Churches in Papua have offered to mediate talks between the Indonesian government and separatist groups in a bid to ease tensions in the restive region.
The offer comes amid an escalation in violence in Papua that has seen hundreds of troops deployed and many people dis-placed in a crackdown following the government’s decision on April 29 to declare pro-separatists as terrorists. This followed the death a week earlier of an Indonesian intelligence chief in a shootout with members of the rebel West Papua National Liberation Army.
Church leaders conveyed their concern over the deteriorating situation during a meeting with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mini-ster Mahfud MD in Jakarta on May 25.
The leaders included Sacred Heart Abp Petrus Mandagi of Merauke in Papua, Indonesian bishops’ conference president Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, and Reverend Ronny Mandang, chairman of the Fellowship of Indonesian Evangelical Churches and Institutions.
During the meeting, they offered to act as a mediator in peace talks.
“Many church and ordinary people in Papua are praying the government will hold talks to end the violence immediately,” Reverend Mandang said.
Dialogue must involve all elements to end the conflict
Mahfud responded by saying he was open to Christian leaders acting as mediators.
“If there are parties wanting to become mediators and they are welcomed by various groups in Papua, then we will facilitate that,” he said.
“We ask for dialogue and will exchange ideas with anyone including church leaders who can help forge peace and security for the Papuan people.”
Myanmar’s Junta soldiers are ‘terrorists’
More and more people on social media are describing the military junta responsible for the coup d’état and its soldiers as “terrorists.” The label is not only used to counter the military regime’s use of the “terrorist” label against its opposition, but reflects a broadly held view in the population that the military is reverting back to its cruel old methods, typical of the dictatorship that ruled before the recent short-lived period of democratic government. Increasingly, soldiers walk through markets taking food without paying, stealing valuables from the homes of suspected activists they search, beating defenceless civilians to a pulp, not to mention abducting people of all ages who go missing without leaving a trace.
Indian court favours nun’s petition to ban offensive movie
Delhi High Court has directed the federal Information and Broadcasting Ministry to expeditiously consider a Catholic nun’s demand to ban a movie accused of portraying priests and nuns as “sex maniacs”.
The direction from the state court of the national capital came on May 17 while it was hearing a petition from Sister Jessy Mani, a member of the indigenous Sacred Heart Congregation.
The nun petitioned the court seeking to ban Aquarium, a movie made in the Malayalam language of southern India’s Kerala state.
The movie was due to be released on May 14 through online platforms. However, Kerala High Court stayed its release on May 12 for two weeks, accepting a petition by two nuns to ban it permanently because of highly offensive content.
Sister Mani expects the Central Board of Film Certification, which functions under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, “will understand our concerns and take appropriate action.”
The nun’s petition said the movie depicted nuns and priests having same-sex and heterosexual relationships besides having sex with animals. “It painted a very vulgar picture about Catholic priests and nuns,” she told.
Lawyer Jose Abraham, who represented Sister Mani in court, said the nun “can go back to the High Court again in case the federal government fails to address the concerns raised about the movie.”
The Kerala Church has been fighting the movie’s release since 2013, said Father Jacob Palackappilly, deputy secretary general of the regional bishops’ council.
In 2013, the certification board blocked the movie’s release because of its vulgar and blasphemous content, he said.
Indian guru’s aide accuses medical chief of Christian conspiracy
A day after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) took yoga guru Baba Ramdev to task for remarks criticizing allopathy, his aide Acharya Balkrishna claimed that IMA president Johnrose Jayalal was conspiring to convert the country to Christianity.
Last week Ramdev in a video clip had said that allopathy — the treatment of disease by drugs or surgery — is a “stupid science” and over 10,000 doctors have died even after taking both doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
“As part of the conspiracy to convert the entire country to Christianity, yoga and Ayurveda [alternative medicine] are being maligned by targeting Ramdev,” Balkrishna tweeted on May 25.
“Countrymen, wake up now from the deep slumber, otherwise the generations to come will not forgive you.”
However, Father Julius Arackal, secretary of the Indian Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s office of health, told that the “Indian government vaccine is a scientifically proven fact.”
He added: “The country is going through very difficult times and struggling to cope with the second wave of Covid-19, so we should promote unity and appreciate all good gestures.” IMA president Jayalal is a Christian and comes from the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
“How can Balkrishna claim that the IMA is trying to convert people in the name of vaccination just because the IMA’s president is from one particular group and from one particular state?” Father Arackal asked.
