A 25-year-old Pakistani Christian was arrested and charged with violating the country’s blasphemy laws after sharing a social media post critical of Islam in December. Pastor Raja Warris, a Christian pastor, was charged for posting on Facebook on Dec. 22 a message that reportedly hurt the religious sentiments of his Muslim neighbours.
On Dec. 26, hundreds of people gathered in Warris’ Charar neighbourhood in the city of Lahore and threatened to behead the pastor and to set fire to Christian homes unless police took action.
“The situation turned dangerous when someone found out the Muslims were planning to set fire to the houses of Christians,” said Saleem Khokhar, one of those displaced by the incident.
“This forced the Christians to flee the neighbourhood,” he told the group International Christian Concern (ICC).
Hundreds of anti-riot policemen were deployed to Charar while leaders of the Christian community met with authorities to resolve the situation.
“The police said they could not guarantee the safety of our people if the accused was not presented for arrest,” said Rev. Ayub Gujjar, vice moderator of the Raiwind Diocese of the Church of Pakistan. “We reluctantly agreed to bring Warris but demanded that he be kept at an undisclosed location due to the serious threat to his life,” the church leader told local media.
On Dec. 27, police charged Warris with committing blasphemy. He also apologized for the social media post.
William Stark, regional manager of ICC, said called on Pakistani authorities “to continue to protect the homes of Charar’s Christians” although Warris has already been charged.
He said “there is still the potential for mob violence against the Christians of Charar.”
“No one should be forced to flee their home because of a social media post,” said Stark, adding that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws “must not be misused to justify mob violence.”

Sister Christin Mary is a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Im-maculate Heart of Mary, also known as ICM Sisters.
Based in the western Indian city of Mumbai, Mary coordinates the National Domestic Workers’ Movement, which has been championing the rights of domestic workers, children in domestic work, and migrant domestic workers since 1985. Today, its work is spread across 17 states of India, engaging nearly 200,000 domestic workers in major cities, towns and villages.
The movement was set up by Belgian Sister Jeanne Devos, also of the ICM Sisters, who spent several years as a missionary in India. She was concerned about the plight of Indian domestic workers who were exploited and whose work was undervalued.
Mary shared with Global Sisters Report about her work with the movement. She said the movement has emerged as a ray of hope for thousands of children who were deprived of their childhood and education, rehabilitating and educating them to enter mainstream society. The movement, she said, has set the tone for “breaking the slavery of silence.”
“Our journey is a road less trave-led,” the 47-year-old nun said. She expressed some of major hardships “Slow response from the govern-ments to protect the rights of workers and the exclusion of workers from the purview of labour laws even after constant lobbying efforts are some of them. Failure of the government to allocate a budget for the welfare board has created difficulties for the domestic workers to avail the social protection schemes on time. Domestic workers also report unfair dismissal when they ask for better wages and working conditions.” About her mitivations she said:
“When I was a student in a convent school in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu, I saw religious sisters helping the poor children who couldn’t afford to pay their fees and buy books. In my student days, I heard about the plights of child workers who were forced to sacrifice their childhoods to support their starving families. I used to be disturbed about those children, whose dreams were nipped in the bud. My desire to serve the underprivileged children and women motivated me to become a nun in 2001.”

As many as 56 newly ordained priests of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate Congregation (CMI) on January 4 celebrated thanksgiving Mass at St Joseph’s Monastery Church in Mannanam in Kerala’s Kottayam district where their founder’s remains are kept.
Father Mathew Chandrankunnel, a member of the congregation and a professor of theology, said the young men were ordained priests recently for their 15 provinces. All are from Kerala but belong to various provinces of southern and northern India.
Father Chandrankunnel said the new priests had undergone training that lasted from 10 to 15 years. They will now serve God and wider humanity all over the world, he told Matters India. The Kerala-based congregation works in various parts of India and abroad. It had 2,597 members, including 1,900 priests in 2016.
The first indigenous Catholic religious congregation in India was founded in 1831 by Fathers Thomas Palackal and Thomas Porukara, along with Saint Kuriakose Chavara – all members of the Syro-Malabar Church.

The Small Christian Community (SCCs) members from Dumka diocese in Jharkhand shared unanimously that their faith in Christ was deepened during the lockdown.
Representatives from two parishes of 13 SCC units of St Joseph’s Parish, Guhiajori village, about 10 km from Dumka town and Sacred Hear Parish in Dumka shared their experience of Christian life during an animation session on January 13.
During the Lockdown when the churches were closed and the Mass was not celebrated, we had family prayer together both morning and evening, said Esther Murmu, an SCC animator. As our children were not going to school I led the prayers in the house and read the Bible, which we hardly did earlier, added Mrs. Murmu, a school teacher sharing her experience. This united us in our family, she shared.

An 18-year-old student of Bengaluru’s Christ University used his drone to save four fishermen who floated in the sea for hours after their boat capsized. Devang Subil, a student Bachelor of Technology, had come to his home in Kerala after the corona-virus forced closure of his college.

