Children at the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta have rehearsed well for a traditional Christmas play they were forced to abandon by a terror attack five years ago.
The mayhem caused by two suicide bombers at the church in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province in 2017 is still fresh in the minds of the survivors.
“My eldest daughter was acting as Mary and the son was playing an angel. The terrorists jumped over the church gate, killing nine people and wounding 57. The costumes of some of their friends were stained with blood,” recalls Pastor Simon Bashir.
The nativity play was never held thereafter due to the looming fear of terrorism and then the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, Pastor Bashir encouraged his three children to participate along with their friends, some of whom belong to families of the victims.
The kids performed the nativity play at the jam-packed church on Dec. 11.
“Their spirits were high thanks to the Sunday school training. Even those injured sang jingles. We are not afraid of terrorists,” Bashir to UCA News.
The Methodist Church has dedicated the fourth Sunday of Advent to the martyrs.
Philippine Church is forced to work with dictator’s son
In ancient times, the phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” — the voice of the people is the voice of God — was almost a sacred incanta-tion of every monarch.
When a king’s legitimacy was being questioned, all he needed to do was to resort to divine teaching that his rule was ordained by God because he was chosen by the people to be their ruler.
To seal the cap, the pope himself or a Catholic bishop crowns the king to symbolize the Catholic Church’s imprimatur of his king-ship.
In the recent Philippine elections, however, the “vox populi” statement was put to the test. Many Catholic clergymen and the country’s most influential prelates openly supported the candidacy of former vice-president Leonor Robredo.
For them, it was a moral crusade — a battle between good and evil — where no Catholic could stand on the middle ground.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said there was no room for neutrality in the face of evil, where one is faced with a moral choice to side with the good.
“Supposing there is a troll farm [that spreads lies] and here is a truth farm, can you remain neutral there? You cannot be neutral. When we are neutral and there is oppression, we end up empowering oppressors,” the archbishop said in a homily.
Catholic prelates called these efforts a “pandemic of lies” that led to historical revisionism.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us stand up for truth. Remember: goodness without truth is pretense. Service without truth is manipulation. There can be no justice without truth. Even charity, without truth, is only sentimentalism,” the bishops said in a pastoral statement.
Will Messi keep his promise to the Virgin Mary after winning the World Cup?
After Argentina’s victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a promise made by soccer superstar Lionel Messi to the Virgin Mary has resurfaced. Will he fulfill it?
Lionel Messi, 35, played his fifth World Cup wearing Argentina’s jersey and the team became world champion by beating France on Sunday.
Considered one of the best players in the world, Messi has won 40 titles, 34 with Futbol Club Barcelona (FC) in Spain, two with Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in France, and four with the Argentine National Team. In his career, according to his own words, “this was missing” — to be world champion as a member of his country’s team.
In 2014, the team of which he is captain reached the final in the World Cup in Brazil, where they lost to Germany. In Russia in 2018, Argentina was left out of the competition in the Round of 16.
It was precisely at that World Cup that he made a special promise to the Virgin.
In an interview in Moscow with the Argentine journalist Martín Arévalo, Messi was challenged by the reporter to walk “to Luján or to San Nicolás,” two of the most important shrines in Argentina, if the team won the World Cup.
Lujan, Argentina, is the site of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, the patroness of the country, which every year attracts millions of pilgrims.
In San Nicolás — a city near Rosario, Messi’s birthplace — is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás, which has a history of Marian apparitions that began in 1983 with messages from the Virgin to Gladys Quiroga de Motta During his career, Messi has shown devotion to God and to be a believer. After winning the World Cup, his statements to the press did not omit the role that he attributes to the Lord in the victory: “I knew that God was going to grant this gift to me, I had a presentiment that it was going to be this,” he told the TyC Sports television channel.
Christmas reborn in Bethlehem after pandemic years
With a giant evergreen tree, colourful balloons in the streets and selfies in the Church of the Nativity, Christmas tourism has returned to Bethlehem after two years of Covid-related restrictions.
