Cardinal Joseph Zen publish-ed Saturday a blog post accusing the Vatican’s secretary of state of manipulating Pope Francis, and continuing his ongoing criticism of the Holy See’s approach to the Catholic Church in China.

“My personal impression is that [Cardinal Pietro] Parolin manipulates the Pope, at least in things regarding the Church in China,” Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, wrote in a post published on his personal blog.

The post “Supplement to my answer to Cardinal G.B. Re,” was dated March 10, although it was actually published March 21. It seemed to be an addendum to a March 3 open letter Zen wrote to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

Zen’s March 21 and March 3 letters came in response to a Feb. 26 letter from Re, dean of the Church’s College of Cardinals, to the Church’s cardinals, which claimed that that the China-Vatican deal represents the minds of St. John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, and that Zen’s opposition to the deal is misguided.

Even before it was signed, Zen has been a zealous critic of the Vatican’s 2018 provisional agreement with the People’s Republic of China. He says the agreement, which has not been publicly released, concedes a deliberative role to the Chinese government in the selection of bishops, and puts at risk of persecution many of the Catholics in China.

Zen’s more recent post claimed that while he has been critical of Re over the China deal, “The Problem is not between me and Re. The problem is with Cardinal Parolin.”

“It’s difficult to understand how this man has become so powerful to dominate the whole Roman Curia. He could dismiss the Commission for Church in China without a word and nobody stood up to protest against such impoliteness.”

Vietnam’s communist government has thanked Christians, including the Catholic hierarchy, for taking preventive steps to check the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Head of religious affairs Vu Chien Thang used a March 17 statement to extend Easter greeting to all Catholics, Protestants and their leaders, Vietnam News Agency reported.

“We thank the Episcopal Council and bishops of dioceses for proactively implementing the instructions of the government and all-level administrations in disease control,” Thang wrote.

The collective efforts put for-ward by religious organizations, including the Catholic and Protestant churches, have helped Vietnam effectively control the outbreak, winning kudos from the international community, he said. Although Vietnam remains geographically and culturally close to China, the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak, it has only 75 confirmed cases with zero deaths, according to its health ministry. Thang regretted his inability to visit Christian leaders personally and exchange Easter greetings because of the virus restrictions in place.

Indonesian Catholics have called on the Vatican to re-schedule Pope Francis’ visit to Indonesia after it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Though the Vatican never confirmed the pope would be visiting Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Papua New Guinea this September, diplomatic sources had said the visit was planned. However, officials have now said that due to the Covid-19 pandemic the visit has been called off.

“The cancellation is understandable because now the whole world is fighting Covid-19 and it will remain a serious threat over the next few months,” Father Antonius Benny Susetyo, a member of a presidential unit promoting communal tolerance, told UCA News on March 15.

However, the former executive secretary of the bishops’ interfaith committee hoped the Vatican would reschedule the pope’s visit for next year “because his visit is very important for Indonesia.”

“His visit will have a positive impact on Indonesia, particularly in strengthening interreligious dialogue,” he said.

Hermawi Fransiskus Taslim, a Catholic lay leader, expressed a similar view.

A Filipina Benedictine nun has succumbed to coronavirus in Spain, her congregation reported on March 28.

Sr Maria Gratia Balagot, who was the superior of their community in India, was only visiting Spain to renew her visa when she was infected with Covid-19. “And while there, (she) contracted the virus,” the US-based Missionary Benedictine Sisters – Norfolk Priory said in a Facebook post. “Please pray for her and for her community in India and for the whole congregation during this difficult time,” the post reads. Sr Balagot, who is originally from Aringay, La Union, died at the age of 71. She has been a missionary in India since 2016.

The newly-appointed Dean of the College of Cardinals purportedly sent a letter to cardinals on February 26 claiming that the China-Vatican deal deal represents the minds of St John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, and that Cardinal Zen is mistaken in his opposition to the deal.

An Italian text of the letter from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dated on Feb. 26, was published on Feb. 29 by La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.

“I desire first of all to emphasize that, in their approach to the situation of the Catholic Church in China, there is a profound symphony of the thought and of the action of the last three Pontificates, which — out of respect for the truth — have favoured dialogue between the two parties and not contrariety,” Cardinal Re wrote.

“Cardinal Zen has affirmed several times that it would be better to have no Accord then than a ‘bad Accord.’ The three last Popes did not share this position and supported and accompanied the drafting of the Accord that, at the present moment, seemed to be the only one possible,” he stated.

Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiun, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, has been an outspoken opponent of the 2018 agreement between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China regarding episcopal appointments. The Church in mainland China has been divided for some 60 years between the underground Church, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a government-sanctioned organization.

