World

Sister Maria Ko Ha Fong was born in Macao in 1950, is a Daugther of Mary Help of Christians since 1970. Sr. Maria recall the importance of the religious presence that strikes the conscience in this interview with Vatican Insider:

How do you witness to your faith in a hostile climate?

I am Chinese and come from a family with a long Buddhist tradition. Our family was, and still is, a small Christian cell in the midst of an environment of many relatives and neighbors that is almost entirely non-Christian. Read more »

Church officials have expressed relief over a decision by the government not to include Jesus Christ among a list of obscene words to be banned from text messages.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) decided this week to delay a proposed ban on 1,695 English and Urdu words deemed to be obscene, a list of which words was issued last week, among them the name Jesus Christ. Read more »

Asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat are being moved into the community on bridging visas after the failure of the Gillard government's Malaysian people-swap deal.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says he has approved bridging visas for 27 single men, mostly Afghans and Sri Lankans, who have been in detention for long periods, The Daily Telegraph reported.

It is understood thousands more will be released by the Federal Government over the next six months. Read more »

In Pakistan, it is forbidden to write the name "Jesus Christ" in SMS text messages, sent via mobile phones.

This was established by the Telecommunications Authority in Pakistan in a measure that orders mobile phone companies to block text messages with certain words considered vulgar, obscene or harmful.

Among more than 1,600 banned words, reports a local source to Fides, there are also the words "Jesus Christ" and "Satan". Read more »

L'Osservatore Romano, a week after proclaiming Tintin a Catholic hero, said the Bard's plays "teem with open references to the Catholic religion."

The newspaper reopened a debate which has raged ever since an Anglican archdeacon said of Shakespeare a few decades after his death: "He died a Papist." Read more »

The Protestant Pastor Jameel Sawan was killed yesterday with three gunshot in Karachi.

This is what Paul Bhatti confirms to Fides, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for religious Minoritt Affairs and Chairman of the APMA (" All Pakistan Minorites Alliance "), the largest organization of religious minorities in Pakistan. Read more »

Palestinians are hopeful that UNESCO will recognize the city of Bethlehem as the first Palestinian World Heritage Site, but Franciscans in charge of the city's holy places say they do not want them included in the classification.

"We don't want the (UNESCO) recognition for the holy places," said a Franciscan source who asked not to be named. "We fear it could lead to nationalization of the shrines. The shrines are not tourist places, but are places of prayer and worship." Read more »

A Roman Catholic bishop has criticised a high court judge for ruling that the church can be held liable for the misconduct of priests, a judgment that could make it easier for victims of clerical sexual abuse to bring compensation claims.

The Right Rev Crispian Hollis, from the diocese of Portsmouth, made the remarks in response to the decision by Mr Justice Macduff in favour of a woman, known as JGE, who claims she was sexually assaulted by the late Father Wilfred Baldwin at a children's home in Hampshire. Read more »

Although not the most famous symbol of the church of Constantinople, another church, Aghia Sophia in Nicaea (now Iznik) (not to be confused with the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople) which predates the Constantinople church, built in the fourth century continues to plague the Islamic world of Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey.

It passed into history in 787 AD, when it was the last church to host a united Christendom drawn to discuss the iconoclastic question, in a truly ecumenical synod, before the fatal schism of 1024 [sic]. Read more »

"The family born of a covenant of love and of complete and sincere commitment between a man and woman in marriage, is not a private entity enclosed in itself.

"By its vocation, it makes a wonderful and decisive contribution to the common good of society and the mission of the Church”, writes Pope Benedict XVI in a message to the II Ecuadorian National Family Congress. Read more »