Hundreds of priests in the Catholic Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria held a public protest on the day after the shooting of a parish priest, Fr Paul Offu. They marched to Government House and to the police headquarters with placards demanding protection from Fulani herdsmen whom they blame for the shooting. Despite last weekend’s call by Bishop Matthew Hasan Kukah of Sokoto for an end to “the continued hate speeches” against the Fulani on social media, the twitter feed of the Diocese of Enugu blamed the death of Fr Offu on “hoodlums suspected to be the notorious and murderous Fulani herdsmen”. Meanwhile Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan (pictured) of Abuja criticised the government for the “unjust” banning of a minority Shia group, saying it set a worrying precedent for religious freedom.“Today it’s the Shias, tomorrow it could be us Catholics too,” Cardinal Onaiyekan told Vatican Radio.
Coptic monasteries in Egypt are to accept novices again after the lifting of a ban on the admission of new candidates to monastic communities following last year’s murder of Bishop Abbot Anba Epiphanios at the monastery of St Macarius. Two monks from St Macarius have been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Anba Epiphanios.
Authorities in China have accused Christians in Guizhou, in south-west China, of carrying out “illegal religious activities” and have forced them to stop meeting together with immediate effect, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported. The Christians were all members of Living Stone Church, an unregistered house church with a congregation of about 700 in Guiyang City. A notice issued by the authorities, dated 31 July, said the Christians were violating Article 40 of the Regulations on Religious Affair. This states that religious activities should, “in general,” be held at sites approved for religious activities.
Pax Christi International has two new co-presidents, Bishop Marc Stenger of Troyes in France and Kenyan Sr Teresia Wamuyu Wachira (pictured). They succeed Bishop Kevin Dowling of South Africa and Marie Dennis of the United States, who have served as co-presidents for the past nine years. Bishop Stenger has been the Bishop of Troyes since 1999. Sr Wachira is a Loreto Sister. She is a lecturer and programme leader in Peace and Conflict Studies at St Paul’s University in Nairobi.
Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa of Blantyre, Malawi has condemned child sexual abuse, child trafficking, child labour and the use of child soldiers. Speaking in Uganda last month at the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, he promised that the Church in Africa would try to ensure that African children “are well protected”.
The Chaldean Church in Iraq has reaffirmed its disapproval of armed groups of so-called “Christian militias”. The Chaldean Patriarchate issued a declaration last week stressing that the formation of “Christian” armed militias “contradicts Christian spirituality”. The statement recommends young Christians wanting to support security structures to instead join the Iraqi army or the federal police. Iranian-backed Shia militias have antagonised Christians in the Nineveh Plains who seek to reconstruct their lives following conflict and displacement. The Chaldean Church declaration expressed support for a government decree of 1 July aiming to limit the growing influence of Shia militias.
Catholic bishops in Chile are urging the country’s government not to restrict the entry of Venezuelan refugees by imposing strict visa requirements. More than three million people have fled Venezuela’s political repression and economic collapse under the Socialist regime of President Nicolás Maduro over the past four years. Many have tried to get into Chile from Peru, sparking a humanitarian crisis on the border. Meanwhile, Fr Cristian del Campo SJ announced the conclusion of an inquiry into the late Jesuit priest Renato Poblete Barth this week. The inquiry found that Poblete had abused more than a dozen women over 50 years. Poblete was known as a champion of the poor and the findings have shocked many in Chile. He headed Hogar de Cristo, one of the country’s most important charities, from 1982 to 2000. He died in 2010.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, has said that forced conversion is incompatible with Islam. Speaking at the end of last month at an event in Islamabad marking National Minorities Day, he declared that “Pakistan belonged to all its communities, regardless of their religion, which [together] make a beautiful bouquet of inter-faith harmony”. Mr Khan urged a halt to the forced conversion of religious minorities, saying that “those who force others to adopt a particular religion are totally unaware of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah”. He was referring in particular to the forced conversion of Hindu girls through marriage in the province of Sindh. His government vowed to mark the holy events of minority faiths and to protect their places of worship.
At a Mass last week to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, the Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski (pictured), said in a sermon that while Poland is no longer tormented by the “red plague” of Soviet Communism, it has been instead infected by a “rainbow” plague of homosexuality, which denies human dignity and seeks to control “our souls, hearts, and minds”.
A United States federal judge at the end of last month dismissed a $250-million lawsuit against The Washington Post by a Kentucky Catholic high school student Nick Sandmann. He claimed the newspaper’s coverage of events after the annual March for Life – when Sandmann, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat smiled at Nathan Phillips, a Native American leader who was beating a drum in his face – was biased. The judge ruled that the newspaper’s articles and tweets were protected by the First Amendment. Sandmann’s parents have said they would appeal the ruling.
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