Asia – Pacific

Ranchi, India, Jul 13, 2018 / 10:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Three children who were allegedly sold by an employee of the Missionaries of Charity have been rescued, and a politician has accused a political party of unfairly targeting the religious order.

Last week two women affiliated with the Missionaries of Charity, one a religious sister and one an employee, were arrested after a couple complained that they were sold a baby boy, who was then taken back by the shelter.

Since then, three other children have been recovered by authorities, who are still on the lookout for a fourth baby. The children all came from the same Missionaries of Charity-operated home for pregnant women, Nirmal Hriday, in Ranchi, the capital of the state of Jharkhand. The women residing at the home were moved to a government-run shelter.

Initially, it was reported by Indian media that 280 children were missing from the Missionaries of Charity home in Ranchi. This number was eventually revised to four, and of the four, three have been located safely.

The Senior Superintendent of Police for Ranchi, Anis Gupta, said that they learned about the other children after questioning the initial two women arrested. The third child was rescued on Thursday from the city of Simdega, which is also in Jharkhand.

Gupta told Indian media that “a few people have been detained for questioning” after this latest rescue, but further details were not available.

Missionaries of Charity spokeswoman Sunita Kumar said last week in a statement that the order was “shocked” by the allegations, “which totally goes against the value and ethics espoused by the Missionaries of Charity, the nuns, and its founder.”

Kumar said that the order will be investigating the accused employees in Jharkhand “with all seriousness,” and that the Missionaries of Charity had stopped handling adoptions in India three years ago.

Church officials in India, along with a politician, have raised concerns that the Missionaries of Charity have been unfairly targeted by India’s ruling party, the Hindu-nationalist group the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, a member of the All India Trinamool Congress, tweeted Friday that “Mother Teresa herself set up Missionaries of Charity. And now they are not being spared.”

Banerjee called the accusations against the order “malicious attempts to malign their name,” and said the “The Sisters are being targeted” by the BJP, who “want to spare no one.”

“Let MOC continue to do their work for the poorest of the poor,” she tweeted.

Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, Auxiliary Bishop of Ranchi and secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, defended the Missionaries of Charity on Twitter.

“This is a deliberate attempt to malign one of the world’s and India’s most loved institutions, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity,” said Bishop Mascarenhas on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India’s Twitter account.

“The truth will come out,” he tweeted.

In another tweet, the bishop accused the state of corruption, saying the Missionaries of Charity are “simple innocent sisters” who are unable to “match the manipulations of the crooked.”

Bishop Mascarenhas also posted a report from an official government visit to the shelter in Ranchi about a week before the baby-sale allegations. The conditions were described as an “excellent environment.”

The Missionaries of Charity were founded in 1950 in Kolkata, by Albanian Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, who became known as Mother Teresa. In 2017, she was canonized as St.Teresa of Calcutta. There are about 3,000 Missionaries of Charity sisters worldwide.

In addition to the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, members of the Missionaries of Charity take a fourth vow pledging “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

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New Delhi, India, Jul 12, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- Authorities are investigating Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar after a Kerala nun accused him of raping her in 2014 and sexually abusing her on multiple occasions over two years—but the bishop … […]

Melbourne, Australia, Jul 12, 2018 / 10:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Australian state of Victoria has said a recommendation by the royal commission that it pass a law requiring priests to break the confessional seal to report cases of child sex abuse requires further consideration.

Victoria attorney general Martin Pakula said July 11 that the government needs to further consider 24 of the 317 recommendations made to the state by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pakula said the state government accepted 128 recommendations, and another 165 in principle, according to The Guardian.

He told ABC radio that the proposal to require the breaking of the seal of confession “needs a degree of national agreement.”

The Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, and Tasmania have already adopted laws making it illegal for priests to fail to report the confession of a child sex abuse crime.

In South Australia, priests who fail to report child sex abuse which they learned of while hearing a confession will face a AUD 10,000 fine ($7,400) beginning Oct. 1.

Like Victoria, New South Wales is subjecting that recommendation to further consideration, though it accepted 336 of the royal commission’s recommendations.

The New South Wales government said last month that “whether or how the offence will apply to members of the clergy where the information about an offence was gathered through religious confessions is a complex issue that has been referred to the Council of Attorney’s-General for national consideration.”

The Catholic Church in Australia has vehemently opposed the imposition of laws mandating reporting from the confessional. Many priests have said they would go to jail before violating the seal.

The Code of Canon Law states that “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.” A priest who intentionally violates the seal incurs an automatic excommunication.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “every priest who hears confessions is bound under severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him,” due to the “delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons.”

Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra-Goulburn has said that “Priests are bound by a sacred vow to maintain the seal of confession. Without that vow, who would be willing to unburden themselves of their sins?”

“The government threatens religious freedom by appointing itself an expert on religious practices and by attempting to change the sacrament of confession while delivering no improvement in the safety of children,” he said. “Sadly, breaking the seal of confession won’t prevent abuse and it won’t help our ongoing efforts to improve the safety of children in Catholic institutions.”

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney has said that “priests will, we know, suffer punishment, even martyrdom, rather than break the seal of Confession,” which he called “a privileged encounter between penitent and God.”

Clerics are not the only critics of the new legislation. Andrew Wall, a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, said forcing priests to break the seal of confession oversteps an individual’s “freedom of association, freedom of expression and freedom of religious rights.”

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Cebu, Philippines, Jul 10, 2018 / 06:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A gunman was fatally shot by police after he forced his way into the residence of Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu on Tuesday morning and sought to speak to the absent bishop.

“We enjoin … […]

Islamabad, Pakistan, Jul 10, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A candidate for prime minister in Pakistan’s upcoming general election has defended the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which have been used to harass, jail, and kill members of religious minorities disproportionately.

Imran Khan, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a centrist party, said he fully supports the blasphemy law of the Pakistan Penal Code. The statement was made July 7 after giving an address at the Ulema and Mashaikh Conference at Golra Sharif in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.

“We are standing with Article 295c and will defend it,” said Khan, according to the Guardian.

A former member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, Khan will be considered for prime minister along with Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim Leage (N) and Bilawal Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The general election will take place July 25. PML-N is forecast to win the election, though there have been allegations of vote rigging in favor of PTI.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws impose strict punishment on those who desecrate the Quran or who defame or insult Muhammad. Pakistan’s state religion is Islam, and around 97 percent of the population is Muslim.

Although the government has never executed a person under the blasphemy law, accusations alone have inspired mob and vigilante violence.

Blasphemy laws are reportedly used to settle scores or to persecute religious minorities; while non-Muslims constitute only 3 percent of the Pakistani population, 14 percent of blasphemy cases have been levied against them.

Many of those accused of blasphemy are murdered, and advocates of changing the law are also targeted by violence.

In 2011 the Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, a Muslim critic of the blasphemy laws, was assassinated. Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic and the only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet, was also assassinated the same year by militant supporters of the blasphemy laws. Bhatti’s cause for beatification was opened by the Diocese of Islamabad-Rawalpindi in 2016.

The blasphemy laws were introduced between 1980 and 1986. The National Commission for Justice and Peace said over 1,300 people were accused under this law from 1987 until 2014. The Centre for Research and Security Studies reported that at least 65 people have been killed by vigilantes since 1990.

Pakistan’s authorities have consistently failed to implement safeguards on behalf of religious minorities, despite numerous policies in favor of economic and physical protections for members of non-Muslim religions.

In 2013, PML-N, the governing party, promised a quota for jobs in the educational institutes and the public sector for members of religious minorities. That same year, the PPP discussed an Equality Commission to monitor job quotas in Sindh.

After Muslim extremists attacked All Saints Church in Peshawar, killing over 70 people in 2014, Chief Justice Tassaduq Jillani issued an eight-point decree to improve access to jobs, education, and protective forces.

However, none of these safeguards have moved beyond verbal affirmation into action.

Last year, Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta was attacked by two suicide bombers. The attack killed 9 people and injured 35 others, according to the New York Times.  

A member of the Implementation of Minority Rights Forum said government support was not made available after the attack.

“The government was not ready to even disburse compensation cheques among families, and none of the minority parliamentarians were interested in making noise about it,” said Imtiaz, according to Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper.

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Davao, Philippines, Jul 9, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Filipino bishops conference has called for three days of prayer and fasting, about a month after President Rodrigo Duterte called God “stupid,” among other things. After the i… […]

Sydney, Australia, Jul 7, 2018 / 04:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic schools in Australia could see an increase of up to $74 million a year from independent schools following a new review proposing better use of data to rank families’ socioeconom… […]

Seoul, South Korea, Jul 6, 2018 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s top diplomat expressed hope Thursday that efforts to bring lasting, stable peace on the Korean peninsula will bear fruit.

“We don’t have any doubt that there will be many challenges and many difficulties ahead, but the determination that the Korean people have always shown in determining their future, I am sure with the prayers and support of Christians and other men and women in good faith around the world that many good things will be achieved in the coming months. We pray for that,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, said July 5 at the Joint Security Area on the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

Archbishop Gallagher arrived in Seoul July 4 for a six-day trip to South Korea on an invitation from the country’s government. In addition to visiting the DMZ, he will meet with President Moon Jae-in and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.

