Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia. / Credit: Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Apr 12, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
A Myanmar priest was shot this week while celebrating Mass in the state of Kachin, according to media reports, with the assault coming amid ongoing violent conflict between the military junta and resistance forces in the region.
Masked assailants shot Father Paul Khwi Shane Aung as he celebrated Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in the town of Mohnyin in the northern region of Myanmar.
The priest “was rushed to a hospital in Mohnyin and was later moved to a hospital in Myitkyina,” according to UCA News.
The reason for the attack is unknown and the shooters are reportedly still at large. Aung is listed on the Myitkyina Catholic Diocese’s website as a priest in the Mohnyin Zone. He was ordained in 2013.
In February, the aid group Christian Solidarity International warned of a rise in violence against the persecuted Christian minority in Myanmar, with an advocate warning that ethnic-minority Christians there “are subjected to cruel ethnic-cleansing campaigns.”
Since a military coup ousted Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, Myanmar has for years been wracked by violent conflict.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Burmese bishops’ conference, in 2021 urged Catholics in Myanmar to share God’s mercy amid the suffering caused by the military coup there.
That year the prelate noted that Myitkyina had been the victim of a “great tragedy” of “killing the innocents in the streets.”
“We need the light of God’s mercy in Myanmar,” Bo said at the time.
The shooting of Father Aung comes just weeks after the fatal shooting of a Baptist pastor, also in Kachin, while the pastor worked at his computer shop.
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Aircraft at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan / Trent Inness/Shutterstock
Washington D.C., Aug 31, 2021 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
As U.S. forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan on Monday, the head of a global charity w… […]
Pope Francis meets participants in an international conference on eradicating child labor at the Vatican’s Consistory Hall, Nov. 19, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Nov 19, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said on Friday that the persistence of child labor in 21st-century economies is “shocking and disturbing.”
Vatican Media.
Addressing participants in an international conference on Nov. 19, the pope said that the coronavirus pandemic had worsened the plight of millions of children forced to work worldwide.
“It is shocking and disturbing that in today’s economies, whose productive activities rely on technological innovations, so much so that we talk about the ‘fourth industrial revolution,’ the employment of children in work activities persists in every part of the world,” he said.
“This endangers their health and their mental and physical well-being, and deprives them of the right to education and to live their childhood with joy and serenity. The pandemic has further aggravated the situation.”
Vatican Media.
The pope was speaking in the Vatican’s Consistory Hall to participants in a conference on “Eradicating child labor, building a better future,” hosted by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, led by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson.
It was the second time this month that the pope has highlighted the scourge. He called on Nov. 2 for renewed efforts to free children from “the brutal yoke of labor exploitation” in a message to a virtual forum hosted by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Child labor is the exploitation of children. It is the denial of their rights to health, education, harmonious growth, to play, to dream. It means robbing children of their future, and therefore, humanity itself.
In his latest address, he distinguished between child labor and “the small domestic tasks that children … perform as part of family life, to help parents, siblings, grandparents or other members of the community.”
“Child labor is something else entirely,” he said. “It is the exploitation of children in the production processes of the globalized economy for the profit and gain of others.”
Vatican Media.
“It is the denial of children’s rights to health, education and harmonious growth, including the possibility to play and dream. This is tragic.”
“A child who cannot dream, who cannot play, cannot grow up. It is robbing children of their future and therefore humanity itself. It is a violation of human dignity.”
The ILO estimates that 152 million children across the world are forced to work in exploitative conditions, although the global figure decreased by 38% between 2000 and 2016.
The FAO reports that 70% of child labor takes place in an agricultural setting, with 112 million children working in crop production, livestock, forestry, fisheries, or aquaculture.
Vatican Media.
“If we want to eradicate the scourge of child labor, we must work together to eradicate poverty, to correct the distortions in the current economic system, which centralizes wealth in the hands of a few,” the pope said.
“We must encourage states and business actors to create opportunities for decent work with fair wages that enable families to meet their needs without their children being forced to work.”
“We must combine our efforts to promote quality education that is free for all in every country, as well as a health system that is accessible to all without distinction.”
Vatican Media.
“All social actors are called upon to combat child labor and its causes. The participation in this conference of representatives of international organizations, civil society, business, and the Church is a sign of great hope.”
Pope Francis greets a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for his Regina Caeli address on May 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2022 / 07:33 am (CNA).
In his Sunday Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Gospel reading from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Speaking to an estimated 25,000 pilgrims gathered on a bright day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope noted that Jesus also makes a point to add, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).
“What is this peace that the world does not know and the Lord gives us?” Pope Francis asked.
