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Church of South India starts synod this week
Church of South India starts synod this week
The church has over four million members, authorities said.
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This this is for the second time that the Church’s synod is taking place in Kottyam, where it was held for the first time in 1978 in the headquarters of the Madhya Kerala Diocese (MKD).
Bishops, priests, and elected laity from the 24 dioceses spread over Telangana, Seemandhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Jaffna in Sri Lanka are scheduled to attend the four-day conclave.
The church has over four million members, authorities said.
Representatives from sister churches and theologians from abroad will also participate in the various sessions of the synod being held at the CSI Retreat Centre in the town.
Source: The Hindu
Killing of Bangladeshi lawmaker raises fear of extremist terror
Killing of Bangladeshi lawmaker raises fear of extremist terror
Church official believes that police need to do more to curb radical Islamic militants.
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| Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikha on Jan. 2 pays respects to slain parliamentarian Monjurul Islam Liton who was shot dead by unidentified attackers at his home village in Sundarganj of northern Gaibandha district of Bangladesh on Dec. 31. (Photo Courtesy: Press Information Department) |
Monjurul Islam Liton, 48, from Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League party, was shot dead by up to five unidentified assailants at his home in Sundarganj Upazila in Gainbandha on Dec 31.
"This is an extremely terrible incident, sparking fear among everyone. We don’t know who was behind it — maybe terrorists or militants — but people are panicked," Father Anthony Sen, convener of the Justice and Peace Commission in Dinajpur Diocese that covers the area, told ucanews.com.
"If a top politician can be killed in this way, there is no guarantee of security for intellectuals, local leaders, activists or common people," Father Sen said.
The priest believes police need to do more to ensure people's safety.
"Police said they are in dark about such targeted killings. They should act more professionally, find the killers and ensure the safety of all citizens," he added.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party condemned the killing as "pre-mediated murder."
Liton became an MP during a controversial national election in Jan 2014, which was boycotted by most opposition parties. Analysts say his candidature was a reward for his strong opposition to hardliners from the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party.
However Liton was also controversial for shooting a 10-year-old boy in 2015. He was sent to jail but later made bail.
Liton is the seventh incumbent parliamentarian from the nominally secular Awami League party to be assassinated allegedly by religious extremists since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
Government ministers and ruling party politicians blamed Jamaat-e-Islami for the murder.
"We have received information that Jamaat was behind the killing. In recent months, the government has successfully tackled and eliminated militant threats, but Jamaat is out there attempting to spread panic among people and weaken the government," Shafikul Islam Shimul, an Awami League lawmaker from the northern Natore district, told ucanews.com.
"The prime minister has advised us to remain alert. It’s important for law enforcement to be extra vigilant in sensitive areas like Gainbandha where Islamic extremists have strongholds," Shimul said.
Atiar Rahman, the officer in-charge of the Sundarganj police station in Liton’s hometown, said authorities are still looking for clues.
"The day after the killing, the younger sister of the slain MP filed a case against five unnamed attackers. We have detained 27 suspects, mostly Jamaat activists. We are working with all intelligence agencies to find clues and nab the killers," Rahman told ucanews.com.
Constitutionally secular Bangladesh, with a moderate Sunni Muslim-majority population, has seen sharp rise in Islamic militancy over the past few years. Machete-wielding and gun-totting militants have killed atheist bloggers, foreigners, writers, publishers, academics, foreigners, LGBT activists and religious minorities including Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.
In the worst attack so far on July 1 last year, five Islamic militants pledging allegiance to Sunni jihadist group that calls itself the Islamic State, killed 22 hostages, most of them foreigners, in a cafe in Dhaka.
Since the attack, the government has launched a massive crackdown on militants, which saw dozens killed and hundreds arrested.
Source: UCAN
Goa to host international film festival on Mother Teresa
Goa to host international film festival on Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was canonised by Pope Francis in September last year.
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A press statement issued by the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, Goa, said that the aim of the festival "is to make known the life and works of Mother Teresa so that all may be inspired by her life to serve the society".
The event is a part of a series of celebratory events being organised by the Church in honour of Mother Teresa, the statement added.
As part of the festival, films will be screened at venues in Panaji as well as Margao town in South Goa, 35 kms from here.
Some of the films which will be screened at the six-day festival, which kicks off on January 5, are "In the name of God's poor" (USA), "All for God's Love" (India), "Mother Teresa and Me" (UK), "The Fifth World" (Spain) and "Nirmal Hriday" (India).
Mother Teresa was canonised as a saint by Pope Francis in September last year.
