of Malaya, the son of migrant pare-nts from Kerala (India).
Appointed as bishop of Penang in 2011, he is the second Malaysian in the country’s history to become cardinal after Archbishop Anthony Soter Fernandez of Kuala Lumpur, a former bishop of Penang (1977-1983) who passed away in 2020 at the age of 88.
About a hundred people – members of his family, priests and nuns, as well as people from his diocese and the capital – travelled to Rome to attend the ceremony that saw him elevated to the rank of cardinal.
With respect to evangelisation, the cardinal explained, “both Malaysia and the Asian continent as a whole are still young,” with a low average age and a youthful population in several countries.

Since the commencement of the treated radioactive water release from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea in late August, an unsettling surge of over 400,000 nuisance calls has flooded the Japanese embassy in Beijing.
This disturbing influx of harassing calls appears to be fuelled by an escalating anti-Japan sentiment in China, whether born out of a concerning lack of scientific understanding regarding the nature of the discharged water or, in some cases, driven by a deliberate malicious intent to disparage Japan.
On Aug. 25, a mere day after the ocean discharge began, the daily influx of harassing calls peaked at more than 40,000, persisting at around 10,000 in recent days.
The Japanese government has pleaded with China to address the issue, emphasizing the obstruction these calls cause to the embassy’s operations, yet the situation remains unresolved.
China’s stance opposing Japan’s ocean discharge is based on calling the water “nuclear-contaminated,” demanding an immediate halt without substantial scientific backing.

Concerned for the future of Christians who today face a “different threat”, but one that is no “less serious” than the Islamic State. Embittered by the Holy See’s silence in the face of the mystifications of Rayan the Chaldean, the leader of a local militia calling itself Christian (but in the pay of Tehran) who openly disputes his legitimacy. But also aware of the support of a community, the Iraqi Christian community, and of the closeness of the Muslim world, for a struggle that embraces the very future of the country and its inhabitants.
This is the state of mind that the Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans, Card. Louis Raphael Sako, confides in this interview with AsiaNews in which he recounts the last few tumultuous weeks marked by calumnies, personal attacks, threats, court cases and the head-on clash with the President of the Republic. It was precisely because of the court hearings that are part of this campaign that he was unable to leave to take part in the meeting of the Mediterranean bishops in Marseilles, where Pope Francis will arrive Friday for a two day visit.
As will be recalled, in mid-July, the cardinal had temporarily transferred the patriarchal see from the capital to Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, in protest against the head of state’s annulment of the decree – which concerns “only the Chaldean Church, and this is the basic issue,” the patriarch explained – recognising its role and authority.
It was a surprising decision: Abdul Latif Rashid, in fact, has disavowed a centuries-old tradition by striking down the highest local Catholic authority, which is also responsible for managing the Church’s assets and property.
This is where the issue revolves: the control of the properties that are targeted by the self-styled Christian leader ’Rayan the Chaldean’ and the pro-Iranian militias that support him (a variegated galaxy that includes Shiites, Christians, Sunnis…), a threat to peace and coexistence for the nation. In response, the cardinal has not ruled out boycotting the upcoming elections. “In one second, the head of state wanted to erase 14 centuries of history and tradition, but I am not afraid and I have nothing to lose… maybe my life, but I am ready for that too. All this is being done to intimidate the Christians, to make them leave the country, and that is why I encourage them again, and more strongly, to stay and hope!”
“ The Holy See could have taken the floor, could have said that this gentleman’s propaganda is not true, could have tried to calm the people, the many Christians and Muslims in Iraq who are suffering from these new attacks, from these lies that hurt our community first of all.”

The authorities of Uzbekistan are intensifying the campaign to combat excessively explicit manifestations of the Muslim religion in public places and in social life. As Radio Ozodlik illustrates, those who profess Islam are forced to cut their beards, and women are prevented from wearing the khidžab, the local version of the Islamic veil.
There is a video circulating online in which some students from the Bankovskij college in the city of Andižan are forced in rather violent ways to weave their veils behind their heads, and those who refuse to do so are not admitted to the lessons.
Such cases are frequent in Uzbekistan, such as that of the third-year student of the Bukhara Technological Engineering Institute, Fatima Abdullokh, who appealed to the daughter of President Šavkat Mirziyoyev, Saida, with a request to defend the students forced to take off their khidžab.
Similar measures were also taken at the ir ik pedagogical institute, in the Tashkent region, where the management demanded that the Uzbek language and literature student Karomat Mukimova take off her khidžab if she wanted to keep her place in the student hostel.
There were also raids organized on the homes of inhabitants of the provinces of Zangiata and Yangiyol, where men in black masks carried out searches to take all the clothing deemed inappropriate, because it was considered a sign of Islamic radicalism.