“This peace is the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Jesus. It is the presence of God in us, it is God’s ‘power of peace,'” he explained. “It is He, the Holy Spirit, who disarms the heart and fills it with serenity. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who loosens rigidity and extinguishes the temptations to attack others. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us that there are brothers and sisters beside us, not obstacles or adversaries.
“It is He, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to forgive, to begin again, to set out anew because we cannot do this with our own strength. And it is with Him, with the Holy Spirit, that we become men and women of peace,” Pope Francis said.
“This is the source of the peace Jesus gives us,” he added. “For no one can leave others peace if they do not have it within themselves. No one can give peace unless that person is at peace.”
Pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022. In his Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis spoke about the peace of Christ. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said, “Let us learn to say every day: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’ This is a beautiful prayer. Shall we say it together? ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Again encouraging the crowd to pray with him, he said, “I didn’t hear it well. One more time: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Focusing on the context of Gospel reading, Pope Francis observed that Jesus’ words to his apostles are “a sort of testament.”
The pope said, “Jesus bids farewell with words expressing affection and serenity. But he does so in a moment that is anything but serene,” referring to Judas’ unfolding betrayal and Peter’s imminent denial that he even knows Jesus.
“The Lord knows this, and yet, he does not rebuke, he does not use severe words, he does not give harsh speeches,” Pope Francis said. “Rather than demonstrate agitation, he remains kind till the end.”
He continued, “There is a proverb that says you die the way you have lived. In effect, the last hours of Jesus’ life are like the essence of his entire life. He feels fear and pain, but does not give way to resentment or protesting. He does not allow himself to become bitter, he does not vent, he is not impatient. He is at peace, a peace that comes from his meek heart accustomed to trust.”
In so doing, “Jesus demonstrates that meekness is possible,” the pope observed.
“He incarnated it specifically in the most difficult moment, and he wants us to behave that way too, since we too are heirs of his peace,” he said. “He wants us to be meek, open, available to listen, capable of defusing tensions and weaving harmony. This is witnessing to Jesus and is worth more than a thousand words and many sermons. The witness of peace.”
Pope Francis invited all disciples of Jesus to reflect on whether they behave in this way.
“Do we ease tensions, and defuse conflicts? Are we too at odds with someone, always ready to react, explode, or do we know how to respond nonviolently, do we know how to respond with peaceful actions? How do I react?” he asked.
“Certainly, this meekness is not easy,” while adding ,“How difficult it is, at every level, to defuse conflicts!”
Jesus understands this. He knows “that we need help, that we need a gift,” the pope explained.
“Peace, which is our obligation, is first of all a gift of God.”
Pope Francis said that “no sin, no failure, no grudge should discourage us from insistently asking for this gift from the Holy Spirit who gives us peace.”
“The more we feel our hearts are agitated, the more we sense we are nervous, impatient, angry inside, the more we need to ask the Lord for the Spirit of peace,” he said.
Pilgrims gather at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022, for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli address. Vatican Media
Pope Francis invited the crowd to pray with him, “Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.” He added, “And let us also ask this for those who live next to us, for those we meet each day, and for the leaders of nations.”
After praying the Regina Caeli at noon, Pope Francis commented on the beatification in Lyon, France, later on Sunday of Pauline Marie Jericot, who founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the support of the missions in the early 19th century. The pope called her “a courageous woman, attentive to the changes taking place at the time, and had a universal vision regarding the Church’s mission.”
Pope Francis continued: “May her example enkindle in everyone the desire to participate through prayer and charity in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.”
Pope Francis also noted that Sunday marked the beginning of “Laudato Si’ Week,” a weeklong reflection inspired by his 2015 encyclical on the environment. He called the observance an opportunity “to listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth which urges us to act together in taking care of our common home.”
Pope Francis also mentioned that May 24 marks the Feast day of Mary Help of Christians, who is “particularly dear to Catholics in China.”
He added that Mary Help of Christians is the patroness for Chinese Catholics and is located in the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai in addition to many churches and homes throughout the country.
“This happy occasion offers me the opportunity to assure them once again of my spiritual closeness” to believers in China, he said.
“I am attentively and actively following the often complex life and situations of the faithful and pastors, and I pray every day for them,” he said.
“I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church, and might exercise its mission of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, and thus offer a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society as well.”
Pope Francis also greeted participants in Italy’s annual pro-life demonstration, titled Scegliamo la vita, or in English, “Let’s Choose Life.”
“I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit,” Pope Francis said.
“Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please, as if it were the exclusive consequence of individual choice,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that life is a gift from God! It is always sacred and inviolable, and we cannot silence the voice of conscience,” he concluded.
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