Yaoundé, Cameroon, Nov 16, 2018 / 04:03 pm (ACI Prensa).- Three Franciscan sisters and 13 novices travelling from Bamenda to Shisong in Northwest Cameroon have been released, after they were captured by separatist fighters in the small village of Bames… […]
Algiers, Algeria, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
The Algerian martyrs will be beatified Dec. 8 at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in Oran.
“The beatification of our brothers and sisters is a grace for our Church,” Archbishop Desfarges wrote in a November pastoral letter.
He urged the local Church “to love as they did in the freedom that the Holy Spirit gives” because the martyrs “go before us on the path of witness that our Church is called to give in this land of Algeria, which from the first century has been watered with the blood of the martyrs.”
Archbishop Desfarges said that the 19 martyrs “still continue their mission” and noted that “their lives were given to God and to the people to whom love had united them.” He encouraged the faithful to pray to them “asking for the grace of fidelity for our Church in its mission.”
The archbishop said that the witness of the future blesseds “takes us down the path of ordinary holiness.”
“Life is given to us in order to live it giving ourselves in the everyday…holiness is not a perfection in virtue or morals” but “is a matter of giving your own life, loving and serving in the ordinary things of every day life,” he stressed.
Archbishop Desfarges recalled that the Gospel of following Christ “invites us, encouraged by our blesseds, to live welcoming others to the point of completely divesting ourselves. To welcome the other person is to be totally present to his presence.”
He recalled that “there is no greater love than to lay down your own life for your own friends,” and emphasized the invitation to “endure humiliations” because “to welcome Jesus means to be welcoming to the enemy,” for “the Cross is lifted up when at the moment you are loving the most, you are rejected.”
Finally, the Archbishop of Algiers invited the faithful to live this “time of witnessing” through inter-religious dialogue.
“The witness of the Catholic Church is not a witness against another’s religion, but a witness that the love of Christ poured out in our hearts calls us to live a love for everyone, without distinction, even enemies,” he concluded.
In January Pope Francis had authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to recognize the martyrdoms.
The future blesseds are Bishop Claverie, who was a French Algerian and the Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his Aug. 1, 1996 martyrdom. He and his companions were killed during the Algerian Civil War by Islamists.
In addition to Claverie, those being beatified are: Brother Henri Vergès, Sister Paul-Hélène Saint-Raymond, Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso, Sister Caridad Álvarez Martín, Fr. Jean Chevillard, Fr. Alain Dieulangard, Fr. Charles Deckers, Fr. Christian Chessel, Sister Angèle-Marie Littlejohn, Sister Bibiane Leclercq, Sister Odette Prévost, Brother Luc Dochier, Brother Christian de Chergé, Brother Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Brother Bruno Lemarchand, Brother Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville.
The best known of Claverie’s companions are the seven monks of Tibhirine, who were kidnapped from their Trappist priory in March 1996. They were kept as a bartering chip to procure the release of several imprisoned members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, and were killed in May. Their story was dramatized in the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
After the death of the monks of Tibhirine, Bishop Claverie knew his life was in serious danger. A bomb exploded at the entrance of his chancery Aug. 1, 1996, killing him and an aide, Mohamed Bouchikhi.
Al-Fashir, Sudan, Nov 15, 2018 / 09:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of 13 Christian converts in Darfur, Sudan was arrested and tortured last month for their faith, World Watch Monitor and several Christian aid groups have reported.
The Christians were… […]
Islamabad, Pakistan, Nov 14, 2018 / 03:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While the world awaits the fate of Asia Bibi, who remains in hiding in Pakistan following the acquittal of her death sentence for blasphemy, religious freedom advocates are calling for an end to blasphemy laws across the globe.
“Blasphemy laws are a way for governments to deny their citizens – and particularly those of minority religions – the basic human rights to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression,” Dr. Tenzin Dorjee, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said in the statement in October.
However, Dorjee’s statement was not directed at Pakistan — but Ireland.
Irish citizens voted to remove a provision criminalizing blasphemy from their Constitution on Oct. 26, although the law had not been enforced in recent years.
The Irish Bishops’ Conference said that the blasphemy reference, although “largely obsolete,” could raise concern because of how it could be used “to justify violence and oppression against minorities in other parts of the world.”
