Sri Lanka has lost half a million jobs in industry and services. With the rising cost of living, this has doubled the national poverty level to 25 %, this according to the World Bank’s latest report titled, “Sri Lanka Development Update 2022”.
One of the consequences has been the growth in regional disparities. While poverty jumped to 15 per cent in urban areas, it skyrocketed to 52 % in rural areas.
Several factors in the past five years explain this development, most notably a restrictive trade regime, a poor investment climate, and a careless monetary policy, not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic.
After its credit rating was downgraded, Sri Lanka lost access to international financial markets in 2020. As a result, its official reserves fell from US$ 7.6 billion in 2019 to less than US$ 500 million in December 2022.
Against this background, the World Bank has insisted on debt restructuring and growth-enhancing structural reforms, but these must be accompanied by measures to combat poverty.
For Faris Hadad-Zervos, World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, “The current crisis is not a temporary liquidity shock that can be resolved by external financing support from outside. Instead, the crisis provides a unique opportunity to implement deep and permanent structural reforms that may be difficult in normal circumstances. Sri Lanka can use this opportunity to build a strong and resilient economy.”
Asian nations among worst religious freedom violators
China, Myanmar, North Korea, India, and Pakistan were listed among the worst offenders against religious freedom or belief last year, according to an annual report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The commission’s report, released on May 1, documented “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations” of the right to freedom of religion or belief across the world.
It recommended listing 17 nations as “countries of particular concerns (CPC)” — Myanmar, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Nicaragua, India, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Vietnam, and Afghanistan, stating that governments in those countries engage in or tolerate violation of religious freedom or belief.
Cuba and Nicaragua have been added to the CPC list for the first time.
China has been listed in the CPC since the commission started publishing the report in 1998 due to various forms of religious persecution such as torture, forced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and unjust convictions.
India has been added to the list for the first time since 2004.
“The national government used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating religious freedom across India, especially for Muslims. Most notably, it enacted the Citizenship [Amendment] Act, which provides a fast track to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan already residing in India,” the report said.
Nearly half of world’s child brides are in South Asia
South Asia faces the daunting task of eliminating child marriages as the region is home to nearly half of the world’s child brides, says a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
South Asian countries account for 290 million or 45 % of the total of 640 million child brides globally, according to the report released on May 1.
South Asia is followed by sub-Saharan Africa with 20 % child brides, East Asia and the Pacific at 15 %, and Latin America and the Caribbean at 9 %, the report said.
The report used data collected from women aged 20 to 24 years who were married before the age of 18.
UNICEF in its report stated that the current rate of decline in the practice of child marriage was insufficient to achieve the target of eliminating it by 2030.
“In fact, at the current rate, it will take another 300 years until child marriage is eliminated [globally],” the report said.
According to the report, the pace of decline must be at least 20 times to reach the sustainable development goals of child marriage eradication set by UNICEF.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) no 5.3 targets to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation.”
Among South Asian nations, India is a major contributor accounting for around one-third of the world’s child brides while leading the fight to eliminate the practice.
The fading Japanese Church, the growing Church in Japan
The number of foreigners living in Japan has reached an all-time high. According to the country’s Immigration Services Agency, more than three million aliens were living in Japan at the end of 2022.
In fact, the agency’s count of 3,075,213 is lower than the actual number because there are undocumented aliens in the country in addition to those who have been processed and recorded officially.
It has been projected that in half a century, nearly 11 percent of the population will be non-Japanese while the population overall will drop from the present 126 million to 87 million.
The largest groups of foreign residents are from China, Vietnam and South Korea. Others from the Philippines, Brazil and other countries of Latin America are reshaping the Catholic Church as they have become the majority of Japan’s Catholics.
For decades, Japan has resisted welcoming immigrants. Almost all the three million are in the country as students, trainees or specialists of one kind or other. However, many of them are in fact immigrants in all but name and legal status. They will remain in Japan either legally or illegally, and increasingly are starting families there, sometimes with Japanese partners.
Japan’s population is declining and the country desperately needs more people to maintain its economy and, as the population ages, the national health insurance system. Speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, “Time is running out to procreate.”
Blasphemy lynching scares Pakistani Christians
A mob in Pakistan lynched a Muslim cleric for allegedly committing blasphemy by defaming Prophet Muhammad on the 25th death anniversary of Catholic Bishop John Joseph who killed himself protesting controversial blasphemy law.
Nigar Alam, 40, was beaten to death on May 6 after he made a speech during a political rally in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
He reportedly said he respected a local administrator as much as Prophet Muhammad, enraging a crowd in Sawal Dher village of Mardan, police said.
The police initially managed to bring Alam to safety in a nearby shop, but the crowd forcibly dragged him out after breaking the door and beat him to death.
The killing took place on the same day when Bishop Indrias Rehmat of Faisalabad distributed shields among 25 associates of Bishop Joseph, the former bishop of the diocese, as an act of honor.
Bishop Joseph shot himself on May 6, 1998, in front of a court in Sahiwal after a Christian, Ayub Masih, was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the founder of Islam.
In 2002, the Supreme Court overturned Masih’s conviction and released him.
Blasphemy is a serious criminal offense in the Muslim-majority nation, Pakistan law confers a death sentence for insulting Prophet Muhammad.
Pope lands in Hungary rallying for a unified, welcoming Europe
Pope Francis kicked off his three-day visit to Hungary on April 28 praising the country for its traditional values and making a forceful appeal for European unity, decrying the rise of nationalist populism he faulted for a breakdown in multilateralism.
He also advocated on behalf of migrants in a country with a strict closed-door policy, saying the Christian attitude is one of acceptance and welcome.
