Pakistan’s parliament is to select a new Prime Minister after days of brinkmanship in which Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician, tried to dissolve Parliament to head off a no-confidence vote, but the vote proceeded last weekend after Supreme Court intervention. Church leaders and rights activists welcomed the Court ruling declaring Khan’s move to dissolve Pakistan’s parliament as unconstitutional. “The past three years have seen the worst regime in terms of human development, minority legislation and economic growth,” said Kashif Aslam, of the Catholic Bishops’ National Commission for Justice and Peace. He suggested Khan’s ego “is responsible for the whole political and constitutional crisis.”
Amid a worsening economic crisis in Sri Lanka, Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity attended street protests in early April, along with thousands of people in the capital Colombo, to call on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, along with two other bishops, joined, saying the country needs a fresh start. “Hand over the country to someone who can govern it and … eradicate the corrupt system,” the cardinal said. A drastic decline in foreign reserves has fuelled an extreme shortage of essential goods and fuel, with daily power blackouts across Sri Lanka.
Catholic groups advocating for steps to alleviate climate change, and urging the US Congress to enact needed legislation, seconded the warnings contained in the 2022 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “We can look to the themes of Lent to give us courage that we need in this moment. Lent is a time of examining our temptations, confessing our sins and being open to change,” said Susan Gunn, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. “As a community, all of us, producers of oil and gas and consumers of oil and gas, we have to accept change.”
The Catholic bishops of Michigan have urged that state’s courts to oppose a suit filed by that state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, seeking to have abortion declared a constitutional right under the state constitution. Michigan enacted a law barring most abortions in 1931, and in 1972, voters there defeated a proposal to liberalise the state’s abortion law in a referendum. The following year, the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal constitution guaranteed a right to an abortion, and so the Michigan law has not been enforced. Now, when the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn that prior decision, the Michigan statute could be enforced.
Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Archbishop of Bangui, has visited more than 20,000 refugees from Central African Republic (CAR) living in Gado-Badjeri in eastern Cameroon. “We want to go home but we fear for our safety,” they told him, referring particularly to the prevalence of armed militias. Cardinal Nzapalainga promised to bring their stories back to CAR. “I promise you that when I'm in Bangui people will be informed of your situation,” he said. CAR’s citizens have faced nearly a decade of on-off civil war and more than 200,000 have fled their homes
Criminal gangs are trading babies from poor families in Andhra Pradesh, India, according to reports in India’s media. Sr Manju Devarapalli, secretary of the National Dalit Christian Watch in Andhra Pradesh has described the latest cases as “the tip of an iceberg”. She said that, as well as poverty, the Indian government's campaign against adoption centres and orphanages – especially those run by Christians – is also to blame.
Gunmen in Burkina Faso have abducted an 83-year-old religious sister from the United States who has served as a missionary there since 2014. Bishop Theophile Nare of Kaya Diocese said Marianite Sr Suellen Tennyson was abducted from her bed on 4 April by men who also vandalised the convent in the northern town of Yalgo. “We are in touch with governmental leaders who have pledged to keep us informed as they learn more,” Marianite congregational leader Sr Ann Lacour said. Sr Tennyson previously worked in the New Orleans archdiocese.
Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of Adigrat, Ethiopia, has sent out another appeal, asking for swift humanitarian aid for millions of people in Tigray facing death due to a “merciless man-made famine” in the war-torn region. “The current pace to deliver the promises of aid on the ground is not bringing any meaningful change in the lives of the people, who have been under siege for over 500 days and denied basic services and rights,” Bishop Medhin reported on 6 April.
The President of the Peruvian Bishops' Conference has successfully lobbied the government of President Pedro Castillo to cancel a decree limiting travel and imposing a curfew, which he announced on 4 April for Lima and the port city of Callao. The bishops felt the decree was “contrary to the basic rights of the population”. The measure, revoked within days, was taken after civil unrest due to increasing costs of fuel and agricultural products, but the bishops felt it would particularly harm “the poorest, who must look for food for their families every day.”
Nigeria’s insecurity was denounced last week both by the country’s Catholic bishops and by Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, Sultan of Sokoto and President of Jama’atu Nasril Islam, the union of Nigerian Islamic organisations. It was also announced that the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa, to be held in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in early May and attended by more than 150 bishops, will adopt the theme, “Fratelli Tutti: Path to building human fraternity and sustainable peace in West Africa.” Issues to be discussed include insecurity, land grabbing, child trafficking, migration, terrorism, and climate change.
A Paris parish has ended ties with the group Féminisme en Église (Feminism in the Church) after members held an unapproved “inclusive” Mass with only women reading, including the Gospel. About 40 worshippers attended the 3 April Mass celebrated by a visiting priest in a Paris convent. “I regret that I can no longer receive [them] as a parish group,” said Fr Denis Branchu, parish priest of St Pierre de Montrouge church. The Paris archdiocese “regretted this initiative, which does a disservice to unity and communion”. The group had been active in the parish since late 2019.
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