The diocese of Berhampur in Odisha has opened the largest holistic laity centre in the eastern Indian state.
Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur inaugurated the “Anugraha Peetho”(centre of grace) on December 27 at Mohana in the Gajapati district. In his address at the inaugural function, Bishop Nayak thanked the Almighty for fulfilling a “long-awaited dream” of the Odisha Church.

Intending to visit activists arrested for treason, Fr Pius Cornelius Manu, a priest in Papua’s Merauke Archdiocese, was shouted at by police, in-terrogated and had his bag searched. “I was shocked because I had often visited, arrested activists. Previously, I was not treated that way because many policemen knew me,” said the priest, talking about an incident last November when he went to visit 55 Papuans at Merauke district police station.

India has become increasingly intolerant towards religious minorities, especially the Muslim community, according to a new report.
The South Asia State of Minorities Report 2020 noted that the general public has come under attack from federal and state governments for criticizing the administration and institutions.
The report looks at the status of access to personal liberties, especially among minorities, in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
“It is true that we minorities are facing the onslaught of the Narendra Modi government very systematically. As a matter of fact, they have started framing laws that are against the spirit of secularism, democracy and the republic,” A.C. Michael, national coordinator of the United Christian Forum, told UCA News.
“Have you ever heard of a case anywhere in the world where two adults are stopped from getting married by the police? This is what is happening in Uttar Pradesh these days. The Uttar Pradesh police have filed almost two dozen first instance reports against interfaith marriages specifically targeting Muslims.
“Spreading hatred against minorities has become like a fashion for ruling party politicians to remain in power and acquire more. If they continue to succeed in tricking ordinary citizens and win elections, this trend of violence against minorities is going to continue.”
According to the report, “hate crimes against minorities have seen a spike — taking the form of mob lynching and vigilante violence against Muslims, Christians, and Dalits.”
The report said the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has “unveiled a new and now frontal attack on religious minorities. The persecution towards minorities had a chilling effect on civic space for Muslims and their organizations.”

Father Francois Laborde, a French Jesuit who spent decades among the poor of Kolkata, was buried on December 28 in a parish in the capital city of West Bengal.
Fr Laborde was considered the inspira-tion behind French author Dominique Lapierre’s “City of Joy,” a novel on the slums of Calcutta (now Kolkata).
He died of old age illness on Christmas Day in a hospital in Midnapore, near Kolkata, He was 93.
Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta led the funeral services on December 28 at Saint John’s Church.
“Father Laborde worked silently and with great humility among the poor for more than 55 years. Religion, caste and creed did not matter to him as he reached the poorest of the society,” said Archbishop D’Souza in his condolence message.
According to the prelate, the Jesuit priest was always just a call away. “And when praised, he would humbly say, he was just doing God’s work,” added Archbishop D Souza.
Born on February 28, 1927, François was educated up to the baccalaureate with the Jesuits. After a year of philosophy at the Sorbonne, he joined the Prado institute in order to become a priest among the excluded and the poorest.
It was in Paris, his hometown, that his proximity to the poorest was awakened. He was then 9 years old. Coming from a petty bourgeois family, he suddenly discovered that his best friend lives in an even less favoured situation.
“When I was invited to his home for the first time, I was amazed. His family lived on the sixth floor and he slept on a folding bed in a loft. A few days earlier, he had left my house crying… Since that day, I understood that it was necessary to go to the poor in order to understand them.“
In one such visit, Father Laborde met Doctor Sen, who later extended a helping hand. “I took a sick child to him and when I offered him money, he got angry. He said it was inhuman to charge money from the child and I knew I got a friend,” Laborde added. Now that Lapierre is unwell, Laborde has a message for his friend. “I have heard that Lapierre is very unwell. All I want for him is a speedy recovery,” he said.
In 1969, Lapierre came to Kolkata to research his book. Father Laborde literally walked Lapierre hand-held through the alleys of poverty and distress in Pilkhana and other slums for his groundwork for ‘City of Joy.’

The Archaeological Survey of India has begun the restore the four-century old silver casket that houses the relics of Saint Francis Xavier at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa. The casket, which was last tended to in 1698, has been braving the elements within the basilica, which is part of the UNESCO declared heritage complex. Old Goa was once the capital of the Portuguese maritime empire and an important trade center. The restoration began on December 9.
Back in 2018 a team of three specialists was dispatched from “Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro di Firenze” (A restoration laboratory in Florence, Italy), to study the artifacts from May 27 to June 3, 201. They had called for attending to the casket mas a top priority or it would fall apart within the next 10 years.
“The ASI Chemical Branch from Aurangabad, who are specialists in conservation, have taken the initiative under the mandate from ASI Dehradun to commence the work to conserve and restore the Mastrillian Casket. The negotiations began long back, ever since ASI Delhi ordered that the treatment be done by their specialists in India. The work will be done at the Basilica itself under strict security and will commence from December 10,” Father Patricio Fernandes, the Rector of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, said.