Video shows ISIS destroying Catholic church, threatening Rome

Weihui, China, Jun 8, 2018 / 03:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The sanctuary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in China’s Henan province is a popular pilgrimage site for many Catholics, where thousands have journeyed since its founding in 1903 to pray and walk the shrine’s Way of the Cross.

However, on the evening of June 5, local government authorities tore down the sanctuary’s images of Christ along the Way of the Cross, only weeks after Chinese officials told Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin of Weihui (Anyang) to dismantle the Way of the Cross without any given reason.

The Way of the Cross was demolished during the night on Tuesday, said Bishop Zhang, when “excavators and pickup trucks were driven to the site at night because authorities feared there would be too many church members in the daytime,” according to UCA News.

Local nuns took videos and pictures of the damages and sent them to chat groups to record the vandalism. One religious source said the Communist Party was making an example out of the sanctuary, saying the government would “allow Catholicism to exist but not develop.”

The sanctuary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the only pilgrimage site in Henan province and is located in Tianjiajing village. It was a product of the vision of Bishop Stefano Scarella, P.I.M.E., who was vicar apostolic of Northern Honan from 1884 until his death in 1902. He dedicated the shrine to Mary, in gratitude for protecting missionaries during the Boxer Rebellion.

Every year, the sanctuary hosted an annual celebration July 16, where thousands of pilgrims visited from nearby provinces, such as Hebei and Shanxi. However, in 1987, the government banned large pilgrimage gatherings and limited the number of pilgrims to 300.

Despite the shrine’s rooted history in the province, the future of the sanctuary after the recent vandalism is unknown.

The damages sustained at Our Lady of Mount Carmel is indicative of mounting strikes against religious freedom in China. Last fall, one Protestant church was dismantled in the same province, and in February, towns throughout Henan were notified of a ban against publicly posting religious pamphlets.

Crosses at Catholic churches have also been removed and demolished by government officials in Henan, which is believed to have the second largest Christian population in the country, with roughly 2.4 million Christians as of 2009. Church-run kindergarten schools were additionally taken over by officials and closed without further notice, and one bishop’s tomb was desecrated.

Eight of Henan’s ten dioceses have been ordered to be suppressed since Wang Guosheng became the Communist Party Secretary of the province in March.

Zhejiang province has also been a focus for local government persecution of Christians. There have also been reports of church demolition or removal of crosses in Shaanxi province and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom recently published its 2018 report in April, in which it identifies China as a Country of Particular Concern. This label is given to foreign governments that engages in or tolerates “systemic, ongoing, and egregious” religious freedom violations.

In April, a Chinese government official who oversees religious affairs said that government restrictions on bishop appointments are not a violation of religious freedom, as he emphasized that religions in China must “adapt to socialist society.”

President Xi Jinping, who was granted lifelong rule in March has urged greater government control and less foreign influence over religions in China. New restrictions were put in place by the Chinese government Feb. 1 making it illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to enter a church building.

There were widespread reports earlier this year that the Holy See was close to coming to an agreement with the Chinese government over bishop appointments.

The Church in China is split between an underground Catholic Church and the officially recognized Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Every bishop recognized by Beijing must be a member of the association, which is now under day-to-day direct supervision of the Chinese Communist Party.

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CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2020 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- Iran has sentenced a 21 year-old Christian woman to prison and lashing for “disturbing public order,” after she protested the destruction of a passenger jet by the military.

Mary (Fatemeh) Mohamma… […]

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 5, 2019 / 03:17 pm (CNA).- Robert Richter, Cardinal George Pell’s defense lawyer, said Tuesday that he has not quit the prelate’s legal team. A Melbourne daily had earlier reported Richter will not be part of the appeals process.

Richter told the AAP March 5, “I have not quit. I do not quit.”

Pell, prefect emeritus of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, was convicted in December on five counts of sexual abuse stemming from charges that he sexually assaulted two choirboys while serving as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. He has maintained his innocence, is appealing his conviction.

It was the cardinal’s second trial, as a jury in an earlier trial had failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The first jury were deadlocked 10-2 in Pell’s favor.

At a pre-trial hearing, Richter had noted that Victoria Police had launched an investigation of Pell in 2013, searching for complainants, calling it “an operation looking for a crime because no crime had been reported.”

Though he will remain on Pell’s legal team, Richter will not be leading it through the appeal.

Paul Galbally, Pell’s solicitor, said that “In these particular circumstances, Richter questions whether he has sufficient objectivity at this stage to take the appeal forward himself.”

He added that “As Cardinal Pell is well aware, Richter is still very much part of the legal team and will be involved right through to the end.”

Pell’s appeal will by led by barrister Bret Walker SC, who will be assisted by Richter, Galbally, and Ruth Shann, Richter’s junior barrister.

The Age had reported earlier March 5 that Richter “felt he did not have ‘sufficient objectivity at this stage’ to participate in the challenge set to be heard in Victoria’s Court of Appeal.”

He told the Melbourne outlet, “I am very angry about the verdict, because it was perverse”, and that Pell would be “better served by someone more detached”.

“I think the man is an innocent man and he’s been convicted. It’s not a common experience,” Richter said.

According to The Age, Pell’s appeal will be made on three points: the jury’s reliance on the evidence of a single victim, an irregularity that kept Pel from entering his not guilty plea in front of the jury, and the defense not being allowed to show a visual representation supporting his claim of innocence.

The appeal document, The Age reported, says that “the verdicts are unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence, because on the whole of the evidence, including unchallenged exculpatory evidence from more than 20 Crown witnesses, it was not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on the word of the complainant alone.”

The news of Pell’s conviction has met with varied reactions.  While many figures in Australian media have applauded Pell’s conviction, some Australians have called it into question, prompting considerable debate across the country.

Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, suggested that the justice process was tainted by media and police forces that had worked “to blacken the name” of Pell “before he went to trial.”

“This is not a story about whether a jury got it right or wrong, or about whether justice is seen to prevail,” Craven said in a Feb. 27 opinion piece in The Australian. “It’s a story about whether a jury was ever given a fair chance to make a decision, and whether our justice system can be heard above a media mob.”

Speaking on an Australian television program March 4, Australian Labor senator Kristina Keneally said those criticizing the verdict were “doing a disservice to our democratic jury system,” adding, “I think it’s disrespectful of the jury verdict … I would also reflect it’s quite disrespectful of victims.”

A university employees’ union representative at the ACU wrote to the school’s chancellor saying staff “have expressed dismay or repugnance” at Craven’s actions.

Dr. Leah Kaufmann, a senior lecturer in psychology, wrote that Craven’s questioning of the verdict “shows a disregard” for concerns regarding child safeguarding and “supporting survivors of sexual abuse.”

On this basis Kaufmann asked that Craven be sanctioned, charging him with “lack of consideration of victims.”

She also asked that the Pell Centre at the school’s Ballarat campus be renamed, and that his portrait be removed from a location at the North Sydney campus.

The Australian reported that an ACU spokeswoman responded that the school respects employees’ rights to comment as a matter of intellectual freedom, saying Craven “made comment on the trial as a constitutional lawyer and former Victorian Crown Counsel.”

Pell is incarcerated at the Melbourne Assessment Prison while he awaits the results of a sentencing hearing, which will be announced March 13.

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