The Pakistan government has dropped a bill meant to protect the interests of its religious minorities on Aug. 9 amid civil society organizations calling for a stronger law to protect basic human rights. The National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house, passed the draft law — the National Commission for Minorities Bill, 2023 — on Aug. 7.
However, the upper house, the Senate, did not table the bill for discussion on Aug.9, the last session of this government. Get the latest from UCA News. Sign-up to receive our daily newsletter
The bill now faces an uncertain future as the government recommended the dissolution of parliament to help the nation elect a new government within months.
Parliament dropped the bill amid opposition to it from the Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights (JAC), which includes Muslims and Christians. The committee said the bill does not ensure that the rights body will be “effective, independent, autonomous.”

As we know China has both official state-sanctioned churches (Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association) and unofficial underground churches that maintain their allegiance to the Vatican. Even though it is hard to estimate the total number of Catholics in China, figures always tend to range between 10 to 12 million.
To address the historical division between them, one significant development was the signing of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in September 2018.
This agreement aimed to resolve the longstanding issue of conflicting appointments of bishops by both the Vatican and the Chinese government, which had led to divisions within the Catholic community in China.
Understanding the true situation on the ground regarding whether these agreements will effectively mend the division between the two faith communities is a challenging endeavour.
While assessing the well-being and vibrancy of the visible official Church is relatively straightforward, as it is openly visible, gauging the condition of the underground Church is a more intricate task due to the limited first-hand reports available.
I had a rare opportunity to directly witness a clandestine gathering within the underground Church, an experience that stands as a testament to its existence and uniqueness.
“I was introduced to the climate of caution and secrecy under which the Chinese ‘underground’ Church operates”
It was around eight years ago and I was venturing into one of China’s most captivating cities, Qingdao. Here one could easily get lost in the alleys of Badaguan, feeling a world apart from the sweeping empire of new riches that have sprouted concrete monstrosities across the Chinese landscape. In contrast, this neighbourhood boasts charming villas with red roofs due to its German inheritance.
Fate had it that on board a bus en route to the city centre, I encountered a Chinese nun in secular clothing. Noticing the wooden cross she wore around her neck — an uncommon sight in China — I struck up a conversation. She resided in the Philippines and was visiting her ailing mother.
She opened up about the underground Church, a distinct entity from the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association that does not recognize the pope’s authority. Almost instinctively, I inquired about the possibility of attending a “secret” Mass.

Leaders of China’s state-run church say seminary formation, including textbooks used in seminaries, should be aligned with the government’s sinicization policy.
Their concerns were expressed at the latest meeting of the Working Group on the progress of the compilation of “unified teaching materials” in Catholic seminaries in Pingliang city in Gansu province in eastern China.
The meeting was arranged by the Seminary Department of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference (BCCCC), says a report on the bishops’ conference website dated Aug. 7.
The participants of the July 28-30 meeting included Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing, chairman of the CCPA, Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai of Chengde, vice-chairman of the BCCCC, Bishop Li Hui, deputy secretary-general of the BCCCC and head of the Seminary Department.
Members of the four teams assigned for the compilation of seminary textbooks attended the meeting.
Bishop Guo presided over the meeting and urged all to adhere to the spirit of state policy of the sinicization of religion in seminary formation.

Thirty-two years after Manila, World Youth Day (WYD) will return to Asia. Seoul will in fact host the event in 2027, while Rome (Italy) will organise the jubilee of young people in August 2025.
Pope Francis made the announcement this morning in Lisbon at the end of the final Mass of the great gathering that saw a million young people from all over the world travel to Portugal. “From the western edge of Europe to Far East Asia,” said the pontiff, is “a beautiful sign of universality”.
As a venue for WYD, Seoul was neither unexpected nor a certainty. Last October, AsiaNews had spoken to the recently appointed Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul, OCD, on the sidelines of the General Conference of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).
On that occasion, the young prelate had expressed the desire of the Korean Church to host the next WYD, hoping that it could be a “turning point” for the youth ministry in one of the many Asian countries facing demographic winter as a result of sub-replacement fertility levels.
South Korea now has the lowest fertility rate in the world, namely 0.78 children per woman in 2022, just 249,000 births in a nation of 51 million.

Will Saudi Arabia make Friday a working day? A proposal to that effect has sparked heated debates and elicited strong opinions. It is also proof that things are changing in Islam’s birthplace, home to its two holiest cities, Makkah and Madinah.
The Okaz newspaper recently published an op-ed titled “Friday is a working day”, breaking a taboo about Islam’s holy day of prayer.
In her piece, writer Mona Al-Otaibi questions the traditional Friday-Saturday weekend, saying that the kingdom needs an overhaul. This has sparked a storm on social media between those for and against it.
The author notes that Saudi Arabia suffers financial losses because Friday is an important working day in the world of finances.
Hence, Saudi authorities should consider a Saturday-Sunday weekend, like in the United Arab Emirates, which switched last year after announcing it 2021.
Under a decree issued by King Abdullah in 2013, the weekend was moved from Thursday-Friday, to Friday-Saturday in order to align Saudi financial and business activities with international markets,
Qatar, a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), was one of the first to adopt the Friday-Saturday weekend some 20 years ago, followed by Bahrain in 2006 and Kuwait in 200. The Sultanate of Oman implemented the change a month before Saudi Arabia in 2013.
In the Arab world the Friday-Saturday weekend is in place in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, and Iraq; in Lebanon (which has a large Christian population), Morocco and Tunisia, Saturday and Sunday are days off. In these countries, some businesses voluntarily close to allow employees to attend Friday prayers.
A prominent Saudi dissident and activist, known online as Mujtahidd, was among the first Saudi to react to the article. he suggests that the idea to “cancel the Friday holiday” probably came from former royal adviser Saud Al-Qahtani.