Support for rape victims
India’s Catholic Church has come out in support of rape victims amid nationwide protests calling on the Government to tackle rising violence against women and girls and bring offenders to justice. The Catholic Bishops issued a statement last week expressing “deep pain and anguish at recent incidents against women in Kathua, Unnao and other places”. Signed by Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, auxiliary in Ranchi and Secretary General of the Conference, the statement said: “Ours is a nation that has produced great women leaders, social reformers, politicians and women who walk the corridors of power and yet our women are subjected daily to the most unspeakable crimes.”
Details of a series of high-profile rapes have shocked the country, leading to mass demonstrations. Asifa Bano, an eight-year-old girl, was gang raped and murdered in Kathua, while a member of the ruling BJP party is the main accused person in the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. Bishop Allwyn D’Silva, auxiliary in Mumbai, organised a rally against the violence.
Overseas funding withheld
Eight of a total of 54 suffragan dioceses in Canada are withholding funds from the overseas development agency of the Canadian bishops’ conference, suggesting it may be supporting groups that do not share the Church’s values.
The Canadian Catholic Organisation for Development and Peace (CCODP) has been accused of partnering with organisations that uphold policies contradictory to Church teaching on abortion, contraception and gender issues. “A recent review of CCODP partners, conducted by representatives of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has produced alarming concerns about dozens of overseas organisations,” said Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto in a statement on 11 April. CCODP says that it is cooperating with the investigation. “The archbishop has raised serious questions and they need to be answered,” said Romain Duguay, the organisation’s deputy director.
Meeting over spy claim
Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, has held a private meeting with the Archbishop of Kampala after the archbishop claimed in his Easter Sunday sermon that the Government had planted priests to spy on him and that there was a plot to harm him. Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga reported receiving an anonymous tip-off that the Government thinks he is conspiring to overthrow it. President Museveni spoke with him on the telephone on Easter Monday and they met in Kampala on 8 April.
Mr Museveni is thought to have criticised the archbishop for airing his grievances in public before going to him directly.
Tensions have been high since the archbishop criticised Mr Museveni’s plans to amend Uganda’s constitution to let him extend his rule. The new law, allowing Mr Museveni, 73, to stand in the next polls in 2021, was passed in December. In his New Year message, Mr Museveni said his religious critics were “full of arrogance”.
Jurkovic deplores killer robots
A top Vatican diplomat has condemned the planned use of “killer robots” by national armed forces, warning that the technological innovation will make war “even more inhuman”. “Every armed intervention must be carefully weighed and verified by its legitimacy, legality and conformity with the intended purposes, which must also be both ethically and legally legitimate,” Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at the United Nations in Geneva, said. “Any technology must be compatible and coherent with the right conception of the human person – these tasks are becoming increasingly complex and too nuanced to be entrusted to machines, that are ineffective in the face of moral dilemmas.”
The Slovene archbishop was speaking at an inter-governmental discussion group on Lethal Autonomous Weapons, which have the capacity to attack targets without human intervention.
So-called killer robots are not remotely controlled by human beings but act on the basis of pre-set algorithms, Archbishop Jurkovic said. “An automatic weapon cannot be a morally responsible subject and is incapable of making ethical choices beyond those set by its programming,” he explained.
Lethal autonomous weapons, unlike “combat drones”, do not rely on human operators.
Moves by China’s Communist Party to strengthen control over religion have been noticed in the Pengyuan district of the central province of Henan, ucanews reported from Hong Kong. Local authorities have posted notices saying that all those who follow religions must register with the residents’ committee. This includes followers of the officially sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Authorities have also organised study groups for Catholics and Protestants to learn the revised regulations on religions that came into effect on 1 February.
In Vietnam, a Catholic environmental activist has received a prison sentence of nine years after she organised protests following an environmental disaster in her local district of Loc Ha in Ha Tinh Province.
The court in central Vietnam sentenced Teresa Tran Thi Xuan on 12 April for “attempting to overthrow the people’s government”. Xuan, 42, faces another five years under house arrest after she finishes what observers have described as a very harsh sentence.
Xuan’s relatives were only informed about the trial, which lasted two hours, when it was nearly over. Vietnam has jailed 10 activists over the past two weeks to a total of 96 years.
Priest, 96, jailed
A Belgian court has sentenced a 96-year-old priest to 12 months in prison for the indecent assault of a teenager, saying it opted for the punishment because he showed no guilt and risked repeating the violations.
The court in Leuven found the Salesian, identified only as Piet M., guilty of molesting a 16-year-old in a cinema during a retreat two years ago. It also barred him from contact with children for 10 years. The priest lives in a Salesian retirement home but the court jailed him because he had already received a suspended punishment in 1998 for sexual abuse. His community said it did not know about the priest’s past and would not have allowed contact with youngsters if it had known.
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