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Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the Prime Minister of Pakistan on its 70^th Independence day on Aug 14, has urged the nation to strengthen and reinforce the state institutions so that they can play their prescribed role within the limits of law and the constitution.

He said the independence that they achieved seventy years ago was an outcome of the unparalleled sacrifices made by their ancestors and expressed indebtedness for their sacrifices.   

He called on the citizens to make collective endeavours for the ascendency of national interests and invincible defence even though they belong to different tribes, fraternities and ethnicities and work in different spheres of national life. 

Only a strong economy can ensure strong defence he said.  A moderate society guarantees stability of the state, where people enjoy all their fundamental rights and national resources are equitably and judiciously distributed he added. 

Terrorism is the biggest challenge confronting the world in the twenty first century he affirmed.   And added that Pakistan has rendered unparalleled sacrifices in the fight against this menace as well as for the world peace.

He appreciated the exceptional talent and burning desire for advancement of the younger generation and acknowledged their  admirable contribution in the fields of Information Technology, Engineering, Medical and Management all over the world, in a distinct manner.

The Prime Minister affirmed that his government has a vision of accelerating the pace of development and prosperity in Pakistan so that all those professionals can return to contribute to the national effort.

He assured the Pakistani youth that tomorrow’s Pakistan will ensure the implementation of guiding principles of rule of law and ascendency of merit and pledged that they wouldn’t relent until the achievement of those objectives. (pmo.gov.pk)

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(Vatican Radio)  India is marking its 70th Independence Day on Aug. 15, in commemoration of the day in 1947 when what was the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two newly independent states – Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan.  Pakistan celebrates its Independence a day earlier on August 14.

Partition-triggered tragedy

The boundary lines between the two new nations, hastily drawn up just weeks before, were not made public until two days later. Muslims and Hindus on the wrong sides of the divide, suddenly felt themselves in enemy land, especially in divided Punjab and Bengal.  This triggered a panicked and chaotic mass migration - one of the largest history has witnessed outside war and famine – that resulted in a massive loss of life on both sides.

No-one knows the exact number but it is estimated between 500,000 to 1 million were killed.  Tens of thousands of women were raped or abducted and about 12 million people became refugees. 

70-year enmity

This year, India and Pakistan are marking 70 years of their freedom and partition, the legacy of which still continues to affect the lives of millions.  The two neighbours have not only fought three wars and built up their armies but have also developed nuclear weapons. According to some, they even fought a 4th war, although their 1999 clash was without a formal declaration of war.

Indian Christians

A common denominator in this majority Hindu-Muslim issue between India and Pakistan has been the other minority religious groups who are on both sides of the divide.  Among them are Christians, some 28 million of whom are in India.  Of these, 19.9 million are Catholics or about 1.5 percent of India’s some 1.3 billion population.  As India turns 70 on August 15, we called Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, the secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), to know about what Catholics feel about the nation.  Speaking on his mobile phone from India, Bishop Mascarenhas briefly expressed the hopes and aspirations of the Catholic Church of India.

Listen: 

First and foremost, we are very grateful to this great country, its civilization and its very tolerant community for the space they have given the Catholic Church and the Catholic community in the past 70 years.

Our hopes and aspirations for this country are that this tolerant spirit, peace and traditional harmony we have been enjoying, continue, so that we can continue contributing to nation-building and to the good of this country.

We also hope and pray that this country might go forward with inclusive  development for all its people, taking in the poor, the marginalized, the tribals, the Dalits and the poor, with whom our hearts are always there as Catholics and as the Catholic Church. 

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The Catholic Church of India has joined the nation in mourning the death of at least 70 people, among them many children, who died in a hospital in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state.  "The Church in India mourns for the loss of innocent lives, that of our children in the tragedy of the Gorakhpur Hospital," said Indian Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).  Speaking to AsiaNews, he expressed the condolences of the entire Indian Catholic community to the families affected by what he said was an "immense loss that afflicts the whole nation."

