After a year on pause, Lahore Archdiocese has announced the annual pilgrimage to the National Marian Shrine in Mariamabad village will go ahead under strict safety guidelines.
The 72nd pilgrimage will be held from Sept. 10-12 under the title “Holy Mary Mother of Mercy.”
“Observe all SOPs [standard operating procedures] about the Covid pandemic and arrive after compulsory vaccination. All pilgrims are re-quested to especially pray for the end of the coronavirus,” states a poster released by the archdiocese’s central pilgrimage committee.
Every year more than 1.2 million pilgrims visit Mariama-bad in Punjab province from all over Pakistan. However, Punjab’s government ordered Lahore Archdiocese to cancel all pilgrimage plans last year.

Myanmar is on a watchlist of countries that have seen a recent and rapid decline in fundamental democratic freedoms.
More than four months since the Feb. 1 military coup, the assault on civic space has persisted with the arrest and detention of activists and protesters, use of excessive force and firearms against protesters and disruption to the internet.
The watchlist was released on June 23 by the CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks the latest developments to civic freedoms across 196 countries.
Since February, thousands have been arbitrarily arrested, detained and attacked including human rights defenders, trade unionists, journalists, political and student activists, poets, writers and monks. Many are facing baseless charges including treason, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, or incitement.

A voluntary organization of the Patna Jesuits on June 26 distributed Covid-19 relief kits to some 650 poor families in the capital city of Bihar. Jesuit Father Juno Sebastian, director of Manthan (Churning), said that this time they focused mostly the hamlets of Musahar, the Dalit community at the bottom of the former untouchables. Around 4,300 people in Danapur, Phulwarisharif and Bihta areas of Patna district received the kits containing rice, dal, wheat flour, edible oil, mask, soap and detergent powder. “This time Manthan made a special effort to reach out to the sick and those with no support,” Father Sebastian said. They also helped families of Manjhi, another low caste group. The Jesuit priest thanked Azim Premji Foundation for funding the project.

With no priest to minister and no faithful to pray, Dhaka’s Armenian church has one last parishioner: a Hindu caretaker. Shankar Ghosh makes the sign of the cross before opening the entrance of the striking white and yellow edifice, built 240 years ago in the capital Dhaka.
Back then, the city was home to hundreds of Armenians, a diaspora that traced its roots in the Muslim-majority nation back to the 16th century and eventually rose to become prominent traders, lawyers and public officials.

A Capuchin holistic welfare centre in Tamil Nadu, southern India, plans to organize another round of online program to help reinvent religious leadership in the post-Covid era.
The June 28-30 webinar aims to help leaders of religious congregations and their collaborators, says “Thalir” (bud) director Capuchin Father Nithya Sagayam, who was earlier the executive secretary of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India Commission for Justice, Peace and Development.

A Catholic priest in Kerala, southern India, has inspired his bishop and other clerics through his “funeral will.” Father James Kumbukal has left a lasting mark through his funeral will, said Bishop Jose Porunnedom of Mananthavady mourning the death of his 78-year-old priest. “I wish to get a very simple burial,” read the will in Malayalam, the language of Kerala.

The Church’s vital role in providing emergency help for those hit by Covid-19 is rebuilding community relations in India where Christians have been demonised by far-right politicians. Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that, despite polarising rhetoric by politicians trying to divide citizens along religious lines, the pandemic has prompted people from all parts of society working together.

A Pakistani court has acquitted a Christian couple who have spent seven years on death row for alleged blasphemy, their lawyer says, in a case that rights groups have long singled out for fair trial issues.
The Lahore High Court acquitted Shafqat Emmanuel and his wife Shagufta Masih after a hearing in the eastern city of Lahore on June 3, the couple’s lawyer Saif ul Malook told Al Jazeera.
“They have been acquitted on all charges […] and the capital sentence is set aside,” said Malook.
Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, the lawyer for the complainant in the case, confirmed the verdict to Al Jazeera.
“The appeal was allowed after hearing the arguments [from both sides],” said Chaudhry. “The grounds and reasons for the decision have not yet been given.”
Emmanuel and Masih were convicted and sentenced to death in April 2014 for having allegedly sent “blasphemous” text messages that were insulting to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and its holy book, the Quran, to a local Muslim leader in their native Gojra, a town located 165km (102 miles) west of provincial capital Lahore. The couple denied the charges, with their lawyer arguing they were illiterate and unable to compose the text messages they were accused of sending, court documents say.
Blasphemy is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where certain forms of the “crime” carry a mandatory death sentence.
Violence around blasphemy allegations has become increasingly common, with mob violence or targeted attacks against those accused of the “crime” or people who defend them.

Fr William Nellikal who has been in charge of the Malayalam section of Radio Vatican and Vatican News for the past 12 years will retire on 13, June. He worked 4 years during the reign of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and nearly 8 years with Pope Francis. He will be resuming the pastoral ministry of his alma mater, the Archdiocese of Verapoly soon after a short period of rest.

The Society of Jesus has suffered the largest number of Covid deaths among Catholic priests in India despite all alertness and preparations, says the congregation’s South Asia chief.
“Despite our goodwill and efforts, we lost about 37 Jesuits to Covid-19 this year,” Father Stanislaus D’Souza, president of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia told on June 10.
As on June 11, the coronavirus pandemic claimed three bishops, 125 diocesan and 131 religious priests, nine religious brothers and 248 religious women, according to a list compiled by Capuchin Father Suresh Mathew, editor of the Indian Currents weekly.