IANS
Rohingya flock to Bangladesh to escape violence
Rohingya flock to Bangladesh to escape violence
Stories of atrocities perpetrated by Myanmar security forces are common, including arbitrary arrests, killings and rape.
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| Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar at a camp in Bangladesh. (ucanews.com photo) |
Myanmar authorities said on Jan. 2 that four police officers were being investigated over a video that appears to show officers beating members of the Muslim Rohingya minority during a security operation, presumably in November.
The video went viral on social media and sparked international outrage as Burmese authorities repeatedly denied allegations of a genocidal crackdown on Rohingya minorities by security forces. The government claims to be conducting counter-insurgency operations after militants attacked Myanmar border posts on Oct. 9, killing nine border police and looting arms and ammunition.
Rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized the Myanmar government for failing to halt "scorched-earth operations" in Rakhine state, labeling them "ethnic cleansing."
Muhammad Kabir, 55, a Rohingya community leader from Leda unregistered camp in Cox’s Bazar district, says Rohingyas from Rakhine continue to cross the Naf River and enter into the camp.
"I know of one family who came to the camp yesterday with assistance from brokers on both sides and the help of their relatives here," Kabir, a father of eight living in Leda camp for over 10 years, told ucanews.com.
Kabir says Leda camp, set up in 1991, housed 2,182 families in October with an estimated 13,000 people. The camp has seen an influx of 2,800 families or about 15,000 new refugees as of Jan 2.
"Here, people are poor because they can’t go outside and don’t have many employment opportunities. Yet people are hosting large families and feeding them as they can with support from humanitarian groups," Kabir said.
He said stories of atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar security forces are common, including the burning of houses, arbitrary arrests, killings and rape. But recent arrivals have shared another horrific method used by the military.
"Some of them told me the military would round up villagers and inject poisonous chemical into their bodies. Within one or two days, they die out slowly," Kabir said.
Source: UCAN
Victory for Indian women?
Victory for Indian women?
Looking at challenges Hindu, Muslim and Christian women face in India.
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Mumbai: Indian women are redefining who has the last word with regard to religious traditions. In the past year, Hindu and Muslim women, fed up with the male appropriation of religion, have appealed to the courts for justice.
On Nov. 29 last year over 100 Muslim women and activists entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah which houses the tomb of 14th-century saint, Sayed Peer Haji Ali Shah Bukhari, after the Bombay High Court struck down a ban imposed by its trustees five years ago.
The trustees said the earlier practice was un-Islamic and the ban would also avoid the intermingling of men and women in an enclosed space that they claimed was a source of mental disturbance to men and physical discomfort to women.
After repeated attempts to dialogue with the trustees and the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission failed, women from the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Indian Muslim women’s forum) filed a petition in the Bombay High Court.
After eight hearings the court ruled that the trust "had no right to discriminate," and "the right to manage the trust cannot override the right to practice religion itself." It also asked the state and the trust to ensure the "safety and security of women" entering the shrine.
The trust’s appeal to the Supreme Court, was struck down and the shrine’s management was directed by the top court in India "to do some secular introspection and come up with a progressive stand on women’s entry" into the shrine.
Prior to this, Hindu women had secured their own victory. In March last year, they managed to overturn a 400-year-old tradition of discrimination against them through a petition in the Bombay High Court.
Women activists appealed to the court to remove a ban on the entry of women of menstrual age to Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state. They argued that the ban was arbitrary, illegal and in violation of the fundamental rights of citizens.
The Bombay High Court ruled that if men were granted entry to a place of worship, women should enjoy access too, and asked the Maharashtra government to ensure that women were not denied entry to any temple.
Another case involving the entry of women into Sabrimala temple in Kerala is still pending in the Supreme Court. The sensitivity of the case is evident from its long trajectory.
According to The Hindu, a reputed national daily, a "total of 10 Supreme Court judges, sitting in various combinations, have already heard the case in as many years." In April this year the bench was unexpectedly changed making it the sixth to hear the case.
Women’s entry into physical religious spaces however, is only the tip of the iceberg.
Already questions are being asked about whether Hindu women, who have been competently trained in the Vedas and temple rituals, have a constitutional right to appointments as priests in temples especially those that are the property of the state and administered by the government.
At the root of all these developments is the taboo that surrounds menstruating women.
Criticizing the Haji Ali trustees’ compromise which now allows women and men to pray about two meters from the tomb without touching it, activist Feroze Mithiborwala hits the nail on the head when he says: The solution they have found is "equality in discrimination. In their minds they still believe that women are impure." What few realize is that unless this underlying faulty premise is challenged, discriminatory religious practices will continue to go unchallenged.
