Cardinal urges world help Ukraine so ‘nonsense of war’ stops

(UCA news. Paulina Guzik).

In what he said was the most dramatic moment of his eight visits to Ukraine, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, appealed from a Ternopil cemetery that the world needs to help Ukraine without further delays so that the “nonsense of war” stops. Without mentioning Russia by name, he also said that for those who cause war, “if only someone will go down to his knees and ask for forgiveness, Jesus won’t be tired of our sins. He will forgive everything.” Cardinal Krajewski arrived June 25 in the western city of Lviv, Ukraine, and on June 26, he left for Ternopil at dawn, as he recounted in a voice message sent to OSV News.

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British bishop’s historic ordination shows Rome’s strong support

(Jonathan Luxmoore. UCA News).

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández celebrated Mass for ordination of first Bishop of Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

The first bishop of a special diocese in Great Britain created for Catholics of the Anglican tradition has welcomed the pope’s show of support and predicted the fledgling Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham will continue growing and strengthening.

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India’s Eastern Church fails to settle liturgy dispute

(UCA news).

A post-synodal circular said all rebelling priests would have to follow a synod-approved Mass after a certain period

Pacts achieved to settle the vexed liturgy dispute in India’s Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church collapsed again when the Church’s synod allegedly altered the agreements and refused to withdraw its earlier circular that threatened to excommunicate priests who failed to follow the Church’s official liturgical rubrics.

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India’s Eastern Church fails to settle liturgy dispute

(UCANews reporter).

Pacts achieved to settle the vexed liturgy dispute in India’s Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church collapsed again when the Church’s synod allegedly altered the agreements and refused to withdraw its earlier circular that threatened to excommunicate priests who failed to follow the Church’s official liturgical rubrics.

Most priests and laity in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church have rejected the synod formula for resolving the crisis, saying it unilaterally modified resolutions agreed by both sides during the two sessions of the Synod.

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Cardinal Parolin to discuss Lebanon’s crises

(UCANews reporter).

A top Vatican official visiting Lebanon has said that he will participate in discussions on the socio-economic and political issues the country faces and assured assistance towards solving them, says a report.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, made his remarks after his arrival in Beirut on June 23 to begin his five-day state visit, Lebanon’s government-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.

“There is great concern in terms of politics in Lebanon and the economic crisis that affects the poor, namely the political crisis, the institutional crisis, and the problem of electing the president,” Parolin said.

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India’s Eastern Church settles dispute, awaits Vatican nod

(UCANews. Saji Thomas).

A liturgy dispute that pushed India’s eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church to the verge of a split has been settled following concessions from both parties, said a bishop who attended the synod meeting that achieved the breakthrough.

“Subject to the Vatican’s approval, the dispute is settled. The breakthrough came after both sides agreed to accommodate each other. The official announcement will be made in a day or two,” said a bishop who attended the July 19  Synod of Bishops.

The five-decade-long dispute in the Syro-Malabar Church, based in southern Indian Kerala state, intensified three years ago after most priests and Catholics in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese refused to accept the rubrics of a mass approved by the synod.

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China jails woman for teaching Quran to Uyghur children

(UCANews reporter).

A Uyghur Muslim woman has been sentenced to an additional 14-year prison term for allegedly teaching the Quran to teenagers following a decade in jail, says a report.

Heyrinisa Memet was sentenced on June 11 for imparting religious instructions to the youths in 2014, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on June 18.

Memet had provided religious instructions to the children at the request of her neighbors, the director of security of Zulkum village in Kashgar prefecture, who wished to be unidentified over fears of reprisals, said.

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Cardinal supports pro-Hindu coalition govt in southern Indian state

(UCA News Reporter).

Indian Cardinal Anthony Poola has pledged the Christian community’s support for the new government in southern Andhra Pradesh state that unseated a Christian-led government in the recently concluded polls.

N. Chandrababu Naidu was sworn in as state chief minister on June 12 for the fourth time. He heads a coalition government comprising his Telugu Desam Party (TDP), regional Jana Sena party, and the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In a letter to the new chief minister, Cardinal Poola assured “support of the Catholic Church and the Christian community” to make the state “inclusive and sustainable.” 

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Swedish cardinal urges Catholics to protect the unborn

(Junno Arocho Esteves. UCAnews).

Cardinal Arborelius of Stockholm concerned about calls to include ‘so-called right to abortion into Sweden’s constitution’

Sweden’s Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm called on the country’s Catholics to engage others in meaningful ways to protect the lives of the unborn.

Following a recent vote to include abortion in the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, Cardinal Arborelius said that “as Catholic Christians, we can choose different approaches to advocating for the inviolability of life and human rights, justice, and peace.”

“The important thing is that one truly engages in various ways, in words and actions, to try to save the lives of the most vulnerable among us,” he wrote in a statement released June 10 by the Diocese of Stockholm.

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Christians join global calls for repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws

(UCAnews reporter).

Some 300 Christians marched on the legislature in Pakistan’s Punjab province at the weekend, joining global calls for the repeal of the country’s draconian blasphemy laws days after a specChristian lynching victim died in hospital.

During the protest on June 8 in Lahore, the provincial capital, the protesters condemned the government for failing to stop recurrent Muslim mob attacks based on false allegations of blasphemy.

The demonstrators placed lit candles on a table around a picture of Nazir Masih, the 74-year-old Christian who died on June 3 days after a Muslim mob attacked and injured him in  Punjab’s Sargodha district.

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Indian bishops tell Modi to make his new term ‘inclusive’

(UCANews. Bijay Kumar Minj And Nirendra Dev).

Catholic bishops have appealed to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make his new term “inclusive” by treating all citizens equally and upholding the country’s constitutional values.

