For nearly a decade now, Sumon Gomes has seen how his family’s peaceful coexistence with paternal uncles and cousins has come to an end over a land dispute.

Gomes, 35, is a Catholic father and private jobholder in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka. He hails from Nawabganj, about 40 kilometers from Dhaka, where his grandfather owned 20 bighas (6.66 acres) of ancestral land.

Trouble brewed between his father and three uncles as they sought to divide the land after their father’s death.

“My father wanted an equal share of land for each brother, but he found one of my uncles was occupying more land than he was entitled to. When he objected, my uncle filed a case against him. It soured our relationship,” Gomes told UCA News.

While the court case is ongoing, Gomes’ family has stopped talking to his uncle’s family.

“I feel sad when I see joint families living happily and peacefully, but our relationship has worsened over a land dispute. I am not sure we will ever have a better relationship,” he lamented.

Catholic couple Mintu N. Rozario and Ruby T. Rozario migrated to Libya in 2008 as expatriate workers. They are now based in Tajura near Libyan capital Tripoli with their four children.

Mintu is employed at the International Committee of the Red Cross and Ruby is a staff nurse in a hospital.

A US government watchdog has recommended the State Department designate Pakistan as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in systematic, on-going and egregious violations of religious freedom.

After documenting developments during 2019, the commission pinpointed 14 countries. These include nine that the State Department designated as of particular concern in December 2019 — Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — as well as India, Nigeria, Russia, Syria and Vietnam.

“In 2019, religious freedom conditions across Pakistan continued to trend negatively,” it said, noting there were some high-profile acquittals including that of Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman who spent eight years on death row after being wrongly accused of blasphemy.

“The systematic enforcement of blasphemy and anti-Ahmadiyya laws, and authorities’ failure to address forced conversions of religious minorities — including Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs — to Islam, severely restricted freedom of religion or belief.” The USCIRF sad it is aware of nearly 80 individuals who remain imprisoned for blasphemy in Pakistan, with at least half facing a life sentence or death.

A mob also attacked a Christian community in Punjab after a mosque claimed over its loudspeaker that the community had insulted Islam. In another incident, nearly 200 Christian families in Karachi were forced to flee their homes due to mob attacks after false blasphemy accusations against four Christian women, according to the report.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is facing a barrage of criticism after urging Christians to stay at home and maintain social distancing during Easter.

“Wishing all our Christian citizens a happy Easter. Please stay safe and keep your families safe during the Covid-19 pandemic by praying and celebrating at home; and by observing the national safety protocols,” said the PM in his Easter message.

While some praised the prime minister for wishing the country’s minority community well, others were quick to point out Khan’s silence on Muslim worshipers defying the coronavirus lockdown.

Several video clips have emerged in recent days showing angry mobs beating and chasing male and female police officers during Friday congregations.

The Khan administration is particularly accused of a slow response to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus which has killed more than 114,000 people globally.

According to experts, the federal government wasted a lot of precious time in declaring a ban on daily mosque prayers and Friday congregations.

As a result, more than 700 members of a prominent Muslim missionary group who congregated in Lahore from March 10-12 have tested positive, according to government data. The group is being blamed by some for the local transmission of the virus.

On the other hand, Catholics and other minority groups shut down churches even before the national lockdown was declared.

The coronavirus pandemic is changing just about everything.

That is clearest in the people who sicken, those who die, those whose lives are upended, those whose livelihood has disappeared. These are some of the direct effects of the disease.

There are many other effects not directly related to the illness that are manifesting themselves in the context of the pandemic. One major one is the proliferation of anti-scientific “theories” of the “truth” behind the scourge.

So, some people convinced that spread of the virus is aided, if not caused, by telecommunications equipment have burned internet transmission towers in the UK. An archbishop in Sri Lanka without presenting any evidence has advanced the “theory” that the virus was created by researchers.

Conspiracy theorists are working overtime to find any unreason at all that in their minds refutes what research and expertise have repeatedly demonstrated.

Other trends that had already been moving through societies at various speeds have accelerated while those societies are preoccupied. Racist and anti-democratic movements in societies and governments have advanced their objectives in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

The Catholic Church, too, is undergoing a great change under pressure from the present situation. Some of that change was already underway but may now accelerate. It remains to be seen where it leads.

For decades, the decline in the number of priests has been obvious to us all. The answer until now has been for leaders in the Vatican, where there is a surplus of priests but a shortage of laity, to call for more prayer and sacrifice.

