News from Home, World and the Vatican

The Catholic Lawyers’ Society, Kuala Lumpur congratulates and welcomes our new Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Archbishop Elect Most Rev. Julian Leow Beng Kim.

On 3 July, 2014 Pope Francis appointed Father Julian Leow Beng Kim, 50,  as the new archbishop of Kuala Lumpur.

His Excellency, Archbishop Joseph Marino, the Apostolic Nuncio to Malaysia made the announcement at the archbishop’s residence in Kuala Lumpur. Read more »

Do Malaysians who no longer identify as Muslims have any recourse beyond subjecting themselves to the Shariah system that only recognises adherents of Islam?

With the recent furore over the disruptions of a Taoist funeral and a Hindu wedding by state religious authorities claiming that Muslims were involved, renewed attention has been focused on non―Muslims wishing to dispute official records of their Muslim identity. Read more »

Like all Heads of Churches – and for that matter, like most, if not all Christians – I am very disappointed by and deeply concerned over the implications of the Federal Court’s decision not to grant leave to the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur to bring the “Herald case” (the ban of the use of the term “Allah” by the Herald) to the Federal Court.

Nonetheless, there is the consolation that the decision was not unanimous. Three of the seven judges on the panel gave a dissenting decision. Read more »

The National Unity Consultative Council’s (NUCC) proposed anti-discrimination law contravenes the Rukunegara’s principle of belief in God by recognising atheism, a coalition of Muslim groups have said. In a column in Malay newspaper Mingguan Malaysia today, MuslimUPRo chief Azril Mohd Amin noted that the NUCC’s National Harmony and Reconciliation Bill 2014 defined “religion” as “any religion and includes any belief or lack of a religious belief”, which he said would include atheists and the freedom to renounce a faith. Read more »

Where Malaysia is heading, with sensational news from Muslim-only Allah, Hudud for all, body-snatching, wedding gate-crashing, police defying the Common Law Courts, to now Muslims buying only from Muslims?

The common question asked by many Malaysians is either “what have gone wrong?” or “Where have we gone wrong?” The relevant question, to my mind, is neither of these but “when have we gone wrong?” Yes, not what and where, but when. And my answer is 1946. Read more »

The Government’s refusal to allow Christians to use the word ‘Allah’ presents a number of challenges.

The dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims first erupted in 2008 when the Home Ministry banned the Herald, the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia’s weekly newspaper from using it in its Malay-language section.

Seven years on – after numerous court rulings, rhetoric and demonstrations, it remains a painfully divisive issue. In 2013, the Court of Appeal ruled that the use of the word was not an integral part of the Christian faith. Read more »

A lawyer, representing a Sarawakian Christian challenging the home ministry's seizure of her religious compact discs for containing the word "Allah", has questioned the ministry's justification that the term was exclusive to Islam and Muslims.

Nizam Bashir told the High Court today that an officer from the ministry had clearly acted on an incorrect basis of fact.

Nizam quoted from affidavits of experts submitted in the case, stressing that the Quran contains references to Christians and Jews using the word “Allah” as a reference to God in affirmative and in encouraging terms. Read more »