Democracy is under threat due to the rising tide of populism, according to a new Luxembourg cardinal who is urging the church to stand against anti-democratic forces present in politics.

Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, who made a cardinal by Pope Francis on 5th October, said the simple answers offered by populist politics will not solve complex problems and end up leaving people even more disillusioned. “The church has a very clear standpoint. We are against populism, we are in favour of human rights and we are in favour of democracy. And democracy is in danger because civilisation is changing,” he told The Tablet.

The interview is published on the day the Supreme Court ruled that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspension of parliament was unlawful, although Hollerich spoke to before the ruling was announced by Lady Hale.

Cardinal-designate Hollerich, 61, who is President of Comece (the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union), said the pace of change caused by digitisation raises questions about how democracies can function in the future.

“Populism in that sense is very dangerous because the questions are not asked anymore,” he said. “You give a very simple answer – and simple answers are popular nowadays. It’s much more difficult to present a complex situation and find complex solutions. But people will also be disillusioned.” “If the United Kingdom is not a member of the European Union, it is still a European country, and we need to have good relations,” he explains. “So we should do everything to have the best deal, and compromises have to be found, and that is very important for me.”

A Catholic bishop in Pakistan has warned of an increase in young Christian and Hindu girls being kidnapped, then forced to convert to Islam and marry their captors.

“There have been many kidnappings recently,” Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore told papal charity Aid to the Church in Need.

“The girls are usually 14, 15. The men often already have one wife. They can be 25 or older. They can also be younger, more like 20,” he added.

The archbishop said he believes the kidnappings sometimes include a religious motivation, since the victims are typically Christian or Hindu. However, he also said that the perpetrators are driven by lust.

According to Aid to the Church in Need, research in Pakistan indicates that up to 700 girls were kidnapped in one year alone.

Shaw said Church leaders had reported the abductions to the police, who were unresponsive. They then contacted government officials, who were more receptive to their concerns.

“Along with the Islamic council, they arranged a meeting with myself and leaders from the Muslim and Hindu communities,” the archbishop said. During that meeting, “[o]ne young Islamic scholar criticized the kidnappings and said forced conversions are not allowed.”

Shaw stressed the importance of enforcing laws against kidnapping in order to end the growing surge of abductions.

“Kidnapping is a crime. It has to be treated as one,” he told Aid to the Church in Need. In August, Catholic and other religious leaders signed a joint resolution asking the Pakistani government to adopt safeguards protecting religious minorities, a move that they said is much needed in the 97% Muslim nation.

A new Pew Research Centre report examines public confidence in groups of people who hold positions of power and responsi-bility in America, including religious leaders.

The other groups included in the survey were members of Congress, military leaders, police officers, principals of K-12 public schools, journalists, leaders of technology companies and local elected officials.

Respondents were asked their views about several aspects of confidence in the performance and outlook of these groups of leaders, such as whether they care about people, handle resources responsibly or provide accurate information to the public. Results were released on 19th September. “In general, U.S. adults express positive opinions about the role of religious leaders play in their communities,” said a Pew report on the survey results. “U.S. adults express the most confidence in religious leaders’ ability to fulfil the spiritual needs of their communities on a consistent basis.

“Three-quarters say religious leaders do a good job providing for the spiritual needs of their communities ‘all or most’ or ‘some of the time,’ while just 23% say religious leaders do this only a little or none of the time. Another seven in 10 U.S. adults say religious leaders care about people like them at least some of the time.”

U.S. adults “are divided over how frequently religious leaders admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them,” it said, with half saying these leaders do this at least some of the time and half saying religious leaders do this “only a little” or “none of the time.”

Pew said the opinions about religious leaders varied by religious affiliation, age and frequency of attendance at religious services.

Adults who have a religious affiliation are more likely than the religiously unaffiliated — those who identify themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” — to say religious leaders “perform key parts of their jobs at least some of the time.”

Among adults who identify with a religious faith, Pew said, evangelical Protestants are among the groups who hold the most positive opinions about religious leaders.