When these cases first hit the news, I was asked if there were similar restrictions on the entry of menstruating women in the Catholic Church. On the face of it, no, but the truth is that the supposed ritual uncleanliness of women is also ingrained in the Catholic psyche, and prohibitions based on it have remained in official church law for the past 700 years.
Menstrual blood as well as the blood shed in childbirth were seen to make women "ritually" unclean. "Churching" was strictly observed as late as the 1960s, and prior to the 1983 Code of Canon Law women were not allowed to serve at the altar, or read the scriptures, or distribute Holy Communion.
If women could not perform any of these functions, they obviously could not also preside at the altar. Which raises a key question: How much of "the constant and universal tradition of the church" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4) with regard to the ban on women priests rests on women being considered ritually impure and having an "inferior" nature?
This is not a new question. What Indian women have shown us, however, is that it may be worthwhile to ask this question in a new setting, use as a new scale for justice.
That the call to priesthood is a matter of faith is unquestionable. No one has the right to become a priest, neither men nor women. But surely God has the right to call whomever God wants?
And if we are all, women and men, equal in the sight of God and the law, do women not have equal rights to fulfill their calling to serve as ordained ministers and participate too in decision-making?
If they are prevented from doing so, is it not a form of discrimination that goes against the constitutional rights of Indian women? Can Indian Catholic women file a petition like their Hindu and Muslim sisters?
It’s an intriguing thought.
Astrid Lobo Gajiwala is a feminist theologian and activist based in Mumbai.
Source: UCAN
Bombay archdiocese studies porn addiction among youth
Bombay archdiocese studies porn addiction among youth
Study aims at understanding those who use it, and finding programmes to help them de-addict.
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The online survey (http://survey.snehalayafamily.com) seeks responses from people in the age group of 15 to 25 years, as well as those over 25 years. The identity of those who participate will be kept confidential.
"At present, we hear a lot of things about pornography. While there are studies being done on porn and its effects outside India, nothing has been taken up here. We have not done any study on porn users, and hence, we wanted to do one," said Father Cajeton Menezes, director of Snehalaya Family Service Centre, who has started the year-long survey.
Snehalaya Family Service Centre, a facility of the archdiocese, helps families in Mumbai. The survey is part of its efforts to strengthen families of not just Catholics but also of all other communities that approach the center.
It was in the counselling centres — where the Church looks to ensure that marriages last — that they realised the need to study the porn issue closer. The Church stands for saving marriages unless there was some pre-existing problem that was not known and due to which a marriage needed to be annulled.
The priest said during counselling session was couples spoke of “more and more cases of erectile dysfunction, partners fulfilling their need by watching porn, husbands forcing their wives to watch porn and also enact steps. All this was leading to breaking of marriages,” Father Menezes said.
"This study also looks at figuring out addiction among women. Women addiction patterns are different. They are not so much into graphic but more into literature," added the priest said.
The other aspects of the study will be place of access of porn, how deep the users go into it, the genre, role of porn in marriage and life, post-porn effects, methods tried to de-addict, being open about watching porn, money and time spent, inclination towards religion and the self-esteem of the person.
"The aim is to understand the addicts and their practices. Questions will also gauge how they feel about themselves and their self-esteem, whether it is high or low," said Doctor Trudy Dantis, research consultant who has put together the questions and will be structuring the report when responses are close to 5,000.
"Through the study, we will also come to know if the problem is overrated or underrated. Once the study is complete, the report will be given to counsellors or psychiatrists who help people come out with answers on preventive programmes," said Allwyn Dantis, project co-ordinator of the Plague of Pornography.
"We want to complete the survey with good response. But what we see is that a number of people are not answering all the questions. Their identities will not be disclosed," said Menezes.
Source: DNA
Defining the mission of Pontianak Archdiocese
Defining the mission of Pontianak Archdiocese
Archbishop Agustinus Agusis looking to give local church clear guidance and purpose.
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| Archbishop Agustinus Agus of Pontianak. (Photo by Katharina R. Lestari) |
The archbishop was surprised when he discovered that such a huge archdiocese, with a long history, was managed like a family business, without any clear guidance.
The archdiocese’s history dates back to 1313 when a Franciscan priest went to Singkawang, West Kalimantan. It would be hundreds of years later — 1961 in fact — before Pontianak Archdiocese was born.
