“If you’re a bird, you’d rather die singing than living a silent life,” is a Chinese saying and starts off The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s extraordinary struggle for freedom, a documentary produced in 2022 by the Acton Institute whose premiere in Italy was held yesterday afternoon at the Institut Français Centre Saint-Louis in Rome.
The film tells the story of the 75-year-old Hong Kong businessman and activist, jailed for more than a thousand days because of the pro-democracy ideas he spread through the Apple Daily, the widely read independent newspaper he founded, forced to shut down by the authorities in 2021, following the promulgation of the mainland’s national security law.
Under the influence of his wife Teresa, he converted to Catholicism in 1997 and was baptised by Card Joseph Zen. During his life, he has put the fight for freedom ahead of everything else.
Danial, the Pakistani tailor who went from being destitute to becoming a ‘Good Samaritan’
Danial Masih, 46, is a tailor in the city of Faisalabad, Punjab. The father of three daughters and two sons, he has nine relatives who depend on him.
Danial had a dream, making school uniforms for local Christian and public schools. However, for a long time, this project was out of his reach because he did not have the necessary financial means.
In the meantime, orders came in from more than a dozen schools in his area, a testament to his tailoring skills and the quality of his work.
Schools relied on him to make uniforms that were not only beautiful but also durable and comfortable for students. But without money to buy the material, he could fulfil all these orders.
That’s when Danial heard about the Good Samaritan Resource Center (GSRC), an organisation committed to helping people who don’t have the means to start their own business. After hearing his story, true to its mission to help people achieve their aspirations, the GSRC decided to help Danial make his dream come true by providing him with the materials and fabric he needed to meet his orders.
A GSRC representative, Rehan Farooq, helped Danial develop his business, from selecting the right materials to buying the fabric needed to make the uniforms.
Isaac Bazal, Nayyer Sarfraz and Kiran Eric, Pakistanis who emigrated to the United States, have supported more than 60 families in Pakistan through their centre.
“I truly believe that the staff of the organisation is working for the poor by the will of Jesus,” Danial told AsiaNews. ”As far as I know, they have never refused support to people in need and have supported them just like the Good Samaritan in the Gospel.
Rare bail is granted to Pakistani Christian blasphemy duo
A rights group has hailed a Pakistani court’s granting of bail to a Christian couple accused of blasphemy for allegedly defiling the Quran and called for changes to the Muslim-majority nation’s blasphemy laws.
In a press statement on Oct. 19, Nasir Saeed, director of the UK-based Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) called the judgment a break from the usual “norm” of Pakistan’s judicial system.
“This landmark judgment breaks from the norm, where trial courts often refuse bail, burdening accused individuals with lengthy legal battles that can extend all the way to the Supreme Court,”
He also praised the “courageous decision” of Additional Sessions Court judge, Mian Shahid Javed, for deciding the case “based on merit.”
Judge Javed granted bail to Kiran Bibi and Shaukat on Oct. 18 citing a lack of evidence of “willful damage or defilement of the original text of the Holy Quran” under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Violations of Section 295-B can result in severe penalties, including life imprisonment, for those found guilty of deliberately defiling, damaging, desecrating, or using a copy of the Holy Quran or its extracts in a derogatory manner or for unlawful purposes.
“The court observed several gaps in the detailed report”
The couple was accused of “defiling… [the] a copy of the Holy Quran,” as per the case filed by Muhammad Tamoor who claimed to have witnessed pages flying off the couple’s house on Sept. 8.
Gaza, Mother Teresa’s nuns under bombardment: ‘Where will these people go?
“In our convent we also felt the effects of the explosion at the al Ahli hospital, we are close to the affected area. The people we host are afraid that it could happen to us too,” recount the Missionaries of Charity, the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, present in Gaza for 50 years. They share their plight with AsiaNews through our contact with Fr. Francis Xavier, Franciscan, Indian Commissioner of the Holy Land.
“I celebrate the morning Mass at the Holy Sepulchre and the nuns of Mother Teresa also participate,” he says. ”In their convent in Jerusalem, there are two Indian nuns, one European and one local. Yesterday, after this celebration, in the Old City, I came to me and asked for help, telling us how extremely serious the situation in Gaza is.”
“We are not worried about ourselves – they told Fr. Francis Xavier – but for disabled children and elderly people bedridden with bedsores. And also for the 600 people who took refuge in our convent after losing their homes in recent days due to the bombings. Where will they go now?”
“Even if my body is in Jerusalem – concludes the Indian Commissioner of the Holy Land – my heart and my mind are in Gaza. May the Prince of Peace give peace to this Earth.”
Mother Teresa’s nuns have been present in Gaza since February 1973. A presence marked from the beginning by sharing the suffering of this tormented land.
Pakistani Senate body seeks end of ‘unjust’ blasphemy cases
A parliamentary body in Pakistan has sought clarifications on cases under the country’s blasphemy laws in its attempts to end ‘unjust’ detentions and to develop standard procedures to address the suffering of religious minorities.
A total of 179 Pakistani citizens are currently in detention, awaiting trial for blasphemy, according to the Standing Committee on Human Rights of the Pakistani Senate, the upper house of the parliament, Vatican’s Fides news agency reported Oct. 19.
The committee also noted that 17 people have been convicted of blasphemy and are awaiting a second trial.
It referred to recent data from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which described the statistics as “heart-breaking.”
The NHRC data were released following anti-Christian mob violence in Jaranwala of Punjab province which left 22 churches and some 91 houses of Christians destroyed in August over alleged desecration of the Quran by two Christians.