Sri Lankan Catholics have forgiven the 2019 Easter suicide attackers who brought terror to the island nation a year ago, said the cardinal of Colombo.

“Not only did Catholics die, but the bombs killed Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims,” said Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith as he celebrated Easter Mass April 12.

“It is human nature to hurt people through anger, but we have given up that human nature and chosen the life of the resurrection of the Lord. Resurrection is the complete rejection of selfishness,” the cardinal said. His remarks were reported by ucanews.com.

“We have taught them that lesson, not hating anyone in any way. This is what civilization means and that is the Resurrection.”

Nine suicide bombers affiliated with a local Islamist extremist group blasted three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing at least 279 people, including 37 foreign nationals, and injuring about 500. They carried out coordinated bomb attacks at St Sebastian Church in Negombo, St Anthony Shrine in Colombo and the evangelical Zion Church in Batticaloa.

St Sebastian Church and St Anthony Shrine were consecrated and reopened to the public, but Zion Church is still being renovated by the military.

After the bombings, the general public and religious leaders blamed politicians and government officials for failing to prevent the attacks.

Rights groups have asked communist Vietnam to release all prisoners of conscience as a way to save them from the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

On April 4, Vietnam-based Human Rights Defenders said the pandemic is spreading across Vietnam and the number of infections may surge if the government fails to apply proper measures or demand all citizens strictly obey preventive measures.

The group, which works to systematically report and document serious human rights violations in the country, said prisoners of conscience and people being held at prison camps and temporary detention centres are most vulnerable to Covid-19 infection.

China has relaxed a crack-down on unofficial religious groups amid the intense fight against Covid-19, but some Christian leaders feel the freedom could be short-lived.

Since this year’s Chinese New Year, which fell on Jan. 25, the harassment of under-ground Christians has eased as most officials have been engaged in fighting the raging pandemic, said Father Paul, a priest of the underground church in Yunnan province.

The crackdown on unapproved churches continued unabated even after September 2018 when the Vatican and China signed an agreement on the appointment of bishops.

The crackdown aimed to force the Catholic Church loyal to the Vatican, known as the under-ground church, to become part of the state-approved official church, Christian leaders said.

In the past two years, authorities have not allowed Christian groups to post customary spring messages with Christian blessings or prayers on the entrances of their churches or houses, said Father Paul.

“If Catholics post such messages on churches or houses, governmental agents will tear them off,” the priest said.

However, during this new year, “local Catholics posted the spring couplets and they were not torn off. Maybe the officials were busy fighting the epidemic,” Father Paul said.

The Covid-19 pandemic was first reported in Wuhan city in Hubei province in late December. By mid-January, the entire Chinese bureaucracy was busy fighting the disease that has officially killed some 3,300 people in China.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has called for an international probe into the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking in a televised Mass on March 15, the archbishop of Colombo said powerful countries cannot be allowed to play with the lives of the innocent public. He said that experimenting with nature had resulted in the coronavirus.

“We know that in several areas of the world researchers of all types for various reasons are engaging in research to destroy human life and nature. Some of these viruses are the products of aimless experiments,” said Cardinal Ranjith.

“This kind of research is done not by people in poor countries but in laboratories in rich countries. Producing such things is a very serious crime for mankind.

“I ask the Lord to reveal who made these poisonous seeds. The United Nations or international organizations must find out who is behind these incidents and punish them. Such research should be banned.”

The cardinal’s comments came as the Sri Lankan Church cancelled Masses and other services in all parishes because of a rapid rise of coronavirus cases in the country.

It announced on March 15 that it is cancelling all church services until the end of the month. The decision came in the middle of the Lenten season that features common gatherings such as the Way of the Cross, Lenten pilgrimages, group meditation, healing services and group prayer services.

In a press briefing, Cardinal Ranjith requested all political parties to join together to fight Covid-19 while asking people not to gather extra goods unnecessarily.

The number of infections in Sri Lanka has risen to 18. Most of the patients had arrived from Italy recently.

Emanuel Marianus Tapu, 29, usually goes to church to attend Sunday Mass. However, for the last two Sundays he has been unable to do so because Mass and other church activities have been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. Luckily, though, churches have turned to the internet and are streaming daily and Sunday Masses.

Last Sunday, at his home in the Jakarta suburb of Parung Panjang, he placed a lit candle and a cross next to his laptop and followed a livestreamed Mass from Jakarta Cathedral.

“Although it was through YouTube, I still felt I was attending a normal Mass. I feel the need to maintain my spiritual life in the midst of this crisis,” the 29-year-old devout Catholic told UCA News.