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.

A group of Vietnamese women whose husbands died or work far from home devote themselves to burying the fetuses of babies resulting from abortions or miscarriages.
The women, from Nam Vien Parish in Tien Du district neighbouring the northern city of Bac Ninh, provide a service that other married women who are busy looking after their husbands and children could not be involved in.
At night they have to work at full stretch. They will immediately travel 100 kilometrs from home to visit pregnant women in spite of chilly or rainy weather when they receive calls from people in need. They do not miss any call even when they are tired from their own work.
In the dead of night, a female doctor from a local hospital phoned Mary Pham Thi Hoai, one of the members, asking her group to help a young mother who gave premature birth to a baby who died after being placed in an incubator for 10 days. The baby’s father, with a low weak voice, also appealed to the group to bury his newborn baby.

At the chapel of Mai Thien Loc Theologate of the Oblates of Mary of Immaculate Conception (OMI), the superior of the Vietnam Mission received the vows of eight novices, including Brother Joseph Tinh A Senh, a son of Dien Bien Parish in Hung Hoa Diocese.
He belongs to the Hmong ethnic group. This is good news not only for the newly professed brother, his family and the OMI congregation but is also an indescribable joy for members of the Hmong community.
Brother Senh was born on June 10, 1996, in Dien Bien, the seventh child of 10 children. His family are poor like many other families in the area. Poverty is rife, from one corn season to another. Nothing has changed. The local people have a joke: just the piglet and buffalo grow up, but we grow old and then die.
After graduating from the village school, he intended to go to the fields like many other boys. But Father Peter Pham Thanh Binh, parish priest of Sapa, saw that this boy was smart and virtuous, so he invited him to live and study at Sapa boarding house. He agreed to live there with his friends to study. There are very few who hear the voice of God and respond.

Manila Archdiocese has issued a notice warning Catholics not to be fooled by fake social media accounts purportedly owned by the Philippine capital’s recently appointed archbishop, saying he has no social media account on any platform.
People have reported several accounts on Facebook using the name and photos of Cardinal Jose Advincula. One Facebook page has gathered hundreds of thou-sands of likes from Catholics in the Philippines and abroad. It also posts the cardinal’s homilies and speeches as well as providing information on his public engagements.
The Archdiocese of Manila and the Archdiocese of Capiz have not yet created a Facebook page or social media account under Cardinal Advincula’s name, the archdiocese’s chancellor Father Reginald Malicdem said in the May 24 notice.
The cardinal was archbishop of Capiz in the central Philippines before being appointed Manila’s archbishop.
In April, Cardinal Advincula himself warned against fake solicitation letters being circulated online using his name to ask for donations for his installation.

Churches in Papua have offered to mediate talks between the Indonesian government and separatist groups in a bid to ease tensions in the restive region.
The offer comes amid an escalation in violence in Papua that has seen hundreds of troops deployed and many people dis-placed in a crackdown following the government’s decision on April 29 to declare pro-separatists as terrorists. This followed the death a week earlier of an Indonesian intelligence chief in a shootout with members of the rebel West Papua National Liberation Army.
Church leaders conveyed their concern over the deteriorating situation during a meeting with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mini-ster Mahfud MD in Jakarta on May 25.
The leaders included Sacred Heart Abp Petrus Mandagi of Merauke in Papua, Indonesian bishops’ conference president Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, and Reverend Ronny Mandang, chairman of the Fellowship of Indonesian Evangelical Churches and Institutions.
During the meeting, they offered to act as a mediator in peace talks.
“Many church and ordinary people in Papua are praying the government will hold talks to end the violence immediately,” Reverend Mandang said.
Dialogue must involve all elements to end the conflict
Mahfud responded by saying he was open to Christian leaders acting as mediators.
“If there are parties wanting to become mediators and they are welcomed by various groups in Papua, then we will facilitate that,” he said.
“We ask for dialogue and will exchange ideas with anyone including church leaders who can help forge peace and security for the Papuan people.”

More and more people on social media are describing the military junta responsible for the coup d’état and its soldiers as “terrorists.” The label is not only used to counter the military regime’s use of the “terrorist” label against its opposition, but reflects a broadly held view in the population that the military is reverting back to its cruel old methods, typical of the dictatorship that ruled before the recent short-lived period of democratic government. Increasingly, soldiers walk through markets taking food without paying, stealing valuables from the homes of suspected activists they search, beating defenceless civilians to a pulp, not to mention abducting people of all ages who go missing without leaving a trace.