The Election Commission of India has turned down a request to change the election date in West Bengal and Assam from Maundy Thursday. The All India Catholic Union (AICU), the largest laity movement in Asia, submitted a petition asking the commission to reconsider holding polls on April 1, the day before Good Friday, in the eastern and northeastern states. Chandra Bhushan Kumar, deputy election commissioner, rejected the petition on March 1.
Myanmar priest follows nun’s peacemaker act
A day after a Kachin nun’s brave act in confronting security forces, a Catholic priest played a mediator role in a Catholic stronghold in northeastern Myanmar.
Wearing a white robe, Father Celso Ba Shwe, apostolic administrator of Loikaw Diocese, walked in front of dozens of security personnel who stood ready to crack down on anti-coup protesters in Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, on March 9.
As police ordered protesters to disperse via a loudspeaker, the priest pleaded with them not to harm unarmed civilians.
“Please, I plead with you not to give harm,” he told one police officer.
The priest’s request, however, was ignored by security personnel and they started to disperse the protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas, causing several injuries.
Father Ba Shwe’s mediation followed the inspiring example of Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng from Myitkyina, Kachin state, who knelt on the road and begged security forces not to shoot the protesters on Feb. 28 and March 8.
The priest took the role of apostolic administrator of Loikaw on Dec. 21 following Bishop Stephen Tjephe’s death on Dec. 16.
Local Catholics have praised the priest’s brave act and condemned the security forces who ignored his plea.
“I’m proud of being a Catholic as we have priests and nuns who are brave to stand up for the people,” one posted on Facebook.
“Like the priest’s brave act, I wanted to see a cardinal and bishops carrying out the same move in their respective dioceses,” said another comment.
Priests, nuns and seminarians in Loikaw have expressed their solidarity with the people of Myanmar since anti-coup protesters took to the streets nationwide following the Feb. 1 coup. They also rallied to pray for peace in the country by reciting the rosary in early February.
Kayah state is regarded as a stronghold of Catholicism in the Buddhist-majority country and ethnic groups such as the Kayah, Kayan and Kayaw reside in the remote, underdeveloped and mountainous region. About 90,000 Catholics live in a state with a population of 355,000.
Anti-coup protests have continued from urban areas to remote regions including Christian strongholds despite crackdowns bypolice and soldiers.
The military’s brutal approach in recent days has drawn strong condemnation from the United Nations and Western countries including the US and Britain.
On March 9, the 15-member UN Security Council failed to agree on a statement that would have condemned the coup, called for restraint by the military and threatened to consider further measures, according to media reports.
Philippine Jesuit schools call for end to Myanmar violence
Five Jesuit-run universities in the Philippines have issued a joint statement condemning an ongoing deadly crackdown on street protests against Myanmar’s military coup that has claimed at least 70 lives, according to the United Nations. The military takeover on Feb. 1 and the subsequent repression of pro-democracy protesters was illegal and a gross violation of human rights, the March 10 statement called “One with Myanmar, In the Name of Human Fraternity” said.
The statement was signed by the presidents of Ateneo de Naga University, Ateneo de Manila University, Xavier University — Ateneo de Cagayan, Ateneo de Davao University and Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
Myanmar’s military seized control of the country following a national election in which State Counselor Aung San Suu Ky’s National League for Democracy won easily. The military said the election was flawed, a claim dismissed by the country’s election commission. The coup triggered street protests which the military has sought to crush.
At least 70 people have been killed, according to the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, Thomas Andrews, who said there was also mounting evidence of crimes against humanity.
“To our brothers and sisters in Myanmar, we are at your side, united in the defense of your freedom. As one family in the Southeast Asia, we are with you in your noble gift to win democracy back,” said the Jesuit-run schools in their statement.
They said that although Asian countries are diverse in culture and history, each nation is called to a spirit of solidarity.
Catholic nun saves young demonstrators: Cardinal Bo wants the country to be “transformed”
A Catholic religious woman took to the streets in the city of a, the capital of Kachin State in the north of Mynamar, and ask-ed the security forces not to shoot young demonstrators
who are protesting peacefully. Sister Ann Nu Thawng of the Congregation of St Francis Xavier in the diocese of Myitkyina, became the heroine of yesterday, February 28th, which was marked by harsh repression of the Burmese police, who, according to the United Nations, opened fire, killing 18 people and injuring more than 30 nationwide.
“In the Myitkyina area, demonstrations so far have always been peaceful and without incidents. However, yesterday epi-sodes of violence risked precipitating the situation,” said Ca-tholic Joseph Kung Za Hmung, editor of the “Gloria News Journal,” the first Catholic online newspaper in Myanmar. “The action of the nun and the response of the police who, upon seeing the nun’s plea, stopped, surprised many of us. Sister Ann Nu Thawng is today a role model for Church leaders: bishops and priests are called to step out of the their comfort zones and follow her courage as an example.” Many non-Catholics also praised Sister Thawng’s brave efforts, whose entry went viral on social media. “More than 100 demonstrators were able to find shelter in her monastery. It saved them from brutal beatings and arrests by the police,” says the Director.
Christians protest after church demolition in Bangladesh
Christians in Bangladesh claim they are being per-secuted after the demolition of a new church building in the remote Chittagong Hill Tracts region.
About 200 Catholics and Protestants formed a human chain and held a silent protest on March 8 against the demolition of the Seventh-day Adventist Church building. A group of about 10 persons including forest officials demolished the under-construction church building in Sathiram Tripura village of Bandarban district on Feb. 25.
Five Christian Villages Extinct: Survivor tells the story
Five Christian villages in rural Bangladesh are virtually extinct now owing to persecution by Muslims.