Revered in Christian tradition as the birthplace of Christ, the town of Bethlehem welcomes thousands of pilgrims and tourists for Christmas every year, a windfall that dried up over the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and travel restrictions.
Now with restrictions lifted in the Palestinian territories and Israel, where the closest international airport with access to Bethlehem is located, the southern West Bank town has taken on a festive air.
Scouts marched with bagpipes as thousands of onlookers lining the streets held balloons and cotton candy.
With travel restrictions lifted in the Palestinian territories and Israel, where the closest international airport with access to Bethlehem is located, the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem has taken on a festive air.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, greeted worshippers upon his arrival to the town, ahead of leading the annual Christmas eve procession at the Church of the Nativity.
“Christmas is the town’s celebration, and we put in a lot of time and effort to prepare for it,” Bethlehem mayor Hanna Hanania told.
Ortega’s Brutal Catholic Crackdown – Where’s the Outrage?
For millions of Christians around the world, the official religious Christmas season kicked off this week with a renewed sense of normalcy – an abundance of colourful lights, parades and processions, family and church gatherings, and even fireworks in some areas.
Many believers in countries where Christians are religious minorities such as China and India are embracing the festivities with new enthusiasm. Early December marks the first time annual public and private advent gatherings have been allowed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet, in Nicaragua, a predominantly Christian nation, festivities planned by some of its most devout believers are running afoul of harsh new government restrictions that have nothing to do with the pandemic.
A parish in the Archdiocese of Managua reported on its Facebook page that the National Police, which operates under the orders of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, prohibited it from going ahead with a planned procession commemorating the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Celebrated on Dec. 8, the feast is one of the most important in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, venerating the Virgin Mary and marking the start of the Christmas season in many countries, including Italy, where it’s a national holiday.
Nigeria terror attacks kill 46, despite hopes for ‘peaceful Christmas’
An automobile burned amid December 2022 terror attacks in Malagum 1 community of Kagoro Chiefdom, Kaura Local Government Council, Southern Kaduna, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Credit: Fr. Mattew Saleh.
At least 46 villagers were killed last week in northern Nigeria, in two separate attacks believed to have been perpetrated by a group of Fulani herdsmen.
A local diocesan official told The Pillar that priests are providing spiritual care, as local Christians prepare for Christmas after a devastating and unexpected attack.
The attacks took place over three days, and across four villages in Kaduna, a state in the northern region of Nigeria.
Attackers reportedly lit fire to houses in two villages late in the evening of Dec. 11; humanita-rian agencies report that some victims were burnt alive as they slept. The violence continued in attacks on two other villages in the days following.
“The killings … started around 11pm Sunday night simultaneously [and] lasted for long, poor innocent citizens were killed,” the Southern Kaduna Peoples’ Union, a local humanitarian agency, said in a Dec. 19 statement.
The carnage left no “less than 100 houses razed, with some victims burnt alive,” the aid group said.
Pope to Curia: ‘Be vigilant, evil comes back under new guises’
Exchanging traditional Christmas greetings with members of the Roman Curia on December 22 , Pope Francis delivered a seven-point speech in which he asked them to never take the Lord’s graces for granted, to always walk a path of conversion, and to be peace-makers at a time in which we have never “felt so great a desire for peace.”
Reflecting on how Jesus’ birth in a simple and poor manger is a lesson in seeing things as they really are, he said “each of us is call-ed to return to what is essential in our own lives, to discard all that is superfluous and a potential hindrance on the path of holiness.”
The Pope went on to call for what he described as the most important interior attitude: gratitude.” Only when we are conscious of the Lord’s goodness to us can we also give a name to the evil that we have experienced or endured. The realization of our poverty, without the realization of God’s love, would crush us,” he said.
“Without a constant exercise of gratitude, we would end up simply cataloguing our failures and lose sight of what counts most: the graces that the Lord grants us each day.”