More than one-third of the world’s countries maintain laws that criminalize blasphemy — defined as “the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.” Punishments for blasphemy across the 68 countries range widely from fines to imprisonment and death.
In Sudan and Saudi Arabia, corporal punishment, such as whipping, has been used in blasphemy cases. Recently, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 public lashes, given in installments of 50 lashes every week, in addition to 10 years in prison separated from his wife and children, and a 10-year travel ban after his prison sentence.
Compulsory and correctional labor are the prescribed punishments in the blasphemy laws in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Iran has the world’s most severe blasphemy laws, followed closely by Pakistan, according to the U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom. Both countries’ laws enforce the death penalty for an insult to the prophet Muhammad. In 2015 alone, Iran executed 20 people for “enmity against God.”
In addition to Iran and Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Qatar, and Egypt have among the world’s worst blasphemy laws, the USCIRF study found in 2017.
Although many of the world’s blasphemy laws are enforced in largely Muslim countries, they exist in every region of the world.
Some Western nations, such as Malta and Denmark, have repealed their national blasphemy laws in recent years, while other countries still enforce them.
In Spain, an actor was prosecuted in September for explicit comments insulting God and the Virgin Mary in Facebook posts that supported the procession of a giant model of female genitalia through the streets of Seville, mocking the Catholic tradition.
Spain’s penal code requires monetary fines for “publicly disparaging dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies” of a religion, and include similar penalties for those who publicly disparage people without a religious faith.
Greek law maintains that “anyone who publicly and maliciously and by any means blasphemes the Greek Orthodox Church or any religion tolerable in Greece shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years.”
The Italian criminal code also includes provisions for “insulting the state religion,” however the government does not generally enforce the law against blasphemy.
In Thailand, the constitution calls for the state to “implement measures to prevent any forms of harm or threat against Buddhism” with potential punishment from two to seven years imprisonment.
In Pakistan, Catholic mother-of-five Asia Bibi was recently acquitted after spending eight years on death row. However, her life is still in danger, as the ruling is under government review as part of a deal to appease groups that were leading riots in the streets. And the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reports that at least 40 other people in Pakistan are either on death row or currently serving life sentences for blasphemy.
Nearly half of those facing the death penalty under Pakistan’s blasphemy law have been Christians in a country that is 97 percent Muslim.
“Bibi’s case illustrates how blasphemy laws are used to persecute the weakest of the weak among Pakistan’s religious minorities,” Religious Freedom Institute fellow Farahnaz Ispahani wrote earlier this year.
“As a poor Christian from a low caste, Bibi was among the most vulnerable and susceptible to discrimination. And the legal system — which, in theory, should be designed to protect the innocent — failed her in every way.”
Benin City, Nigeria, Nov 12, 2018 / 02:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Four priests who were abducted in Nigeria’s Edo state last week were released Friday night.
The priests were rescued by police operatives Nov. 9. According to The Punch, the captors fled as a rescue team of police from Edo and Delta states approached.
The Nov. 6 kidnapping was originally reported as occurring in neighboring Delta state, and only one of the victims was identified as a priest.
The priests who were taken hostage are Fr. Emmanuel Obadjere of the Diocese of Warri, Fr. Victor Adigboluja of the Diocese of Ijebu-Ode, Fr Anthony Otegbola of the Diocese of Abeokuta, and Fr. Joseph Ediae of the Archdiocese of Benin City.
Fr. Mike Oyanoafoh, chancellor of the Benin City archdiocese, said the priests had been taken to a hospital in Benin City for treatment.
They had been travelling from Orerokpe to Akahia, for an alumni reunion at All Saints major seminary. They were taken from their car somewhere between Abraka and Urhonigbe.
The Warri diocese said it was suspected that the gunmen who abucted the priests were Fulani herders.
It is unclear whether a ransom was paid for the priests’ release.
Violence against Christians has significantly increased in Nigeria in recent years, with the radical Islamist group Boko Haram threatening safety in the north, and smaller violent gangs threatening security in the south.
In recent months, several priests and religious have been kidnapped in southern Nigeria.
One priest was abducted in Edo in April, six women religious in January, and another priest in October 2017.