Some 400 Christians once lived in five villages near Dhaka’s Nawabgonj area and were spi-ritually tended by the Hasnabad Catholic parish of Dhaka. But now only one Christian woman remains living. Virgin Margarat Gomes, a former schoolteacher, is now the only inhabitant at Nagerkanda in Nawabganj.
The 65-year-old woman now only has the company of 13 cats and five dogs. She has been living alone in the village for the last 24 years, but without the fellow villagers she knew, she has become anguished.
Gomes told her story to Church Militant, explaining that persecution by Muslim “land grabbers” not only decimated her immediate family but became the last straw for other villagers who, already struggling, fled for safer communities instead of fighting to improve the living standards locally.
In Bangladesh, 90% of the people are Muslim while most of the remaining 10% are Hindu and Buddhist. Christians are nearly invisible in the country, comprising less than one-half percent of the population.
Catholics want Holy Week spared as Indian polls approach
The laity council of the Indian bishops’ conference has urged the country’s election commission not to hold state assembly elections in several states during Holy Week. Elections are due to take place in April in federal-ruled Pondicherry and in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal states.
“Holy Week begins this year on March 28 starting with Palm Sunday and goes through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday on April 4. The entire week is of great significance to Christians all over the world,” laity council secretary V.C. Sebastian said in a statement on Feb. 16.
Sebastian said he submitted a letter a day earlier to Sunil Arora, the chief election commissioner, calling for Holy Week to be spared when finalizing dates for the state elections and suggested an alternative date after April 15.
Many Christian institutions and facilities are often used as polling stations, especially in rural areas, while Christians themselves are assigned election duties, which would be awkward if polls are held during Holy Week, he added.
“Assembly elections in Karnataka state last year were held at a time which meant observance of Holy Week became difficult,” he claimed. “Such factors should be considered while finalizing the election dates.”
Cardinal George Alencherry, the major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, also wrote to the election commissioner asking him to take Holy Week into consideration when deciding the dates for the state election in Kerala.
“Since Christian officials will have to discharge their election duties, the date should be on a day that will not clash with Holy Week services,” the cardinal said in the letter dated Feb. 16.
A decision taken in this regard would be favorable and show consideration for the religious interests of Christian voters, election officials and politicians, he said.
Catholics ask Indian state to scrap fishing project
Catholic leaders are among those opposing a multimillion-dollar overseas deep-sea fish-ing project in Kerala that they say threatens the livelihood of ordinary fisher people in the southern Indian coastal state.
Following criticism from opposition leaders and rights groups, the communist-led state government withdrew two memoranda of understanding it signed with a US-based firm that allegedly violated the state’s fishing policy and the rights of poor fisher people.
The government on Feb. 24 withdrew from the MoU signed with EMCC International India Pvt Limited, a US-based firm, for a US$680 million project that purportedly aims to revamp and modernize the state’s fishing industry.
The government also canceled another MoU with the same firm for manufacturing 400 deep-sea fishing vessels and developing the state’s fishing harbors at a cost of some $400 million.
“But still we are not sure if it has scrapped the entire project. We want an assurance from the government that it will not move ahead with the project,” said Father Jacob G. Palackappilly, deputy secretary-general of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council.
Many suspect the government quickly pulled out of the MoU a week after criticism began to surface in the media in the state, where elections are due in April-May.
Farmer organizations condemn exam paper with loaded comments
Farmers organizations have condemned a Chennai’s school’s examination paper that disparages their agitation against new farm laws.
An English language examination paper of Dayanand Arya Vidyalaya Boys’ school in Chennai’s Gopalapuram has labeled the protesting farmers as “violent maniacs” acting under “external instigations.”
During a written English exam on February 11, the renowned school asked its tenth graders to write a 100-to-200-word letter to a daily news-paper editor condemning farm law protesters for the Republic Day violence and for failing to “realize that country comes be-fore personal needs and gain.”
Responding to the wording of this question, All India Kisan Sabha (farmers’ council) General Secretary Hannan Mollah wrote to the Principal, “The AIKS strongly feels that the way in which the question is framed is extremely prejudiced against the just, legitimate and peaceful farmers’ struggle that has been going on at Delhi borders for the last three months.”
He told the school that the question’s general tone is loaded against protesting farmers and will poison young minds against the on-going farmers’ struggle across India. The school is managed by the Arya Samaj Educational Trust.
“We demand that this question be either dropped or it be re-drafted in an objective manner,” he said.
Church in China: 2021 dominated by the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party
July 23, 1921 is the date of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. The event occured in Shanghai in what was once the French Concession. One hundred years after that date, in 2021, the Catholics of China will hold a symposium “in memory of the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party” and will deepen their understanding of “the moving events during the period of the Long March,” which laid the foundations for the definitive victory of Mao Zedong over Chiang Kai Shek.
The information is reported in an article published in the state-Catholic magazine “The Church in China”, by a certain Hui Jing, citing a preparatory meeting between the Chinese bishops and the leaders of the Patriotic Association, held in early February.
The symposium and the study of the Long March are just some of the events that will characterize the program of ecclesial commitments drawn up by the Council of Bishops and the PA for this year.
The article lists “formation courses in collaboration with the Central Institute of Socialism;” preparatory courses for the national gathering of the “Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference” (held in March); the “construction of the Patriotic Association,” and much more.
Naturally, Catholics are firstly required to deepen “the guidelines of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and the 5th Plenary Session of the 19th National Congress,” as well as assimilate “Xi Jinping’s thinking on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” strengthening “our awareness of the need to maintain political integrity, to think in general terms, to follow the heart of the leadership and keep in line with the central Party leadership.”