Reflecting on an eventful year, the Holy Father said that “before anything else, we want to thank the Lord for all His blessings. Yet we hope that among those blessings is that of our conversion.”
“Conversion is a never-ending story. The worst thing that could happen to us is to think that we are no longer in need of conversion, either as individuals or as a community.”
The Holy Father said that this process is far from complete and noted that the current reflection on the Church’s synodality high-lights how the process of understanding Christ’s message never ends, but constantly challenges us to keep Christ’s message alive and not imprison it.
He stressed the need for vigilance, warn-ing those present that it would naïve to think evil is permanently uprooted: “In short order, it comes back under a new guise.”
“Before, it [evil] appeared rough and violent, now it shows up as elegant and refined. We need to realize that and once again to unmask it.”
Hackers planted evidence on computer of jailed Indian priest, report says
For months, Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest, claimed his innocence in courts and pleaded for medical care, but Indian authorities denied him bail. He died at a hospital in July 2021 after spending more than eight months in jail on terrorism charges.
Now, an examination of an electronic copy of his computer by Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm, concludes that a hacker infiltrated his device and planted evidence, according to a new report by the company. The analysis is more proof that Swamy and his co-defendants were framed in a case that exemplifies the Indian government’s crack-down against civil society and prominent critics, the defense team says.
More than a dozen activists, academics and lawyers have been imprisoned under an anti-terrorism law — some for more than four years — accused of having ties to a banned Maoist armed group that aims to overthrow the government. They deny the charges. The stringent terrorism law has drawn criticism in part because the accused can rarely secure bail and cases brought under the law have a poor conviction rate.
They were accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The evidence was planted, a new report says.
In 2021, The Washington Post reported that devices of at least two defendants in the case had been compromised by hackers who deposited dozens of incriminating documents in the devices. This malware campaign targeted individuals beyond those facing charges in the case.
Separately, the Pegasus Project investigation by The Post and 16 other news organizations revealed that some of the defendants were included on a list of surveillance targets for spyware supplied by the Israeli firm NSO Group to governments or their agencies. The Indian government has neither confirmed nor denied that it is an NSO client. In June, Wired reported links between the hacking campaign and Indian police, who did not respond to the report.
Chinese housing rights activist jailed
A court in China has jailed a housing rights activist for the second time on the charge of incitement against the state, a common accusation routinely used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to suppress dissent.
The Intermediate People’s Court in Shanghai found Chen Jianfang, 51, guilty of “incitement to subvert state power,” during a closed-door trial wherein she was refused the right to a defence attorney, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on December 1.
The exact jail time is unknown but she has been fined 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) as a monetary penalty.
Her supporters termed the allegations baseless and refused to accept the verdict.
Rights lawyer Wang Yu said that Chen “appeared in court alone, and no one was present, neither family members nor defence attorneys, when the verdict was pronounced.”
Wang said that the exact date of the verdict was not known but officials have recently revealed the sentence.
“Chen Jianfang’s husband was perhaps a little more co-operative, so the authorities let him know the verdict,” Wang said. “Even a one-day sentence would have been too long be-cause she is totally innocent.”
Indian Christians seek police protection to sing carols
A Christian group in the southern Indian state of Karnataka has sought police protection for the minority community during the Christmas season.
The Akhila Bharatha Christha Mahasabha (All India Christian Forum), a Protestant body, in a written communication to the Director General and Inspector General of Police requested to ensure a peaceful Christmas as Christians are reeling under attacks “since the enactment of the anti-conversion law.”
Prajwal Swamy S, founder member of the organization, said they wanted the police to provide security cover to churches across the southern state during the festive season.
“Christians are apprehensive of participating in carol singing and visiting the houses of church members during the night for good wishes as they may face attacks,” Swamy told The Hindu newspaper.
“Christians in Karnataka are fearful about being target-ed.”
He cited two recent incidents of Hindu nationalists disrupting Christian prayer meetings in Channapatna and Maddur, both located around 60 kilometers from the state capital Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), by alleging religious conversion activities.