On October 10 is the national holiday of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Usually, the Taiwanese embassy to the Holy See invites friends and personalities to a gathering with a generous buffet. This year, in response to Pope Francis’s encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” the way of celebrating the 109th anniversary of the Republic has radically changed.
With the collaboration of His Holiness’s almsgiver, Card. Konrad Krajewski, Caritas Rome and the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation were invited to a Taiwanese-style lunch with the homeless and abandoned people, who are “relegated to the peripheries and destined to become shadows” as the Pontiff often says.
The embassy donated “made in Taiwan” sleeping bags to the homeless and to Caritas, the Tzu Chi Foundation distributed tuna cans and ecological blankets, made from 100% recycled plastic bottles.
The two events took place on 8 October inside Palazzo Migliori, thanks to the assistance of Card. Krajewski, and on 7 October at the Casa Santa Giacinta of Caritas Rome, Fr Benoni Ambarus and Andrea Zampetti, director and general secretary of Caritas Rome.
Ambassador Matthew S.M. Lee says “it was an honour to share the spirit of National Day with our struggling brothers and sisters, as well as the values of inclusion, hospitality and friendship embraced by Taiwan. The Embassy wished to put into practice the Pope’s encouragement in ‘Fratelli Tutti’ in matters of fraternity: ‘Fraternity is not a trend or a fashion… but rather it is the demonstration of concrete acts,’ and to promote cooperation and exchanges interreligious in order to send humanitarian aid where it is most needed.”

A teenage Christian girl was kidnapped and forced to marry her Muslim abductor in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, her family says.
A local Muslim man is accused of abducting 13-year-old Arzoo Masih while she was playing outside her home in Karachi’s St Anthony’s Parish. The Catholic girl is the youngest of four children in her family.
Arzoo’s mother, Rita Masih, said she and her husband were at work on October 13 when they received a phone call from a close relative that Arzoo had gone missing.
The family immediately filed a kidnapping complaint with the police. The crime is punishable by death or lengthy imprisonment in Pakistan.
However, on Oct. 15, the police summoned the family to the station where they were given marriage papers which claimed Arzoo was 18 and had willingly converted to Islam after marrying Ali Azhar, a local Muslim.
Raja Lal Masih, Arzoo’s father, said he was “deeply concerned” over his daughter’s safety. He wanted authorities to trace and bring her home. Masih told that Arzoo was below marriageable age under Pakistani law. “At the age of 13, she is too young to get married,” he said.

The deal, which was first signed two years ago and expires, will be renewed for another two years, he said.
Asked by reporters on the sidelines of an event at a Rome university if it was a done deal, Parolin said: “Yes, I can anticipate to you that all will go well… I’ll leave you with a positive signal.”
The accord with Beijing gives the Pope final say over the appointment of Chinese bishops and the government allows all of them, including those hailing from a state-backed Church, to recognise the Pope’s authority.
The deal has been highly contested by the U.S. State Department and conservative Catholics, who say the Vatican has sold out to the communist government. Parolin said the final decision to renew had been made “in the last few days” after final contacts with the Chinese side. The deal would be extended without any new signatures because it was still an provisional deal.
The official announcement is due, he said.
Vatican officials say the agreement is not perfect but establishes a dialogue with Beijing after decades during which Chinese Catholics faithful to the Pope were driven underground.

Rights groups have condemned a Pakistani senator’s claim that a fact-finding team led by him could not find any proof of forced conversions among religious minorities in the Muslim-majority nation.
Senator Anwarul Haq Kakar is head of a parliamentary committee set up to look into the increasing incidents of Muslim men kidnapping Hindu and Christian girls and forcefully converting and marrying them.
“The committee, which also included members from other religions, did not find any trace of kidnapping and illegal confinement of Hindu girls who later gave statements in court. Most cases of forced conversions had some degree of willingness on the part of the girl,” Kakar told reporters earlier in Islamabad.
The Parliamentary Committee on Forced Conversions chief, rejected the validity of minority groups’ complaints. He said the marriages were “con-tracts involving willing girls and due to economic circumstances.”
His statement came after the fact-finding team visited Sindh, where most of the country’s Hindus live and where most complaints came from. The comments drew swift condemnation from rights groups.

Police in Sri Lanka have arrested a 43-year-old woman on charges of spreading hate between Buddhists and Catholics after she posted a video making various allegations against Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colo-mbo. Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department arrested the woman on Oct. 18 in capital Colombo, police spokesman Ajith Rohana told media.
The video released on a social media network makes allegations against Cardinal Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, and makes a hateful statement fomenting unrest between Buddhists and Catholics, he said.
It “seems to be an attempt to stir religious hatred among Buddhists and Christians,” said Rohana.
The police are “conducting further investigations in this regard,” he said, adding that the woman will be produced before the court on October 19.
“We have constantly informed the public to prevent any propaganda that incites hatred and enmity between religious groups. Then the law has to be enforced,” said the media spokesman.

The Communist Party is officially atheist and exercises strict control over all recognised religious institutions, including vetting sermons. The provisional deal, signed in September 2018, allowed both Beijing and the Holy See a say in appointing bishops, in an attempt to close the schism in China’s 12-million-strong Catholic community. An announcement extending the deal is widely expected in the coming days. But Washington has put intense pressure on the Vatican to scrap it, saying it has failed to shield Chinese Catholics from persecution. Those that operate without the Communist Party’s blessing claim to have been targeted by authorities in recent years, pointing to the demolition of underground churches, persecution of members and pressure on their clergy to switch sides.