“Our priorities should be to save lives instead of creating differences between caste and creed.”
Father Arackal ponited out that even last July, long before vaccines reached final trials, Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved drug company claimed Coronil could provide strong protection against the coronavirus.
India’s top court demands help for migrant workers
India’s Supreme Court has intervened for the third time in a year after it learned of the plight of migrant workers during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The apex court said on May 24 that its main concern is that benefits and schemes meant for migrant workers must reach them.
The court also said it was concerned about the slow process of registration and asked the federal and state governments to expedite it for migrants and those working in unorganized sectors.
“The intervention from the Supreme Court was much needed because the federal and state governments have failed miserably to handle the case of migrants who are left to cope with hunger, diseases and struggling to go back home to their respective states,” Father Jaison Vadassery, secretary to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India’s Commission for Migrants, told UCA News.
The federal government had not learned from its mistakes last year when migrant workers were left in the lurch, resulting in hundreds of casualties, he said.
India should take the lead from other countries who have declared pandemic deaths as accidents so that insurance companies can provide compensation, he added According to the 2011 census, internal migrants account for 37 percent of India’s population
Land dispute hits Christian cemetery in northern India
A land dispute in Ghaziabad district of India’s Uttar Pradesh state is preventing the Christian community from using a cemetery as the country reels from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Even today, two of our members died of Covid-19 and we are running from pillar to post of the administration office to perform the last rites. If we cannot use the cemetery, we will take them to the neighbouring state of Delhi,” Maneswar Das, a pastor of the Eternal Life Fellowship Society, told UCA News on May 17.
“We have been using the cemetery from 1988 and there was no such problem before, but two persons claimed their share of this land in 2014. Once the case came to our knowledge, we informed the local municipal corporation who asked us to approach the court. The municipal corporation passed a pro-posal in 2018 to give land for the construction of a cemetery for the Christian community.”
However, the contract letter was not given on behalf of the municipal corporation.
St John’s guides Odisha diocese on Covid-19
St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, a prestigious Church institution in Bengaluru, has begun guiding a diocese in Odisha in Covid protocol behaviour.
“My diocese is grateful to St John’s Medical College helping us to deal with the present crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic,” Bishop Niranjan Sualsingh of Sambalpur told Matters India May 25.
As part of the project, the academy on May 24 organized a two-hour webinar for priests, nuns, Brothers, and lay people on how to follow daily pandemic protocol behaviors.
Around 45 people attended the first virtual conference on professional medical guidance on Covid-19 conducted by Doctor Bobby Joseph, head of the Department of Community Health at St John’s Medical College, Bengaluru.
Doctor Joseph explained how the virus spread and suggested ways to identify its symptoms. He also dealt with steps needed for maintaining mental health among the affected and their families and how to care and protect children from the virus. He also stressed precautionary measures to avoid infection and home isolation for the infected, the urgency of treatment and post vaccination care.
Doctor Joseph said he would guide the Church people in Sambalpur through WhatsApp, telephone and email. “Those with symptoms of Covid virus can seek my advice,” he added.
Vatican official’s call on food system wins Indian supporters
Several food rights activists in India have applauded a Vatican official’s call to rebuild the world’s food systems to make it more resilient, inclusive and sustainable.
“We have the potential to embark on this journey together, taking this unique Covid crisis as a unique opportunity,” asserted Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
The Ghanian cardinal spoke at the second of a three-part webinar the Vatican organized by the Vatican on May 26 ahead of a high level UN Food Systems Pre-Summit gathering in Rome in July.
The webinar held under the title, “Food Justice: Jobs, innovation, and finance at the service of food justice.”
“Thanks to Cardinal Turkson for re-iterating Jesus’s vision for an equalitarian society,” says Jesuit Father Irudhaya Jothi, a food rights activist in India’s West Bengal state.
Biraj Patnaik, the former principal advisor to the Supreme Court in the right to food case, welcomed the cardinal asserting the right to food as an inalienable right.
“Indeed, Cardinal Turkson is very interested in these issues and is the points person of the Pope on the right to food,” Patnaik told Matters India.
According to him, the UN is running a major food systems summit and the Vatican does comment on the right to food on such occasions.
