Catholics in Indonesia’s Ruteng Diocese are mourning the death of a Dutch-born nun who spent more than half of her life doing family pastoral work in their diocese.
Sister Robertilde Wihelmina van Der Meer from the Congregation of Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS) died on June 18 at 87 and was buried at the congregation’s cemetery in Ruteng on June 21.
News of her death prompted many Catholics, including the district government, to express their condolences on social media for the friendly nun.
Sister Natalia Maria Naki, director of SSpS-run St. Raphael Hospital in Cancar, 15 kilometers west of Ruteng, who had lived with Sister Robertilde since 2012, said the nun showed “total devotion to the people she served.”

Cardinal Jose Advincula was installed as the new archbishop of Manila in a ceremony at the Philippine capital’s historic cathedral on June 24.
The 69-year-old cardinal from Capiz became the 33rd archbishop of the country’s largest diocese, succeeding Cardinal Luis Tagle, now prefect of the Congregation of the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome.
The installation was attended by the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, along with another former Manila arch-bishop, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, and apostolic administrator Bishop Broderick Pabillo.
Several other bishops were also present as were a limited number of priests and civic officials in a ceremony that was scaled down to avoid the spread of Covid-19.
Cardinal Advincula, who is the sixth Filipino to hold the office, promised to fulfill his new mission by listening and knowing his sheep — Manila’s poor and marginalized.

Pope Francis has appealed for aid for thousands of displaced people who are facing starvation in Myanmar after fleeing from their homes as fighting escalates in the beleaguered country.
During his Sunday Angelus on June 20, the pope joined bishops in Myanmar who have appealed for humanitarian corridors to allow safe passage for those fleeing.
He said Myanmar bishops last week launched an appeal “calling to the attention of the entire world, the heart-wrenching experience of thousands of persons in that country who are displaced and are dying of hunger.”
Echoing the bishops, the pope pleaded for respecting religious sites as places of sanctuary. “Churches, pagodas, monasteries, mosques, temples, just as schools and hospitals, are respected as neutral places of refuge.”

The communist regime of China, the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion people, announced on May 31 that it will allow married couples to have up to three children.
The decision came from the Politburo, the highest policy-making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), chaired by President Xi Jinping. It signals a major shift in demographic policy of a country where everything from life to death is strictly controlled by the state.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the government seeks “to ensure continued economic growth, national security and social stability” with the policy.
However, the main driving force behind the change is a worrying decline in the birth rate that poses serious threats to China’s economy from an aging population.
Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released in May showed the country recorded 12 million births in 2020, the lowest number since the 1960s. It was a significant decrease from 18 million births in 2016.
China now has a below-replacement-level fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman, way down from the replacement level of 2.1. China is on a par with aging societies in Japan and Italy.
That is evident in China’s genocidal treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, where many men and women are subject to forced sterilizations and forced abortions, resulting in a significant fall in birth rates. On the flipside, the authorities are encouraging educated Han Chinese women to have more babies.
China’s so-called “inclusive family planning policy” is no guarantee of basic human rights such as sexual and reproductive rights for all citizens and is just a flimsy attempt to cover up rising economic shortfalls that pose a serious threat to the communists’ grip on power in the long run.

Caritas Pakistan Karachi under its Smallholder Adaptive Project launched its “Acre for Women” campaign to empower smallholder female farmers in the remote villages of Gharo and Gadap on the city’s outskirts.
The female farmers are owners of one-acre plots where they grow vegetables for their self-sufficiency to fight against malnutrition and hunger.
Caritas Karachi formed women’s farming groups in Gharo and Gadap and distributed kitchen gardening kits including summer vegetable seeds, organic manure and tools as well as offering training on climate change adaptation.
“Our main objective is train women farmers to build their capacity in view of climate change and grow different vegetables for their own consumption and to fight against malnutrition and hunger,” regional coordinator Amir Robin said.
Mansha Noor, executive secretary of Caritas Pakistan Karachi, said the project was aimed at promoting healthy and organic produce for self-sufficiency and to improve nutrition among women and children. He further highlighted the importance and benefits of growing different vegetables as a group.

