Saudi Arabia will compen-sate 10,000 Filipino workers who lost their jobs in the Gulf country years ago and are still waiting for their salaries, Philippine offi-cials said.
The announcement came after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Philippine Presi-dent Ferdinand Marcos met Fri-day on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok.
Philippine Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople said the compensation package of two billion riyals ($532 million) would “help our displaced workers”.
It was unclear if unpaid work-ers from other countries would also receive some of the money.
“This is very good news. He (Prince Mohammed) told me this is their gift to us,” Marcos said late Friday.
Saudi Arabia plunged into economic crisis in 2015 following a sharp decline on oil prices, leading construction companies to lay off tens of thousands of foreign workers. More than 700,000 Filipinos work in the kingdom, most of whom are domestic and construction workers, according to latest official data.
Ancient Stone Marks China’s First Encounter with Christianity
Earlier this year, scientists anno-unced that the Black Death had ori-ginated in the Tian Shan mountain ranges that pass through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang (China), and Uzbekistan. Evidence for this reve-lation came after studying DNA from human remains in two 14th-century cemeteries in Kyrgyzstan. These are well-known archaeological sites, and on one of the tombstones is an inscri-ption in Old Uyghur indicating Nesto-rian Christian beliefs.
Today, this tradition of Christia-nity largely exists in the Middle East and is known as the Assyrian Church of the East. Most of the Christians brutally killed by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in recent years belonged to this church that shares the Nestorian Christology. Despite the narrow geographic region they inhabit today, the church once sent missio-naries out across Asia, eventually entering China in the seventh century.
In A.D. 451, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the full deity of Christ, the full humanity of Christ, Christ being one person, and that the deity and humanity of Christ were distinct and not blurred together. This theology was adopted by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox churches within the Roman Empire, and later by post-Reformation Protestants. However, five Oriental churches, most of which were outside of the boundary of the Roman Empire, refused to accept the Chalcedon definition of faith: the Armenian Church, the Coptic Church, the Assyrian (Syriac) Church, the Ethiopian Church, and the Indian Church of Malabar.
The mission to rectify illicit unions in Bangladesh
Twenty-two years ago, Swa-pan Das fell in love with Sabina Das but their Catholic parish in Bangladesh refused to solemnize their marriage.
That was because the bride was only 14, and solemnizing her marriage would have been a vio-lation of Church laws and a cri-minal offense under national law. Both laws allow only women of 18 years and above to marry.
Das, then 23, managed to get a fake birth certificate for her and they married in a civil court in the Panchagarh district in northern Bangladesh. That meant the couple being barred from the Sacraments and Catholics in their Sarker Para village excluding them from social programs.
The life of Das and his wife changed for the better on Nov 7, when their marriage was rectified at the Queen of Fatima Church in Thakurgaon district along with their three children.
“Many still prefer marriage in their own traditional way rather than following a Church-mandated marriage process”
Each year their Dinajpur diocese rectifies dozens of illicit marriages, following the process of a Church law, to bring Catho-lics back to sacramental life and build up Catholic communities, officials said.
The Das couple were among ten others who had their marriage rectified by the Church. All of them are Catholics whose ance-stors converted to Catholicism from lower-caste Hindu groups.
Korean Catholics honour human body donors
Catholics in the South Korean capital Seoul joined a memorial Mass at the Yongin Park Cemetery to pay tributes to 6,000 donors who donated their bodies for scientific purposes in the last 55 years.
This annual commemoration takes place during the third week of November, a month dedicated to the departed souls in the Catholic Church. The donation of bodies helps the medical community at the Catholic Medical Centre (CMC) and its eight affiliated medical schools to study anatomy, Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC) reported. The medical school states that as of now 36,000 volunteers have registered to donate their bodies as cadavers for educational and research purposes after death.
Cardinal Zen convicted in Hong Kong court, ordered to pay fine
Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen was found guilty of failing to register a pro-democracy charity in the Chinese territory and ordered to pay a $512 fine.
A court in the West Kowloon area of Hong Kong Nov.25 convicted Cardinal Zen, age 90, and other trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund of violating the Societies Ordinance, which requires local organizations to register or apply for an exemption within a month of their establishment.
The 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was set up to help people who had been arrested during protests three years ago pay for medical and legal fees. The number 612 refers to June 12, 2019, the date of a major protest against a Beijing-sponsored extradition bill in Hong Kong. The fund has since shut down.
Cardinal Zen, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and an outspoken advocate of religious freedom and civil liberties, was first arrested in May on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed National Security Law.
A number of trustees, including the cardinal, were each fined 4,000 Hong Kong dollars ($512). A sixth defendant, Sze Ching-wee, the fund’s secretary, was fined HK$2500 ($320) for his lesser role.
Zen’s lawyer, Robert Pang, argued in court last month that imposing “criminal sanctions on the failure to register must be an infringement of freedom of association,” according to Catholic News Agency.
Principal Magistrate Ada Yim said that the fund was not set up purely for charitable purposes but “clearly came into contact with matters of the public interest and zealously raised funds from the public to achieve their objectives.”
But she decided to impose a fine lower than the $1,200 for which the law calls.
According to former pro-democracy lawmaker and fellow defendant Margaret Ng, the case was the first time residents had to face a charge under the Societies Ordinance for failing to register.
India Supreme Court orders government to tackle ‘forced conversions’
After the Supreme Court of India asks the central government to tackle the issue of “forced conversions,” a leading Catholic archbishop warns “what is at stake is not conversion but the right to freedom of conscience as also the right to preach, profess and propagate one’s religion.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court directed the government to step in and make “very serious and sincere efforts” to handle the “very dangerous” issue of forced conversions, saying the issue may “affect the security of the nation and freedom of religion and conscience.”
