According to the recently published report Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, there were 241 documented cases of intolerance against Christians in Europe in 2013.
Observatory director Gudrun Kugler said secularism is on the rise in Europe and has less space for Christianity. Some governments and players of civil society seek to exclude instead of to accommodate. “Countless cases of intolerance against Christians are reported to us. By researching, documenting and publishing these cases we hope to create an awareness, which is a first step towards a remedy.”
According to the report, every day in Belgium, two to three Christian churches are vandalised or their contents are the object of theft and it is a similar situation for Germany and France where every day there is at least one hate-related attack against a church or a Christian site.
Indian bishops on general election result
Following the victory of a Hindu nationalist party in the Indian general elections, Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, president of the Indian episcopal conference, said: “We hope the new government will continue to uphold the eternal values, secularism and democracy.
“The new government has the responsibility to ensure the security of the minorities and to show special consideration towards the weaker sections of the country. The Catholic Church in India will continue to extend its creative support to the activities of the government in the process of nation building.”
Bishop slams minister
Bishop Arturo Lona Reyes, 88, a retired Mexican bishop who lives in the forest, ministering to indigenous people, has strongly criticised a Cabinet minister, Rosario Robles. The minister was at the centre of a controversy after calling for the end to public assistance to indigenous women with more than three children, asserting that women have more children in order to receive additional government benefits.
Mgr Reyes said that Robles “does not know the ethnic structure, does not even know that women of the indigenous people do not know what abortion and contraceptives are. They only know about the miracle of life.” He added that the minister should not make “absurd and discriminatory” remarks.
Christians flee Syria
Archbishop Boutros Marayati of Aleppo, Syria, said there is a new wave of the exodus of Christians. He said families waited for school to end, then took their luggage, closed their homes and fled to the coast and to Lebanon, using the only road link with the outside world still viable.
“Maybe they will come back in four months. Perhaps never.”
The exodus followed a new offensive by the rebels who control the areas where there are large power stations and water supply lines.
Bishops ask Pope for Romero’s beatification
Archbishop Jose Escobar said that during a meeting that he and three other bishops from El Salvador had with the Pope he informed them that the sainthood cause of slain Archbishop Oscar Romero was progressing well. Escobar also said the bishops asked Pope Francis to travel to El Salvador to preside personally over the archbishop’s beatification, when and if it happens.
Romero, was shot and killed March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador. Romero was a strong critic of the Salvadorian regime which was guilty of massive abuses of basic human rights. Archbishop Romero’s sainthood cause was opened at the Vatican in 1993.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)