“The UN food systems summit is at an opportune moment as the world needs a fundamental reset post-pandemic. Covid 19 has shown us that the world cannot sustain itself at the current levels of inequality,” he added.
Cardinal Turkson had stressed the urgent need to re-imagine and re-build food systems, so they “may become more resilient, inclusive and sustainable.” This is not an “impossible enterprise,” he added.
According to him, “the lack of food is inextricably linked with other social struggles, aggravated by the pandemic.”
Ecumenical center launches Hindu-Christian dialogue series
A weekly program on Hindu-Christian dialogue started by the Bengaluru-based Ecumenical Christian Centre (ECC) has been drawing scores people from across India.
The 25-episode lecture series is titled “Hindu Christian Dialogue for Fellowship: Sages and Saints for Self-Realization and Social Transformation.”
It is meant to understand the saints and sages who laboured for social transfor-mation and advancement of the downtrodden, says ECC director Father Mathew Chandrankunnel. It also aims to help people appreciate the common elements in Hinduism and Christianity and the great masters in both traditions who worked for harmony, peace and progress, the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate priest explained.
Other organizers are the Ramakrishna Mission, Office of the Dialogue of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and Focolare Movement.
The program that began on May 7 will be conducted 6 pm to 7:30 pm on Thursdays. Almost 100 people have attend-ed the program so far. Around 60 of them are registered members as the program is a certificate course on interfaith dialogue.
‘Everywhere, there is pain’: Indian sisters on life in the COVID-19 hotspot
Global Sisters Report invited its sister columnists in India to share their experiences of how the terrible outbreak of COVID-19 has affected their country in the last few months. Six sisters wrote special columns, compiled below, describing their experiences and what it is like on the ground as health workers, as tribal citizens, as compassionate caregivers and as victims of the virus themselves.
Almost all calls and messages shock us with news of death, calls of requests and help, with crying and sobbing. We are tired of responding, “Rest in peace,” and exhorting friends to stay home, stay safe, take care, prayers assured! Everywhere, there is breathlessness, helplessness, mourning, sinking hopes and prevailing despair.
People are being treated by the roadsides, in parks and makeshift hospitals with saline bottles hanging on the trunks and branches of trees. The scarcity of medical facilities is scandalous to us; in this tug of war between life and death, death seems to be stronger, swallowing lives. I was stunned to see on the TV news a woman giving oxygen to her infected husband, mouth to mouth. Ultimately, he died in a car outside the hospital from lack of a ventilator and hospital bed.
. Five priests died in the state of Gujarat in 15 hours. Two sisters of the same congregation, both on the leadership team, died of COVID-19 in two days in the same hospital. I was broken because I had worked with both of them.
One of our kitchen staff lost her husband and daughter on the same day. A parishioner died the day before her daughter. A wife died, but the husband in the ICU does not know it.
As a tribal woman religious, I am saddened that we have lost many young tribal scholars and intellectuals in the pandemic, mainly from Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Odisha.
I managed to talk to the members of a family affected by COVID-19 in my village in Jharkhand. They said: “Sister, we can’t afford to go to hospital as we are poor. We will die of this virus at our home itself. For us, no medicines are available at an affordable price. We don’t have single rooms in our homes to be quarantined.”
It is in this context that I, as a Catholic and religious, am pondering how to revive hope in people who trust in the divine power and existence of God and how to help people to deepen their faith in the Lord.
How and where to get courage and strength? Sometimes, like Jesus’ apostles, I ask: “Where are you, Lord? Why have you forsaken the world and me? Lord, come to save our world and family. ‘Lord, save us. We are perishing’ “ (Matthew 8:25).
But maybe those are the wrong questions. Now, I am asking, “Lord, how are you present to us amid this pandemic reality?” In my spiritual attempt to protect my world from COVID-19, I find that Psalm 91 is helpful in giving me faith.
I have seen people helping enemies; oxygen cylinders being distributed thanks to generous help from several different countries; those who are well praying for the sick. Many families who did not pray are now on their knees, praying with great trust and faith; many are finding solace in online Masses, the divine mercy rosary, and adoration. I composed a Hindi hymn for the intercession of Mother Mary Bernadette, our founder, who served during the cholera epidemic of 1895.
Let us “be positive but test negative.”