A priest from Loikaw Diocese in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state has called for an end to attacks on religious buildings following military assaults on three Catholic churches within the space of two weeks.
“We appeal to armed groups not to deploy troops, attack and burn down places of worship such as temples, mosques and churches as well as hospitals and schools,” Father Celso Ba Shwe, apostolic administrator of Loikaw, said in the letter released on June 8.
Without specifying the military, he warned that intentionally attacking places of worship, hospitals and schools constitutes war crimes under the Hague Conventions.
The priest said churches, convents and monasteries have opened their doors to fleeing civilians — especially the elderly, children, women, the sick and the disabled — regardless of religion and race as fighting escalates in Kayah state and neighboring Shan state.
Civilians who have taken refuge in churches and temples have had to flee to other areas for safety, often accompanied by priests and nuns, according to Father Ba Shwe.
The priest took the role of apostolic administrator of Loikaw on December 21, 2020, following Bishop Stephen Tjephe’s death on Dec. 16.

Christians in Indonesia have increasingly become the target of terrorist attacks, with the latest plots being aimed at a Catholic archbishop and several churches in the Papua region.
Extremist groups, one after the other, are trying to send a message, particularly among Muslim communities, by attacking Christians. Last month the Islamic State-linked Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) terror group plotted to kill Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi, whom Pope Francis recently appointed to lead Merauke Archdiocese in Papua and who is scheduled to receive the pallium from the pope on June 22.
In a message sent early this month to Indonesian Bishops’ Conference chairman Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, Archbishop Mandagi said a man came to his chancery twice pretending to be a visitor some time in January and on May 30 to die with him in a suicide attack.

Pakistan’s top court has handed over the management of the oldest missionary education institution in Khyber Pakhtun-khwa (KPK) province to the local government.
Three judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on June 3 rejected a petition filed by Church of Pakistan Bishop Humphrey Peters of Peshawar seeking a review of a Peshawar High Court 2019 order that declared Edwar-des College Peshawar as a na-tionalized educational institution.
However, the property re-mains owned by the Church of Pakistan’s Diocese of Lahore.
“We are afraid that the contention of the petitioner is not correct. The government of KPK shall propose the criteria for appointment of the principal, Edwardes College Peshawar,” stated the Supreme Court order.
“The same shall be conveyed to Diocese of Lahore … Edwardes College shall be run and managed strictly on professional lines under the overall supervision of the board of governors headed by the worthy governor, KPK.”

Sacred Heart Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke has called on the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference (KWI) to invite Pope Francis to visit his archdiocese in Papua to help create peace in the country’s restive easternmost region.
He expressed his wish to have the pope visit during a meeting with officials from the Asso-ciation of Indonesian Catholic Intellectuals (ISKA), his arch-diocese and seminarians on June 1 at his residence.
“An official invitation must come from the KWI. I hope it and the Catholic Church in Indonesia will give it a go,” he told UCA News over the phone on June 3.
“I do not want to break the rules. But I really hope it will not take too long. It would be great if a visit can be arranged soon after the Covid-19 pandemic ends,” he said, adding that an official invitation to the pope should be sent through the Indonesian ambassador to the Holy See.

More than 300 mourners protested for several hours alongside the body of a Christian laborer allegedly poisoned by Muslims as officials urged them to bury their dead. “O Lord we are helpless” and “Injustice with Christians” stated placards as villagers from Tariqabad blocked a major road near Gojra city of Pakistan’s Punjab province on May 24 demanding registration of a police case for the killing of 32-year-old Arif Masih, who was kidnapped on May 23.
“Two men from Gujjar community raided our house and forcefully took him on a motorcycle. About an hour later, they threw him in the market at our front door. He was semi-conscious, hospitalized and died the same night,” said Rizwan Masih, his brother, in a police first information report filed following the three-hour protest.
“Last week the accused physically harassed our sister. My brother had been receiving death threats since we reported the incident at the police station. He was being forced for a truce.”
Tariqabad, a Muslim-majority village, is home to 45 Christian families. Minorities Alliance Pakistan (MAP) is providing legal aid to the dead man’s family.
“Arif Masih was murdered for demanding justice. The panchayat [local village assembly] scolded the Christian family for filing the case and threatened them with a social boycott for pursuing it. The influential accused easily attained pre-arrest bail,” MAP chairman Akmal Bhatti told.
“We condemn the murder reported earlier as a suicide. The local police were reluctant to record a report. Our people are tired of protesting with dead bodies. They were forced to protest under the scorching sun irrespective of the Covid pandemic.”
Human rights groups often complain of a biased criminal justice system in Pakistan.