Hindu nationalists often accuse Muslims and Christians of targeting marginalized low caste and Tribal Hindus to convert through illicit means, such as offering them food or money.
Several states have already passed anti-conversion laws, which impose fines and jail terms for anyone convicted of a “forced conversion.”
Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore said the Catholic Church is completely opposed to illicit means of proselytizing.
“The learned Judges of the Supreme Court of India have rightly said that forced conversions is a serious issue. We deplore forced conversions as also fraudulent conversions. They are an affront to our dignity. We do not support these unethical moves,” he told.
New ACN report says persecution of Christians still rising
The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is holding its annual international Red Week campaign to draw attention to religious freedom and persecuted Christians across the world.
Although the events are spread throughout the month, many of the prayer nights and testimonies around the world will be held on 23 November, #RedWednesday.
The annual campaign was launched on November 16 with the official release in London of the ”Persecuted and Forgotten?” Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith in 2020–22. The study supplements the annual Religious Freedom Report of the international charity and is prepared by ACN national office in the UK.One of its key findings shows that, in 75 percent of the 24 countries surveyed the persecution of Christians has further increased in the past two years.
Of particular concern is the plight of Christians in the Middle East where, in several countries, once flourishing communities risk disappearing as a result of mass migration due to various reasons, ranging from Islamic fundamentalism to discrimination, wars and economic woes.According to the report, since the foundation of the State of Israel, in 1948, the number of Christians in the Palestinian territories has plummeted from 18 per cent to under 1 per cent of the population, due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian tens-ions and economic difficulties. In the past two years over 5,000 Christians have left the territories, including Jerusalem, adding to the tens of thousands who have al-ready left, mostly for Europe, the United States, and Canada.
The Christian exodus from Syria and Iraq has been even more dramatic, especially during the Islamic State’s (Daesh) insurgency in 2014-2017.
Similarly in Syria, the ongoing civil war between Bashar al-Assa-d’s regime and insurgents and the threat of a full-scale resurgence of Daes, as well as a dramatic economic crisis are still forcing Christians to leave the country and are discouraging many of them from returning to their homes.
As the crippling economic crisis grinds on in Lebanon, amid political and institutional instability, many Christians continue to leave this country too. Over the past 30 months, the Canadian embassy in Beirut received over 10,000 immigration applications from young people and families.
Regarding countries in other parts of the world, the study further calls attention to the sharp rise in terrorist violence from non-state militants, and in particular in Nigeria where the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram continues to sow terror and more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians were reportedly murdered bet-ween January 2021 and June 2022.
Census: Christians a minority in England; non-religious grow
Fewer than half the people in England and Wales consider themselves Christian, according to the most recent census — the first time a minority of the population has followed the country’s official religion.
Britain has become less religious — and less white — in the decade since the last census, figures from the 2021 census released on November 28 by the Office for National Statistics revealed.
Some 46.2% of the population of England and Wales described themselves as Christian on the day of the 2021 census, down from 59.3% a decade earlier. The Muslim population grew from 4.9% to 6.5% of the total, while 1.7% identified as Hindu, up from 1.5%.
More than 1 in 3 people — 37% — said they had no religion, up from 25% in 2011.
The other parts of the U.K., Scotland and Northern Ireland, report their census results separately.
New report: Anti-Christian violence ‘passes threshold of genocide’ in some countries
Anti-Christian persecution in Nigeria and other countries “clearly passes the threshold of genocide,” according to a report released Wednesday by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The Catholic charity found that oppression or persecution of Christians increased in 75% of the countries it tracked between October 2020 and September 2022, compared with the period 2017-2019.
The study, “Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020–22,” concluded that “esca-lating violence – often aimed at driving Christians out – meant that the faithful suffered some of the world’s most vicious cam-paigns of intimidation orchestra-ted by militant non-state actors.”
“Of particular concern in this regard is Africa where extremism threatens previously strong Christian communities. In Nigeria and other countries this violence clearly passes the threshold of genocide,” it said.
Jewish actor converts to Catholicism: the Virgin Mary ‘is my most beautiful love’
The famous Jewish actor and humorist Gad Elmaleh, beloved in France, announced his conversion to the Catholic faith, a process in which he says the Virgin Mary played a crucial role.
Elmaleh, 51, was the partner of Charlotte Casiraghi, the daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, with whom they have a son named Rafael.
His conversion to Catholicism is depicted in his new film, “Reste un peu,” (“Stay a while”).
The Jewish actor, who according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo will take the name of Jean-Marie when he is baptized, has studied theology in Paris, and in 2019 he participated in a musical in London about St. Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary who saw Our Lady of Lourdes.
Elmaleh told the French newspaper Le Figaro that “the Virgin Mary is my most beautiful love” and expressed his surprise that in France the “vast majority of Catholics don’t live their faith openly.”
As a child, he recounted in the interview, he entered a church and saw an image of the Mother of God.
“It wasn’t a vision, just a simple statue, but I was petrified. I began to cry and hid for fear of being discovered by my family, for fear of curses and super-stition. I kept it a secret for my entire childhood,” he recalled.
In an interview on the program “L’invité” (“The Guest”), posted Nov. 9 on YouTube, Elmaleh spoke about the film “Reste un peu,” which will open in France Nov. 16.
The actor’s actual parents are in the film, who are not very “happy” with his decision to convert to Catholicism but who have chosen to give him their support.
The actor and humorist said that “it’s true that it’s a spiritual, religious coming out. There’s a lot of mixture of fiction and reality,” but “it’s true that I question myself at the age of 50.”“It’s a search in which I ask myself where, who, when, there’s a God, there is no God,” he said, but he affirms that “the Virgin Mary calls me and protects me.”