Vatican City, Nov 9, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis and the Assyrian Patriarch Mar Gewargis III have pledged ecumenical unity in support of persecuted Christians in the Middle East. In a joint statement released Nov. 9, the two leaders called the… […]
Bamenda, Cameroon, Nov 8, 2018 / 11:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Seventy-eight students and a driver kidnapped from a Christian school in Cameroon were released late Tuesday.
The students were recovered the evening of Nov. 6 at a building of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon in Bafut, fewer than 15 miles north of Bamenda, whence they were taken.
The principal and a teacher of the Presbyterian Secondary School were also abducted Nov. 5, but were not released with the students and driver.
The Cameroonian government and Anglophone separats have accused each other of being behind the abduction; both have denied involvement.
Fonki Samuel, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, told BBC Focus on Africa that the students, aged 11-17, were “frightened and traumatised but in good shape.”
Samuel said the release “was done peacefully… by unidentified gunmen.”
It had earlier been reported that 79 students were taken, but Samuels said it was in fact 78.
The Nov. 5 kidnapping was the second such incident at Bamenda’s Presbyterian Secondary School in recent weeks. Another 11 students were abducted Oct. 31, and released for a $4,000 ransom.
Samuel suggested that “armed groups, gangsters and thieves” could be using the insecurity in Cameroon, blaming kidnappings on either the government or the separatists.
Separatists have set fire to more than 100 schools, taking them over as training grounds, the AP has reported. The groups protest the bias toward the French language over English in the educational system.
On. Oct 30, an American Baptist missionary was shot in the head amid the fighting in Bamenda.
“This tragedy occurred in the midst of the Anglophone crisis that affects the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon. Both the separatist fighters and government security forces have used violence against innocent civilians,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Palladino said Oct. 31.
Earlier in October, a seminarian in Bamenda was shot by Cameroonian soldiers outside of a church following Mass.
Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua of Bamenda called the 19-year-old seminarian, Gerard Anjiangwe, a “martyr of the Anglophone crisis” in his funeral Mass Oct. 16. Anjiangwe died holding his rosary.
More than 160,000 people have been forced out of their homes by the conflict according to Caritas International.
The crisis in Cameroon is rooted in conflict between the English- and French-speaking areas of Cameroon.
The area was a German colony in the late 19th century, but the territory was divided into British and French mandates after the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. The mandates were united in an independent Cameroon in 1961.
There is now a separatist movement in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, which were formerly the British Southern Cameroons.
Unrest in Cameroon has been ongoing since 2016, when the country’s Anglophone community began protests to demand the return of federalism. These protests have gone so care as to call for secession from the current government, run by President Paul Biya.
Biya was sworn in to his seventh term Nov. 6. He has ruled Cameroon for 36 years. Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala has voiced concern that Biya’s election was marred by fraud.
Warri, Nigeria, Nov 7, 2018 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic priest and three other persons were kidnapped in Nigeria’s Delta state Tuesday night, according to local media.
Fr. Emmanuel Obadjere and his companions were taken hostage by unknown gunmen Nov. 6 while on their way to Ekpoma, in neighboring Edo state, Pulse reports.
Fr. Obadjere is a priest of the Diocese of Warri, whose website says he was ordained June 26, 2008. According to Pulse, he is pastor of St. William’s parish in Orerokpe, about 10 miles northeast of Warri. It is at least 100 miles from Orerokpe to Epkoma.
Delta Commissioner of Police Muhammad Mustafa told Pulse Wednesday that a suspect has been arrested.
Last month, five nuns were abducted in Delta.
At least six priests have been kidnapped in the state this year.
Violence against Christians has significantly increased in Nigeria in recent years, with the radical Islamist group Boko Haram threatening safety in the north, and smaller violent gangs threatening security in the south.
Jerusalem, Nov 7, 2018 / 03:07 am (CNA).- Pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a powerful journey that can ignite Christian faith through seeing the places Jesus walked, worked miracles, died and rose from the dead.
The Franciscans who have served in the re… […]
Jerusalem, Nov 6, 2018 / 01:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Top Catholic prelates in Israel are asking the government to repeal the recent Nation State Law, which they say paves a path for discrimination against non-Jewish citizens.
“Although the law ch… […]
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