The Vatican official’s visit comes at the same time that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in North Korea to discuss Pyongyang’s denuclearization. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had met with US President Donald Trump last month, signing a joint statement making commitments “to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”

Archbishop Gallagher, touring the Joint Security Area, said, “it is a very historic period, a period of hope and the Holy Father is supporting that movement.” The area is the one portion of the DMZ where North and South Korean soldiers stand face-to-face, and it is used for diplomatic meetings between the countries.

He prayed that “in the future, it will be a place for hope and reconciliation.”

Addressing North Korea, he said that “humanity has always got to move forward.”

“Whatever side of the border we may be on, whatever situation we find ourselves in, we have to try and work for advancing the development of society.”

He said he is “sure that there will be much good that will come in everything that is happening throughout the Korean Peninsula” and among their international partners.

Reflecting July 6 on his visit to the Joint Security Area, Archbishop Gallager said that the “very delicate situation” there “makes the efforts to promote denuclearization, unification and peace on the peninsula very, very pertinent indeed.”

“What is surprising is that the division of only six or seven decades turned what was previously one country into very different nations. I was freshly reminded that we have so much to do about that,” he added.

The archbishop called on Catholics to “mobilize every possible (opportunity) to make peace” between the Koreas.

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Adelaide, Australia, Jul 6, 2018 / 10:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the continued fallout of his conviction for failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse, Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has faced calls both inside and outside of the Church to resign.

Wilson, who earlier this month received a 12-month detention sentence, most of which is likely to be spent under house arrest, said he intends to appeal.

In a July 4 statement posted on the Archdiocese of Adelaide’s website, Wilson said he is aware of the calls for his resignation, and has “taken them very seriously.”

“However, at this time, I am entitled to exercise my legal rights and to follow the due process of law. Since that process is not yet complete, I do not intend to resign at this time,” he said, adding that should his appeal prove unsuccessful, “I will immediately offer my resignation to the Holy See.”

Until that time, “the legal process must now be allowed to proceed in the normal way,” he said, adding that he plans to make no further public statements for the time being.

Wilson, 67, stepped aside from his role as Archbishop of Adelaide after being convicted in May of failing to report multiple allegations of child sexual abuse disclosed to him in the 1970s; however, he did not resign.

On June 3, Pope Francis named Bishop Greg O’Kelly SJ of Australia’s Diocese of Port Pirie as apostolic administrator of Adelaide, entrusting him with day-to-day leadership responsibilities. At 76, O’Kelly is unlikely to take over for Wilson should the latter tender his resignation.

In a July 5 statement, published the day after Wilson issued his, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Bishops Conference, noted that “a number of survivors, prominent Australians and other members of the community have publicly called on Archbishop Wilson to resign.”

These include Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten, who have argued that the archbishop is not in a position to lead.

“Although we have no authority to compel him to do so, a number of Australian bishops have also offered their advice privately,” said Archbishop Coleridge, adding, “Only the Pope can compel a bishop to resign.”

Coldridge said the conference has been “closely following” Wilson’s case and they respect his decision to appeal, which is “the right of any citizen,” but said that “we also recognize the ongoing pain this has caused survivors, especially those who were abused by Jim Fletcher.”

Wilson was found guilty of failure to report accusations of crimes carried out by abusive priest Fr. James Fletcher, who was convicted of nine counts of sexual abuse and was jailed in 2006. He died of a stroke within the year.

Two of Fletcher’s victims – Peter Creigh and another altar boy who is unnamed for legal reasons – said they had told Wilson of their abusive experience with Fr. James Fletcher, and that Wilson, who had only been ordained a priest for a year when Creigh came to him in 1976, dismissed their complaints.

Wilson has maintained his innocence throughout the process, saying he had no recollection of the accusations, and insisting that if he had been notified of the scandal, he would have offered pastoral care to the victims and their families, and reported the event to his superiors.

According to CNN, the archbishop’s legal team argued that in the 1970s, child sex abuse was not understood to be a serious crime that should be reported to authorities.

His legal team had attempted four times to have the case thrown out, including after the archbishop was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease late last year, but it was denied.

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Kolkata, India, Jul 5, 2018 / 12:45 pm (CNA).- Two women affiliated with the Missionaries of Charity, one a religious sister and the other an employee, have been arrested in India, under suspicion of selling a baby from a shelter for unwed mothers.

Th… […]