Dozens of children and infants suffering from encephalitis died in Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur, one of the largest hospitals in Uttar Pradesh, because of the lack of oxygen supplies.  According to some local newspapers, the death toll has risen to 79.

Card. Cleemis who is head of the India-based Syro-Malankara Catholic Church reaffirmed that "the loss of valuable lives is a problem for the entire country. The government should have provided adequate care, and now it must take the right actions." 

The tragedy occurred in recent days in neonatal and neurological pediatric wards. According to investigators, the liquid oxygen supplier discontinued distribution due to unpaid debts.  The executives of the company justified their actions by claiming to have repeatedly warned the hospital administration, but it was not able to settle the debt.

Hundreds of people die each year in India of encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease common during the monsoon season, and no medical official directly linked the recent deaths to a lack of oxygen.  

The tragedy of children highlights the serious shortcomings of India's public health system. Local experts argue that the revolving door of governments has done nothing but worsen the difficulties in staffing and supply.  

"At this moment of great pain, the Church offers its support to the families of the victims. Let us pray that the Lord will give them His consolation, " Card. Cleemis added.   (Source: AsiaNews)

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Vatican City, Aug 14, 2017 / 07:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of Australia have indicated that they will resist the Royal Commission's proposal that priests be legally obligated to disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional, facing criminal charges if they don't.

“Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest,” Archbishop Denis J Hart of Melbourne said in an Aug. 14 statement.

President of the Australian Bishops Conference, Hart said confession “is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognized in the Law of Australia and many other countries.”

“It must remain so here in Australia,” he said, but stressed that “outside of this, all offenses against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so.”

The statement came the same day Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, established in 2013, released a sweeping 85 proposed changes to the country's criminal justice system.

In addition to suggestions tightening the law on sentencing standards in cases of historical sexual abuse, the use of evidence and grooming, the commission recommended that the failure to report sexual abuse, even in religious confessions, be made “a criminal offense.”

“Clergy should not be able to refuse to report because the information was received during confession,” the report said, adding that if persons in institutions are aware of possible child abuse or suspect it, they ought to report it right away.

The commission cited cases brought before them in which perpetrators who had confessed the sexual abuse of children to a priest then “went on to re-offend and seek forgiveness.”

Therefore, while it recognized the importance of Confession to the Catholic Church, “the report recommends there be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offense granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in connection with a religious confession.”

According to the Church's canon law, “the sacramental seal is inviolable. Therefore, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other manner.”

A priest who directly violates the “Seal of Confession” incurs a “latae senentiae” excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See, which can only be lifted by the Pope himself.

In an Aug. 14 statement from the Australian Church's “Truth, Justice and Healing Council,” established in 2013 as a platform for the Church “to speak as one” on matters involving the Royal Commission, the council voiced opposition to the proposal involving Confession, but suggested that if implemented, the final decision on whether to comply would come down to each priest and his conscience.

In the statement, Francis Sullivan, CEO of the council, said that while the Catholic Church and the council itself “have consistently argued that these reporting provisions should not apply to the confessional, the Royal Commission has now made a different determination based on information and evidence it has heard over the past four years.”

“The whole concept of confession in the Catholic Church is built on repentance, forgiveness and penance,” Sullivan said, adding that “if a child sex-abuser is genuinely seeking forgiveness through the sacrament of confession they will need to be prepared to do what it takes to demonstrate their repentance.”

Part of this, he said, especially in cases of sexual abuse, “would normally require they turn themselves in to the police. In fact, the priest can insist that this is done before dispensing absolution.”

However, since the commission has now made a suggestion counter to the Church’s position, the final decision on whether or not it will become law is up to individual parliaments to form their own view and then make the relevant changes to the law.

“If ultimately there are new laws that oblige the disclosure of information heard in the Confessional, priests, like everybody else, will be expected to obey the law or suffer the consequences,” Sullivan said.