Mainstream Christian groups in South Korea have sought action against a neo-Christian sect accused of spreading the coronavirus that has claimed the lives of 54 people in the country.

When the virus began to spread in mid-February, authorities traced the infection to people who attended crowded prayer programs of a sect called Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the Daegu area.

Two mainstream Church groups — the National Council of Churches in Korea and the United Christian Churches of Korea — have asked the government to investigate leaders of the Shincheonji Church.

“The government should clarify facts about the spread of the infectious disease, arrest Shincheonji leader Lee Manhee and other leaders and investigate their actions,” they said in a joint statement on March 6.

The Protestant groups alleged that the secretive doomsday cult had been intentionally withdrawing information about its 200,000 followers, resulting in the spread of the infection.

According to South Korea’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Shincheonji followers accounted for almost 60 percent of 7,513 cases in the country, most centered in Daegu, the base of the controversial sect.

The death toll had reached 54 on March 10, the government body said.

The Protestant groups said the Shincheonji sect is trying to buy more time to manipulate its list of followers.

“The majority of Shincheonji believers are not only the victims of this incident but also the victims of faith, which is a cult and fundamentally fake,” the groups said.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith says he is ready to launch street protests if Sri Lanka’s government does not bring the culprits behind last year’s Easter bombings to book.

He said the administration has not taken action regarding the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed about 300 people, including 40 foreign nationals, and injured at least 500.

“The most senior person in the government should have been brought to the Criminal Investigation Department and question-ed if he had been aware in advance of the Easter bomb blasts,” said Cardinal Ranjith on March 8 at Tewatta Church.

“There are reports that police officers investigating the Easter Sunday suicide bomb blasts are currently being transferred.”

The cardinal said the government should publish all the interim committee reports on the bomb blasts.

When Imran Khan took office as Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018, persecuted Christians in the Muslim-majority nation expected a policy change for the better.

However, the 67-year-old former cricket captain did not live up to their expectations. On the contrary, violence against Christians continued uninterrupted, allegedly with the tacit support of the establishment.

The latest victim in the long chain of violence was a 22-year-old Christian youth from Punjab province. Saleem Masih was beaten black and blue for cleaning himself in a well owned by a Muslim. He died of his injuries three days later on Feb. 28.

Rights activists like Sabir Michael say religious minorities in Pakistan have become an easy target for Islamic fundamentalists because of their poverty in all areas – social, economic, cultural and political.

Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Catholic woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy against Islam. After more than eight years in prison, she was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018.

“I was accused because of the name of Jesus and I knew I would be freed because of Jesus,” Bibi said at a Paris press conference.

Bibi said that during her time on death row, her faith “was always strong because I knew that God was with me, God never leaves you alone, he always accompanies you.”

Together with French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, Bibi has written her autobiography, Enfin Libre (Free at Last). The English edition is due out in September.

“My parents told me that and I knew that something would happen one day,” she said.

During her incarceration, even when she was sentenced to death by hanging, Bibi said she prayed to God for His help to overcome her ordeal.

“If you trust in God, your faith becomes stronger,” she said.

“I knew I was going to be released because I was accused because of the name of Jesus and I would be freed because of Jesus,” Bibi said. A mother of five, Bibi especially thanked all the people who prayed for her during her years in prison, especially Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

A Pakistani Christian man has been tortured to death for washing himself at a well belonging to a Muslim landowner, according to an organisation dedicated to highlighting and opposing persecution of Christians in Pakistan.

Saleem Masih, 22, was a labourer from Baguyana village, Kasur District, near Lahore. On 25 February, after unloading a farm vehicle, Masih washed himself in a nearby well. When the owner of the well, Sher Dogar, discovered he was a Christian, he began to beat Masih with a stick, shouting anti-Christian slurs.

Masih was dragged to a cattle farm and beaten with sticks and iron rods; with his hands tied and feet chained, his captors rolled a thick iron rod over his whole body, causing multiple fractures in his ribs and left arm. After being tortured in this manner for hours, Masih fell unconscious from the pain.

The following morning, the local police gave Masih’s location to his family, who found the unconscious Masih, severely injured, lying where he had been tortured. The police, who had been called to the farm by Dogar, encouraged the family not to take the issue further. Dogar asserted that Masih had committed a crime by dirtying his well water and so he had been justly punished. Masih died from his wounds at Lahore’s General Hospital on 28 February.

Kasur district is known for violent persecution of Christians by Muslims. In 2014 Sajjad Mesih and his wife Shama, a Christian couple in their 30s, were burned alive in a brick kiln by a Muslim mob for allegedly desecrating pages of the Qu’ran. Shama was expecting her fifth child.

There are around four million Christians in Pakistan, 2% of the total population of 200 million.