The severed body of 28-year-old nun was found on a railway tracks in Hublitwon of Karnataka.
The shocking incident occurred around 3:30 am on December 4. Sister Mary Sendra Vianney of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Convent is the second child in the family of four children born to Gurushantappa and Kosumaria at Gadag, Belgaum.
She joined the Sisters of the Little Flower of Bethany in 2012.
Historian Ernesto De Pedro with statues of Dom Justo UkonTakayama who was beatified in early 2017.
As Pope Francis visits Japan, an 83-year-old Filipino historian is hoping the pontiff will recognize a Japanese samurai who once offered his life for the faith.
Dom Justo UkonTakayama, or “Justus Ucondono” as missionaries fondly called him, was a warrior who fought under the banner of the cross in the land of the rising sun.
He was an eminent Japanese feudal governor who served under Japan’s three hegemons — Oda, Hideyoshi, and Toshiie — who unified Japan.
In 1587, Chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi took drastic steps against Takayama, who declined to obey the chancellor’s order to renounce the faith.
Takayama was baptized a Christian in Sawa Castle on June 1, 1563, when he was 11 years old.
For refusing to renounce his Christian faith, Takayama was sent to Manila as an exile on Dec. 21,1614. Months after his arrival, he died on Feb. 3, 1615 in the old walled city of Intramuros.
The faithful of Manila promptly presented the Japanese warrior’s case to the Vatican for beatification. But after centuries passed, Takayama seemed to have been forgotten.
In 1963, Cardinal Rufino Santos of Manila endorsed the cause of the samurai to the Church in Japan. But there were no updates as church officials came and went.
Then one day, a Filipino history enthusiast passed by a statue of a Japanese man in the Plaza Dilao in the old city of Manila where the samurai supposedly baptized Japanese converts.
Historian Ernesto De Pedro wondered why a Japanese figure would standing as such in the Philippines. He did not give it much attention until a group of Japanese Protestant pastors came to inquire.
The Protestants were researching about a certain Takayama whose statue stands in the middle of Manila. They found nothing.
De Pedro wondered. “Why nothing?” he asked. He did his own research. He found out later that in Manila Takayama “Dom Justo Ukon Don.” In the papal archives, he was identified as “Ukon Don.”
Thousands of Tamil in northern and eastern Sri Lanka have commemorated their relatives who died during and after the country’s civil war, which lasted more than a quarter century.
The main ceremonies were held last Wednesday, Maaveerar Naal (Great Heroes’ Day), as Tamils remembered those who died or went in missing in battle.
The Sri Lankan government has always opposed the remembrance. Under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, brother of the current president, memorial ceremonies were banned as an apology for Tamil independence ideology.
For their part, Tamil com-plain that under the first Rajapaksa the graves of thousands of Tamils were destroyed, whilst war monuments, luxury buildings and other structures were built on top “in an attempt to erase our memory and control us.” “The graves of our children were in a row in the cemetery of Kopai,” some Tamil told Asia-News. “At least 2,000 people were buried there, but in March 2011 soldiers arrived and demolished everything.”
A human rights group in the southern Philippines has welcomed a government statement announcing the imminent lifting of martial law across Mindanao, but it called for an international probe into alleged atrocities committed by the military while it has been in force.
The group BarugKatungod (Stand for Rights) said two and a half years of martial law in the region had resulted in more than 162 killings. At least 704 cases of “fabricated charges,” 284 cases of illegal arrest and detention, 1,007 victims of aerial bombardments and the forced evacuation of at least a million people were also reported.
“This announcement to end martial law will ultimately not bring relief for all the victims,” said Bishop Redeemer Yanez of the Philippine Independent Church, convener of the rights group. The presidential palace announced on Dec. 10 — International Human Rights Day — that President Rodrigo Duterte will not seek another extension of martial law in Mindanao.
At least 629 Pakistani girls sold as enslaved brides to Chinese husbands. This is the official number of the recent phenomenon of trafficking in women from the South Asian country to the Chinese giant. This was revealed by an investigation by the Associated Press, which managed to have the original reports of the complaints filed since 2018.
However, according to investigators, the phenomenon is far more extensive, if only the judicial authorities had continued to register the complaints at the same pace as the first few months. After an initial investigative momentum, there is a progressive slowdown in the registration of cases.
People “informed of the facts” motivate this contraction due to pressure and interference from the Islamabad government. In fact, it would have exercised its influence to curb investigations so as not to damage the “profitable” link with Beijing.
Proof of this is the acquittal of 31 Chinese in a single case of trafficking in human beings, freed by the court of Faisalabad in October. According to some family members of the victims, who speak under anonymity, the accusing victims later refused to testify against their torturers because of threats or for compensation received to keep silent.