Shortly after landing in the Hungarian capital of Budapest Friday morning for his April 28-30 visit to the city, the pope held private meetings with Hungarian President Katalin Novák and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, with whom he has often butted heads over the migration issue.
There has been a thaw between the two over Hungary’s willingness to welcome Ukrainian refugees, however, there is still tension of Hungary’s broad anti-migration policy, which some have argued has opened the door to traffickers while authorities look the other way.
Speaking to Hungarian authorities and members of the diplomatic corps after his arrival Friday morning, Pope Francis noted that this year Budapest is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding in 1873 through the unification of three former cities, Buda, Obuda, and Pest.
“The birth of this great capital in the heart of the continent invites us to reflect on the process of unification undertaken by Europe, in which Hungary plays a vital role,” he said, noting that in the post-war era, Europe along with the United Nations committed to forging stronger international ties so as to avoid further conflict.
However, Francis lamented that in modern times, “that passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past” in which the chorus of peace is dying out and “the soloists of war now take over.”
Francis lamented the rise in nationalism within Europe and the use of “harsher judgements and language” among those who disagree.
In this context, he said “it seems that politics serves more to stir up emotions rather than to resolve problems, as the maturity attained after the horrors of the war give way to regression towards a kind of adolescent belligerence,” he said.
Harassment continues against Indian Christians
Around 50 Christians, including 10 pastors, were attacked in an Indian village in Chhattisgarh State on Sunday following accusations of religious conversion by a radical Hindu party.
The community had gathered to pray in a private home when an armed mob, reportedly belonging to the militant Hindu nationalist organization, Bajrang Dal, surrounded the home, barged in, and stopped them.
Fearing for their safety, the Christians locked themselves inside the house and called the police.
But when the police arrived, they reportedly arrested the house’s owner, the pastors, and a few other Christians for “disturbing the peace.”
Although they were released in the evening that same day, Ankush Barayiekar, an attendee of the prayer meeting, accused the police of beating up some of the pastors who then required treatment at the local hospital.
The house’s owner, local dentist Dr. Vinay Sahu, said that they did not use microphones and loudspeakers and did not cause noise pollution. “We cannot understand the reason for these attacks,” he added.
Survey of New Priests: Most Pray Rosary, Go To Eucharistic Adoration, Parents Stayed Married
CARA sought survey respon-ses from the 458 seminarians to be ordained this year. It received 334 responses, a response rate of 73%. Responses came from ordi-nands at 116 U.S. dioceses and 24 different religious institutions.
More than 450 men are set to be ordained priests this year, and the survey of their ordination class shows that the overwhelm-ing majority of priests-to-be were raised Catholic in intact families and individually showed habits of frequent church service and regular prayer life.
“On this day, let us thank God for continuing to call men and women to serve him and his Church as priests, religious, and consecrated persons,” Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, Michigan, said April 25. “We pray that all families, teachers, and priests will continue their essential work of instilling the faith and love of Jesus in our children.”
Bishop Boyea chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations. The committee released the “Ordination Class of 2023 Study” from the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
CARA sought survey responses from the 458 seminarians to be ordained this year. It received 334 responses, a response rate of 73%. Responses came from ordinands at 116 U.S. dioceses and 24 different religious institutions.
First Coronation role in 500 years for Catholic bishops
Cardinal Vincent Nichols is to become the first Catholic bishop to play a formal role in the Coronation of a British monarch since the Reformation, when he blesses King Charles III during the ceremony in Westminster Abbey on 6 May.
It will be witnessed by a papal delegation led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See Secretary of State, the first papal representative to participate in a British Coronation for almost 500 years.
Cardinal Nichols told The Tablet that the Coronation is a “remarkable moment” for ecumenical relations, pointing out that as a young boy in 1953 he “would never have dreamt of stepping inside” a non-Catholic church.
This Saturday, the Archbishop of Westminster won’t only be inside the Abbey but will impart a blessing on the newly-crowned King. It makes him the first Catholic bishop to take an active part in the Coronation of a British monarch since Bishop Stephen Gardiner placed the crown on Queen Mary’s head in 1553.
Women religious voice gratitude for synod voting rights
A leading umbrella group of women religious has thanked Pope Francis for his recent decision allowing women to have voting rights in his upcoming Synod of Bishops on Synodality, saying the move is a step toward helping the church be more inclusive.
In a statement on May 3, Sister Nadia Coppa, president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) said they welcomed the pope’s decision “with great joy and gratitude.”
“This decision, promulgated by Pope Francis, to enlarge participation in the Synodal Assembly, is the outcome of our ongoing rich reflection, as the People of God, and it is a concrete response to the discernment and desire for inclusiveness that is emerging at various levels,” Coppa said.
Her statement comes a week after the Vatican office of the Synod of Bishops announced a handful of changes to the rules governing the papally-convened summits, including the decision to allow laypeople and consecrated women to serve as full members with voting rights.
Under the previous norms, a synod was composed largely of bishops appointed to attend either by their national bishops’ conference, their religious institutes, or the pope himself, and Vatican dicastery heads who held at least the rank of archbishop. The norms also foresaw the participation of 10 clerics belonging to Institutes of Consecrated Life who were tapped by their respective communities.
A selection of auditors was also invited to attend the synod gatherings, meaning they were able to listen and participate in group discussions, but were unable to vote on the synod’s final document. While women have traditionally taken part in synods as observers, advisers, auditors and experts, until now none have ever been full members with the right to vote. This changed when last Wednesday the Synod of Bishops announced modifications to the rules, among other things omitting the membership of the 10 clerics appointed by their communities.