Church leaders will appeal Indian Supreme Court order for tax on salaries of clergy

Exposition of the official portrait of Servant of God Niña Ruíz-Abad on April 7, 2024, at the Cathedral of St. William the Hermit in Laoag City, Philippines. / Credit: Courtesy of the Cenacle of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

National Catholi… […]

Manila, Philippines, Jun 27, 2017 / 12:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Last week, members of a terrorist group destroyed a Catholic chapel, desecrating consecrated hosts and religious icons, during a nine-hour long attack on the town of Malagakit in southern Philippines.

The June 21 attack was reportedly carried out by about 300 gunmen of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, known as BIFF, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. In the siege they also robbed houses and stores at gunpoint, causing the displacement of hundreds of residents.

Residents were also forced to flee after being caught in a fire-fight between BIFF and government forces, according to Realan Mamon, the police chief of Pigkawayan town, where Malagakit is located.

He told the Associated Press that he had a report that gunmen were occupying a school as well, although it wasn’t immediately apparent if people were trapped inside by the fighting or taken hostage.

In the chapel, which is nearby a school also destroyed in the attack, the militants used hammers to destroy religious icons and vital fixtures. They also desecrated consecrated hosts.

Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato decried the act Saturday, saying that he condemns “in the strongest terms possible the wicked desecration of the Catholic Chapel of Malagakit in the parish of Pigcawayan…”

“If the BIFF wants to have an image as a ‘respecter’ of all religions, it must punish its members who perpetrated the odious desecration in Malagakit and educate all its members in strictly respecting other religions,” he continued.

Cardinal Quevedo urged the Catholic faithful of Malagakit to restore the sacred space of their chapel, asking for the prayers of the entire Archdiocese for peace and harmony among all believers of all religions.

Some leaders of the town, such as Salvador Almonia, Jr., a chairman of Malagakit, have hypothesized that the attack on the chapel was intended to create division between the town’s Catholics and Muslims, who currently live together peacefully.

“That was meant to sow anger among us. We will not respond the way the BIFF want us to respond to that despicable act,” he said.

The vice governor of North Cotabato, Shirlyn Macasarte-Villanueva, urged Muslim and Christian residents to disregard attempts to sow division between them.

“Let us be sober and continue with the friendship and solidarity that we have. We just have to be vigilant and we need to help each other prevent a repeat of the incident,” Macasarte-Villanueva said Thursday.

The attack follows a May 22 siege on parts of a city on Mindanao in the Philippines, where militants burned several buildings, including the Catholic cathedral and the bishop’s residence.

At the cathedral, they took hostages including a Catholic priest and a group of church-goers, threatening to kill them if the nation’s military does not cease its current offensive against them.

They are also said to have freed more than 100 inmates from prisons in the city. The fighting has reportedly killed at least 20 people in the city.

The attack was carried out by militants of the Maute group, which was formed in 2012 and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015. The militants’ violence began after a failed army and police raid to capture Isnilon Hapilon, a local Islamist leader.

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Mumbai, India, Feb 7, 2019 / 11:01 pm (CNA).- An Indian businessman has expressed his intention to sue his parents for giving him life without his permission.

Six months ago, Mumbai resident Raphael Samuel brought the case up during breakfast to his parents, both of whom are lawyers, according to the BBC.

He is currently looking for a lawyer to take his case, for which he argues that people should be compensated for a life they did not request. He has not yet found a lawyer.

Samuel is a self-proclaimed anti-natalist, a position which views birth as essentially negative. Since the begetting of life precludes the consent of the begotten, Samuel has said it is unfair for parents to bring children into a world that involves suffering.

In a recent demonstration on his YouTube page, Samuel gave insight into reason behind the lawsuit. He said that if consent is not established before birth, then people do not owe their parents anything and should be financially maintained for the rest of their lives.

“Basically, I want everyone in India, and the whole world, to realize one thing – that they are born without their consent and that they do not owe their parents anything,” he said.

Samuel has promoted his anti-natalist philosophy on his Facebook page, Nihilanan. He often posts pictures of himself in a fake beard and sunglasses with messages claiming that reproduction is hypocritical and based on the self-interest of the parents.

“Isn’t forcing a child into this world and forcing it to have a career, kidnapping, and slavery?” Or, “Your parents had you instead of a toy or a dog, you owe them nothing, you are their entertainment,” he wrote in some of the Facebook posts.

The case has not caused a riff between him and his parents, as one might suspect. In a recent statement, his mother, Kavita Karnad Samuel, said she was proud of her son for his independent thinking.

He told the BBC that humanity’s absence from the world would not only be a solution to human suffering, but also an improvement for the planet.

“There’s no point to humanity. So many people are suffering. If humanity is extinct, Earth and animals would be happier. They’ll certainly be better off. Also no human will then suffer. Human existence is totally pointless,” he said.

“I know it’s going to be thrown out because no judge would hear it. But I do want to file a case because I want to make a point,” he told the BBC.

By contrast, the Church teaches clearly the value of human life.

In his 1995 encylical Evangelium vitae, St. John Paul II wrote that “man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God,” and that the gift of human life is unexpected and undeserved.

“Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can … come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree,” the pope wrote.

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