Christian parents in Muslim-majority Pakistan are giving their children Islamic names to protect them from religious abuse at school, according to a local bishop.
Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad has told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that families belonging to minority faiths feared their children would be targeted for discrimination.
“Many minorities give their children Islamic names, so they will not be singled out as Christians and become potential targets for discrimination in primary or secondary schools or at the college level,” the bishop said in an article on the charity’s website.
“In many cases, minority students do suffer abuse in public schools.”
Textbooks in schools negatively depicted minorities who were considered infidels, which promoted prejudice in the classroom against fellow students, he said.
Bishop Shukardin spoke of a climate of fear among Christians, saying Islamic extremists wrongly associated them with the West. Other minorities as well as moderate Muslims were also at risk of attack, he said, while raising concerns of kidnappings of Christians, forced conversions to Islam and forced marriages, echoing fears made by other clergy in the country.
Treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan grabbed the international spotlight in May when Catholic woman Asia Bibi fled the country after spending eight years on death row for speaking against the Prophet Muhammad.
Bibi’s conviction on blasphemy charges was earlier overturned on appeal and she released from prison, sparking violent protests from hardline Islamists.
The contentious blasphemy law is aimed at promoting Islam and uniting the country, but rights groups say it has been misused by hardliners to persecute religious minorities.
Religious leaders from the different faiths earlier this year called on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government to safeguard the rights of minorities and women.
MLA Malladi Vishnu hailed the services of Christian Missionaries in the medical field even before the Independence to India. He participated in the inaugural function of the centenary celebrations of All India Catholic Union on Nov. 30 at Social Service Centre.
Vijayawada Catholic Daisies Monsignor Muvvala Prasad, AICU national president Lansi D Sinha, State president G Swaminathan, National Coordinator Dr Maddala Anthony, Fr IM Swaminathan and others were present.
Addressing the gathering, Vishnu said the governmentled by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has been providing many schemes for the development of SC/ST and Minorities. He assured the Christians that the government would give preference to the development of Christians in the state.
Bishop F. Antonisamy of Kumbakonam has declared Capuchin Father John Peter Savarinayagam of Tamil Nadu as a ‘Servant of God’ at Amalashram, Trichy. The prelate on December 3 opened the diocesan process for Father Peter’s beatification and canonization. The bishop, the vice-postulator of this cause, and the members of the diocesan inquiry took the oath of secrecy. Around 5.000 Catholics from different parts of Tamil Nadu attended the program. Capuchin Father A Thainis, the vice-postulator, organized the event. Devasahayam Pillai, a lay martyr, is the first Catholic from Tamil Nadu to be beatified.
A former envoy to the Holy See has expressed belief that the chance of Manila archbishop, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, of becoming the first Filipino Pope may have been boosted with his new appointment to a top Vatican post.“Speaking in practical terms and the ways of the world, of course, he will be more known by those electing the Pope. Although he is already known, he will be further known,” said former Philippine ambassador to the Vatican Henrietta de Villa in an interview with reporters.
Pope Francis has asked Thai priests to give Christianity “a Thai face and flesh” on the third day of his visit to the kingdom.
He was speaking during a meeting with priests, religious, seminarians and catechists at St Peter’s Parish of Wat Roman village in Tha Kham, Bangkok, on Nov. 22.
“As I prepared for this meeting, I read, with some pain, that for many people Christianity is a foreign faith, a religion for foreigners. This should spur us to find ways to talk about the faith ‘in dialect,’ like a mother who sings lullabies to her child,” the Pope said.
“With that same intimacy, let us give faith a Thai face and flesh, which involves much more than making translations. It is about letting the Gospel be stripped of fine but foreign garb; to let it ‘sing’ with the native music of this land and inspire the hearts of our brothers and sisters with the same beauty that set our own hearts on fire.”
The Pope recalled Pope Benedict XVI saying that the Church does not grow by proselytizing but by attraction.
“Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties,” Pope Francis said.
“This means we are not afraid to look for new symbols and images, for that particular music which can help awaken in the Thai people the amazement that the Lord wants to give us. Let us not be afraid to continue inculturating the Gospel.
“We need to seek new ways of transmitting the word, ways that are capable of mobilizing and awakening a desire to know the Lord. Who is that man? Who are these people who follow a man who was crucified?”
Thousands of people lined the roads of the predominantly Catholic village of Wat Roman and filled the grounds of a church complex to greet Pope Francis.
Homemade signs included one that said, “You really know how to pope.” Another said, “Credo in PapamFranciscum” (I believe in Pope Francis).