Modi was sworn in for another five-year term on June 9 after his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the help of allies, secured 293 seats in the Indian parliament.  

The coalition government was formed after the BJP, accused of following a Hindu-first policy, failed to win the required simple majority of 272 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha (lower house).

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Pakistani Christians chant ‘Jesus is great’ at blasphemy victim’s funeral

(UCANews. Aftab Alexander Mughal, OSV News).

After being severely beaten by a Muslim mob May 25 in Sargodha, about 150 miles south of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, a Christian man died on June 3 in a Rawalpindi hospital. Nazir Masih was 72.

June 3 videos from Sargodha showed Christians carrying Masih’s coffin through the street. They shouted “Praise to Jesus” and “Jesus is great.” The casket was draped in black cloth and bore a small crucifix, ABC News reported.

The Christian man died despite twice undergoing surgery and was buried in the city of Sargodha, in eastern Punjab province, amid tight security, said district police officer Assad Ijaz Malhi, according to ABC News.

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Religious freedom is a pipe dream for Pakistan’s minorities

(Uca News).

Umar Saleem is still traumatized by the abuses and torture he endured in police custody after he and his brother were accused of defaming Islam, which sparked a Muslim mob attack on Christians in eastern Pakistan last year. “I tried to commit suicide during the interrogations,” Saleem, 28, a member of Full Gospel Assembly Church, told UCA News on June 3. Saleem and his family have been living in a shelter house in Punjab province since the religiously charged riot in Jaranwala left at least 80 Christian houses and several churches looted, vandalized and burned to the ground on Aug. 16.

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India’s Syro Malabar Church convenes Synod to solve liturgy row

(UCA News Reporter).

Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, the head of the crisis-ridden Eastern rite Syro Malabar Church, has convened an extraordinary synod of its bishops to solve the decades-old liturgy dispute in his seat of power in India.

In a June 3 communication to 65 bishops, Thattil said a special virtual meeting of the Synod, the top decision-making body of the second-largest Eastern rite Church, would be held to resolve the dispute.

The communication said the Church’s online synod, based in southern Indian Kerala state, is scheduled for two hours on June 14. 

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HK cardinal stresses forgiveness to mark Tiananmen anniversary

(UCANews Reporter).

Cardinal Stephen Chow of Hong Kong has stressed the need for forgiveness as the world marked the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre.

“What happened 35 years ago has left a deep wound in parts of our psyche, though it has been buried and scarred over,” said the cardinal in his “reflection” published in the diocesan weekly the Sunday Examiner.

In the tragic event of June 4, 1989, China’s communist regime used military tanks and guns to crush the students-led democracy protest that began in April of that year and spread to some 400 cities.

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Chinese and Taiwanese Churches to walk ‘hand in hand’

(UCA News).

They met in China and discussed history of Catholicism, growth of Church and faith practices on both sides of Taiwan Strait

Catholic bishops and scholars from mainland China and Taiwan joined a seminar on inculturation and cooperation amid political tensions between the two nations.

Some 100 people, including priests, academics and other lay people joined the seminar at the Diocese of Xiamen in Fujian province in southeast China, Fides new agency reported on May 29.

Themed “Walking together in love, hand in hand,” the May 22-25 seminar sought to forge better ties between Churches in mainland China and Taiwan.

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Church of South India in limbo after apex court order

(UCA News Reporter).

The routine administration of the Church of South India (CSI) has come to a standstill following a top court order that restrained a court-appointed panel from exercising its power.

“We do not know what to do and whom to report as there is no one to manage the daily affairs,” said an official working at the crisis-ridden Church headquarters in the southern city of Chennai.

The official, who did not want to be named, said on May 29 they did not know if they would get their salaries for this month as the Supreme Court had restrained the high court-appointed administrators from managing the finances.

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Pakistan Christians return home amid uneasy calm after attack

At least 50 families have returned to the Mujahid colony in Sargodha district in Punjab province

(UCA news Reporter).

Christians have started returning home amid a tense calm after the May 25 mob attack over blasphemy on their colony in eastern Pakistan.

At least 50 families have returned to the Mujahid colony in Sargodha district in Punjab province. More than 200 families, half of them Catholics, had fled after a 74-year-old Christian, Nazir Masih, was attacked by a mob for alleged blasphemy. 

Investigation officer Khizar Hayat claimed that the situation was now peaceful. “There is an increased police presence to reassure the local community. Twenty-eight persons have been jailed,” Hayat told UCA News on May 29.

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Christians wary of Bangladeshi PM’s ‘Christian State’ remarks

(UCAnews reporter).

Top Christian organizations have expressed surprise and shock after Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused Christians of plotting to carve out a “Christian state” of their own by taking parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar.

“We, the Christians of Bangladesh, and their leaders — the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh (CBCB) and the United Forum of Churches (UFCB) are surprised and worried,” said a joint statement issued on May 26.

In today’s globalized and secularized world, the idea of a ‘Christian state’ is absurd, said the statement signed by Archbishop Bejoy N. D’Cruze of Dhaka, the president of CBCB and UFCB.

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Antioch Patriarch’s Church in India faces threat of split

(UCA news).

The metropolitan archbishop of Knanaya archdiocese debarred temporarily by the Patriarch of Antioch for alleged disobedience

An India-based Church group under the Patriarch of Antioch, the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church, faces the threat of a split after the patriarch suspended one of its archbishops for alleged disobedience.

Christians in the Church’s archdiocese based in Kottayam district in southern Kerala state are divided after Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius Aprem-II suspended their Archbishop Severios Kuriakose, accused of defying the orders of the patriarch.

The suspension order of May 17 has divided around 50,000 Christians of the Malankara Syriac Knanaya Archdiocese at Chingavanam in Kottayam district, according to T. O. Abraham, the archdiocesan Knanaya Association secretary.

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