The Vatican appointed Archbishop Agus last year — he was previously bishop of Sintang — to succeed Bishop Hieronymus Herculanus Bumbun who retired in 2014.
The prelate, who was ordained a priest on June 19, 1977, said it was strange that the archdiocese did not have any written diocesan guidelines, despite its suffragan dioceses — Ketapang, Sanggau and Sintang — already having them for decades.
"The situation affected archdiocesan life particularly in terms of the discipline in administration," the prelate said.
To rectify this he invited all the priests in January 2015 to sit together and draft some visions and missions.
On Jan. 23 this year the archdiocese completed writing them and are now in process of being published.
"Written visions and missions are important. With them, we can set priorities," he said.
Pressing issues
Pressing issues challenging the archdiocese include a priest shortage, difficult geographical conditions, poor education and environmental destruction.
As of last year, Pontianak Archdiocese has 415,239 baptized Catholics living in 26 parishes stretching across seven districts. It has about 90 priests, 43 brothers and 317 nuns.
"A shortage of priests is the most pressing issue," the prelate said. For instance, St. John the Baptist Parish in Pahauman, Landak district, only has three priests serving about 50,000 Catholics in 170 villages.
However, the prelate born in Lintang, in Sanggau district, on Oct. 22, 1949 says other archdioceses and dioceses also have a shortage of priests.
"This is a global issue," he said, which can be a result of the requirement for celibacy, and also a lack of promotion of religious vocations among young people.
Another challenge is the archdiocese’s geography, since it covers 39,840 square-kilometers, and has many poor gravel roads.
"Roads are terrible when it rains. Also, some villages can only be reached by river. It takes hours," he explains.
A priest can serve a large number of Catholics living in towns. But it’s very difficult to do so in remote areas. As a result, a priest can only visit a village at least once a year.
According to the archbishop, poor education is another problem people in villages have to put up with. Many villagers have no education at all or are school dropouts, he says.
Another big issue in West Kalimantan is environmental destruction, which is partly blamed on government’s palm oil plantation initiative.
According to the United Nations Development Program, Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil. In 2013, the total plantation area for palm oil production in the country was estimated to account for approximately 10 million hectares, generating 27 million tons of palm oil. The country aims to increase palm oil production to 40 million tons by 2020. Much of it is in Kalimantan.
"The government, for the sake of people’s interests, changed forests into palm oil plantations. The problem is, it’s no longer easy for people to get clean water or firewood," says Archbishop Agus.
Forest fires are also a serious problem faced by the archdiocese.
Pontianak, the provincial capital, doesn’t have forests nearby but has experienced several fires in empty fields near housing areas. Since July this year, dozens of hectares have gone up in flames fire. Some have occurred on peat land, where fires are more difficult to extinguish causing air pollution as a result of the haze.
Well preserved
On the brighter side, the archdiocese is good at promoting religious harmony and inculturation, Archbishop Agus says.
"People from different religions live in harmony. Although there’s no religious-based conflict, there have been ethnic tensions between Dayak and Madurese people in the past," he says.
In 1996, tensions boiled over in West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan between the indigenous Dayak and Madurese migrants. The violence left hundreds of people dead and thousands homeless.
Catholics in the archdiocese are from several ethnic backgrounds: Dayak, Chinese, Javanese, Papuan and Toraja as well as Timorese and Florenese. About 80 percent of the Catholics are indigenous people.
In Pontianak, where many Chinese Indonesians live, Imlek or Lunar New Year celebrations have been incorporated into church activities, the archbishop says.
Main programs
Under the leadership of Archbishop Agus, the archdiocese has embarked on three main programs.
First, the archdiocese will improve people’s welfare by developing a people-centered economy, and paying special attention to educating children from poor families.
The people-centered economy could come in the form of a credit Union or the formation of a diocesan commission on economic development, to focusing on helping people come up with a way of earning more money.
Second, land rights of indigenous people are to be respected which will involve monitoring mining and plantation activities to ensure that the environment is looked after.
Lastly, the archdiocese is seeking to encourage the government to facilitate a dialogue between religious and ethnic groups, to guarantee people’s safety, and to hire more Catholic teachers.
As a first step, the archbishop will introduce the written visions and missions to Catholics.
"The first step I will make isn’t that big. But I want to make parish priests and parish councils aware of the written visions and missions," he says.
Part of the job is also keeping Catholics informed about the challenges we face and to encourage them to continue to live the spirit of our missions.
"A lot of things need to be improved within the church," Archbishop Agus says.
Source: UCAN
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