Senator Walid Iqbal, chairman of the senate standing committee, sought clarification on blasphemy cases and called for the formation of a national coordination committee within the human rights ministry to develop standard operating procedures to address issues that cause suffering and unjust “collective punishment” to minority communities, the report said.
Iqbal said he was concerned about “the misuse of blasphemy laws as a means to resolve personal issues.”
Pope blames West for rise of Islamic State and lawless Libya
Pope Francis has blamed Western military interventions for the rise of the Islamic State terror group and for the distabilising of Libya and the ensuing migration crisis in the Mediterranean.
In an interview for a new book, the Holy Father said the invasion of Iraq and support for jihadi groups in the so-called “Arab Spring” had created more problems than they have solved.
The British and French support for jihadi groups in the Libyan civil war of 2011, which led to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, had particularly disastrous consequences, the Pope said.
The instability that followed the conflict has since allowed warlords to traffic weapons to jihadis attacking Christians in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa and criminal gangs to traffic vast numbers of migrants across the Mediterranean, tens of thousands of whom have drowned during attempted crossings.
The Pope also said that the invasion of Iraq by an American-led coalition in 2003 directly led to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq neighbouring Syria a decade later.
Francis said the West was misguided in their policies to “import its own type of democracy” into countries with a political culture “similar to” tribal.
“Let’s think about Libya,” said the Pope. “A Libyan told me that they once only had one Gaddafi, but now they have 53.”
‘War knows no religion’: Gaza’s oldest church shelters Muslims, Christians
When an Israeli air raid destroyed Walaa Sobeh’s house and much of her neighbourhood, the Palestinian Muslim sought shelter in Gaza’s oldest church.
At the Church of Saint Porphyrius, she found not just sanctuary, but a feeling of belonging to “one family” — united by both the terror of bombs exploding around them and a hope that they could survive Israel’s attacks.
So she telephoned other relatives in north Gaza and asked them to make their way to the church, too. Sobeh and her family are among hundreds of Palestinians across different faiths who have found safety — at least for now — at the church.
At a time when the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza have sparked a surge in Islamophobia in parts of the world, the Greek Orthodox church has emerged as an emblem of a deeper identity as Palestinians.
“We are here living the day, not sure if we can make it to the night. But what eases our pain is the humble and warm spirit of everyone around,” Sobeh said. She described receiving “enormous support from the priests and other people in the church who volunteer tirelessly around the clock to help the displaced families”.
So far, the church has escaped Israeli missiles.
“The Israeli military has bombed many places of sanctuary,” said Father Elias, a priest at Saint Porphyrius, adding that he was “not sure that Israel won’t bomb the church”, even though it provides shelter for hundreds of civilians.
Israeli bombs have hit several mosques and schools sheltering people whose homes have been blown up.
Any strike on the church “would not only be an attack on religion, which is a vile deed, but also an attack on humanity”, Father Elias said. “Our humanity calls us to offer peace and warmth to everyone in need.”
Pope Francis and U.S. President Biden speak by phone, discuss Israel and Gaza
Pope Francis and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone on October 22 afternoon to discuss “the latest developments in Israel and Gaza,” according to a statement from the White House.
The Holy See Press Office said earlier the phone call lasted about 20 minutes and focused on “conflict situations in the world and the need to identify paths to peace.”
“The president condemned the barbarous attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians and affirmed the need to protect civilians in Gaza,” the White House statement said. The two also talked about Biden’s trip to Israel last week and his efforts at humanitarian assistance in the region.
The pope and the president also discussed “the need to prevent escalation in the region and to work toward a durable peace in the Middle East,” the White House said.
Earlier in the day, Pope Francis in his Sunday Angelus appealed for peace in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which is entering its third week.
Census records 30% drop in Hungary’s Catholic population
A recent official census of religious identity in Hungary offered bad news for those concerned with the future of Christianity in central Europe.
For the first time, a majority of Hungarians (56.6%) failed to declare membership of a faith tradition, with 16.5% declaring “no religion” and a further 40.1% choosing not to answer the question at all.
While all the country’s main denominations were hit badly, results for the Roman Catholic Church, historically the nation’s majority tradition, were worst of all — a drop of 1.1 million (nearly 30%), compared to 2011. The numbers went from an estimated 3.69 million people identifying as Catholics in 2011 to 2.6 million today.
Combined with a smaller loss between 2001 and 2011, Hungary’s Catholic population has shrunk an astounding 50% this century, to just 27.5% of the population.
These facts contrast starkly with the rhetoric of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s far-right prime minister, who has described ”Christian Hungary” as a supposed bulwark against immigration of Muslims and other religious minorities into Europe.
Pope Francis on women deacons: ‘Holy orders is reserved for men’
Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released October 24 in Italy.
The question of whether some women in the early Church were “deaconesses” or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is “not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men,” the pope said.
The pope’s answers to questions about women’s roles in the Church were included in a book published in June in Spanish as “El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones sobre su pontificado.”
The book, whose title means in English “The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy,” was released in Italian on Oct. 24. The Italian edition is titled “Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze,” or “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.”
About the possibility of women deacons, Francis pointed out that the diaconate “is the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”
He said he formed commissions in 2016 and 2020 to study the question further, after a study in the 1980s by the International Theological Commission established that the role of deaconesses in the early Church “was comparable to the benedictions of abbesses.”
In response to a question about why he is “against female priesthood,” Francis told Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin and Italian journalist Francesca Ambrogetti, the authors of the book, that it is “a theological problem.”
“I think we would undermine the essence of the Church if we considered only the priestly ministry, that is, the ministerial way,” he said, pointing out that women mirror Jesus’ bride the Church.
“The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important,” he said. “I think we err in our catechesis in explaining these things, and ultimately we fall back on an administrative criterion that does not work in the long run.”