A Sri Lankan Church leader has threatened public protests if the government fails to produce a credible report on the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings as questions about government inaction ahead of the attacks remain unanswered.
“I will not hesitate to hit the streets to safeguard the rights of our people,” Cardinal Malcom Ranjith of Colombo has said.
Two Catholic churches, one evangelical Christian church, four hotels, and a housing complex were hit by a total of nine suicide bombers on Easter Sunday, 2019, killing 259 people and injuring more than 500. The suicide bombers belonged to an Islamist group known as the National Thowheeth Jama’ath.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Sri Lankan authorities were heavily criticised for failing to prevent the attacks. It has been reported that Indian intelligence services repeatedly warned Sri Lanka about the possibility of an attack occurring on Easter Sunday, including on the morning of the attacks.
Pro-life advocates praised the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) for stating that the right to life should be protected from conception.
Luis Almagro, formerly the Uruguayan foreign minister, has previously drawn criticism for the organisation’s apparent support for abortion.
Last week, at a forum for candidates for OAS Secretary General, the current OAS head, Almagro, said that “definitely, the principles of religious freedom that I have mentioned and the principles of the right to life are fundamental principles and rights.” Almagro is running for re-election as secretary general.
Almagro also said that it is “essential” that Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights be fully applied.
That article states that, “Every person has the right to have his life respected,” and that “[t]his right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception.”
The Chinese government’s campaign to develop “religion with Chinese characteristics” has increased persecution of the country’s Christians, the human rights watchdog ChinaAid has said.
A 53-page report by the Texas-based NGO accuses Chinese officials of destroying churches, imposing strict regulations on religion, and encouraging both non-religious people and officially recognized churches to inform on illegal house churches.
Government policies “encourage reports of illegal religious activities, mainly targeting house churches,” it said.
“Encouraging snitching is a common method applied by the Chinese Communist Party to reinforce its rule,” said ChinaAid. “Authorities used money incentives to motivate non-believers to report house churches’ so-called ‘illegal religious activities’, attempting to produce conflicts and tension between non-Christians and Christians and increase the mistrust between the two people groups.”
A large majority of Irish mothers would prefer to work part-time, rather than full time, according to a major new survey study of family trends and attitudes. It also reveals a big difference between the sexes in terms of the sort of work/home life balance they want.
The Global Family and Gender Survey is a major international study that looks at family trends and attitudes in 11 different countries, including Ireland. It surveyed 2,500 Irish people aged 18-50 in 2018, among them 1,253 parents. The survey was overseen by the Institute for Family Studies in the United States and the Irish end was partly funded by The Iona Institute.
The survey finds 61 per cent of mothers with children under the age of 18 would work part-time if given the chance; but only 29 per cent of fathers would do the same.
It also finds that when parents have children aged under 4, there is a marked preference for looking after them at home, and that young parents want flexibility so they can come to the child-care arrangement that suits them best.
Stay-at-home father and spokesperson for the Iona Institute, Brendan Conroy, says the results show the need for a change Government policy:
“Government child-care policy must be more suited to what parents want, rather than prioritise the demands of employers, as it seems to do at present. For example, in terms of resources, the Government is currently discriminating in favour of day-care over other forms of child-care, especially minding a child at home. Tax individualisation strongly favours two-income couples over one-income couples.”
An elder in a Christian evangelical Church was violently attacked last week by Hindu extremists in India who accused him of ‘converting people’.
Isaac Paulose, 48, was attacked shortly after dropping his 5-year-old son off at school.
Paulose was in his car when a Hindu nationalist on a motorcycle stopped him and told him to get out.
Armed with bamboo rods and a thick metal chain with a heavy lock on it, 10 Hindu nationalists in beat him and then ran their five motorcycles over him, fracturing one of his ribs.
Paulose’s wife, Elizabeth Isaac, said: “Accusing him of ‘converting people,’ they beat him with bamboo logs and a thick metal chain with a lock attached to its end. They scorned and ridiculed him, daring him to continue to convert people.”
Hindu extremists routinely attack Christians for “conversion,” though conversion is legal in India, and also routinely raise false accusations against them of illegal “forcible conversion.” They frequently make no distinction between the two.
The assailants threatened to kill the pastor before leaving, Pastor Deep said.
The UK’s International Ambassador for Human Rights, Rita French, has told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is a “key UK human rights priority”.
UNHRC heard concerns during a two-day dialogue on religious freedom held on Monday and Tuesday.
In a statement, Ms French said that over the past nine months, the UK had been working to implement the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s review into persecution, published last summer.
The review, commissioned by then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, found that levels of persecution against Christians were reaching genocidal levels and called on the UK Government to take a number of steps to uphold FoRB for all faiths.
These included initiating a UN Security Council resolution calling on North African and Middle Eastern countries to protect Christians and other persecuted minorities, and imposing sanctions on the worst offenders.
“We remain deeply concerned about global levels of intolerance, discrimination, and persecution of, and violence against, people because of their religion or belief, or for not having a faith,” said Ms French.
“The UK has stepped up its focus on this issue over the last few years and it is a key UK human rights priority.”
She added: “Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief must be defended, and we believe that working together is the best way to achieve real, positive impact in guaranteeing the rights of all faith or belief communities around the world.”
A Vancouver-based bicycling charity broke a long-standing partnership with a local branch of the Knights of Columbus last week and rejected their donations of bikes due to its traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
“I’m sad that religious intolerance seems to be getting in the way of getting bikes to poor people,” said Graham Darling, the spokesman for the local council of the Knights of Columbus.
The PEDAL Society is a non-profit that recycles and refurbishes used bicycles, and also provides education in bike mechanics to the community. Darling said the society called to let him know that the organization would no longer accept bikes donated by the Knights because it said the group is “anti-LGBTQ+”.
The Knights had been donating bicycles in partnership with the organization since 2006, and Darling said that “no issues have ever arisen” in that time.
Darling told The B.C. Catholic that “(t)he first principle of the Knights of Columbus is charity, and I’m sure that’s been a priority for PEDAL Society/Our Community Bikes. It’s a shame when people with moral differences elsewhere can’t still work together in a common cause.”
A record rate of abortions in England and Wales in 2018 has been described as a ‘national tragedy’ by a pro-life group. It now means one in four pregnancies end in abortion.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics showed that 24% of recorded pregnancies in England and Wales were legally terminated, the highest proportion since records began in 1990. Specifically in 2018, the records report there were 839,043 conceptions for English and Welsh residents and 200,608 abortions.
This means that for every three babies who were born, one was aborted.
Spokesperson for Right to Life UK, Catherine Robinson, called the figures alarming and said they reveal a national tragedy. “Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies,” she said
“Polling shows large majorities of women in the UK support changes to our abortion laws that would have a positive impact on lowering the number of abortions.
“We are calling on the Government to urgently bring forward sensible new restrictions and increased support for women with unplanned pregnancies. This would ensure we were working together as a society to reduce the tragic number of abortions that happen each year”.
The head of the US Supreme Court has publicly chastised the leader of the Democratic Party in the US Senate for making threatening remarks against two sitting justices as they consider ruling on an abortion related case.
In a highly unusual move, Chief Justice John Roberts released a statement calling the comments not only inappropriate, but “dangerous”.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, had spoken at a pro-abortion protest outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the Justices mulled over whether to uphold a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Senator Schumer named two newly appointed Justices specifically, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and warned them that they would “pay the price” and would “not know what hit them” if they were to vote to uphold the modest restrictions on abortion.
The Holy See has attacked the latest UN report on religious freedom. Decrying particularly the document’s many references to gender ideology, the Holy See called it a kind of “ideological colonisation” by some States and the UN. The Holy See also said the Report is an “attack to religious freedom”, including the right of doctors to conscientiously object to abortion.
“Particularly unacceptable and offensive are the numerous references that recommend that freedom of religion or belief and the conscientious objection must be surrendered for the promotion of other so-called ‘human rights’, which certainly do not enjoy consensus;” the Holy See statement remarked.
The Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief was discussed this week at the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council.
The Report advocates a concept of freedom “from” and within” religion to protect the so-called new human rights; questions the existence of a right to conscientious objection; and also implicitly pushes doctrinal changes in religions on the basis of alleged international law requirements.