“If they do not, this will be a personal, conscience decision, on the part of the priest that will have to be dealt with by the authorities in accordance with the new law as best they can.”

Other changes proposed by the commission include changes to police responses, such as improvements to investigative techniques when interviewing; provisions for the improvement of “courtroom experience” for victims, making the process less traumatic; the removal of  “good character” as a factor in sentencing when that character carried out the abuse; changes requiring sentences to be placed in line with current sentencing standards rather than those at the time of the offense and the extension of grooming offenses to cover when the offender builds trust with a parent or guardian in order access the child.

Of the proposed changes, another that could affect the Catholic Church in real time is the request to change sentencing policies for historical cases of sexual abuse.

The suggestion asks that “all states and territories should introduce legislation so that sentences for child sexual abuse offenses are set in accordance with sentencing standards at the time of the sentencing, instead of at the time of offending.”

However, they said the sentence “must be limited to the maximum sentence available for the offense at the date when the offense was committed.”

“Many survivors of institutional child sexual abuse do not report the offense for years or even decades and applying historical sentencing standards can result in sentences that do not align with the criminality of the offense as currently understood,” they said.

Although it is unknown whether the change will in fact be made or how quickly it could be enforced, the move would directly affect cases such as that of Cardinal George Pell, who is currently facing charges on multiple counts of historical child sexual abuse.

The charges were announced by the police of Victoria, Australia at the end of June. As the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy since 2013 and a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis, Cardinal Pell is the most senior Vatican official to ever be charged with abuse.

With the permission of Pope Francis, Cardinal Pell has taken leave from his responsibilities in the Vatican in order to return to Australia for the court proceedings.

He has maintained his innocence since rumors of the charges first came out last year. At a brief hearing in Melbourne July 26, the cardinal said he would be pleading “not guilty” to the charges. He is set to appear at a preliminary hearing Oct. 6.

Despite the fact that charges against the cardinal date as far back as the 1960s, the new proposals to historical cases of sexual abuse, if implemented right away, could go into effect in time to determine how Pell is sentenced should he be found guilty.

At the time the charges were announced, Victoria Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton emphasized that at that point, there had been “no change in any procedures whatsoever,” and stressed the importance of remembering that “none of the allegations that have been made against Cardinal Pell have, obviously, been tested in any court yet.”

“Cardinal Pell, like any other defendant, has a right to due process and so therefore it's important that the process is allowed to run its natural course.”

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IMAGE: CNS

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The archbishop officially promoting Blessed Oscar Romero's cause for sainthood said he hopes the process will conclude within a year and Catholics around the world will honor St. Oscar Romero, martyr.

"Keeping alive the memory of Romero is a noble task, and my great hope is that Pope Francis will soon canonize him a saint," Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of the Salvadoran archbishop's cause, said in a homily Aug. 12 in London.

In an interview with Vatican Radio's English program, Archbishop Paglia was more specific: "We could hope that in the next year perhaps it is possible" that the Congregation for Saints' Causes will have completed its review of an alleged miracle attributed to Blessed Romero's intervention and present its findings to the pope. Recognition of the miracle would clear the way for canonization.

Archbishop Paglia, in addition to promoting Blessed Romero's sainthood cause, is president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and chancellor of Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

The biggest hurdle in the sainthood cause was obtaining recognition that Blessed Romero, who was shot while celebrating Mass, was a martyr, Archbishop Paglia said in London. Some church leaders, including some who worked in the Roman Curia, had insisted Blessed Romero was assassinated because of his political position.

But, Archbishop Paglia said, "The essence of his holiness was his following the Lord by giving himself completely for his people."

Still, he told the congregation in London celebrating the 100th anniversary of Blessed Romero's birth, "Romero was not a Superman. He was afraid of dying, and he confessed that to his friends on a number of occasions. But he loved Jesus and his flock more than he loved life. This is the meaning of martyrdom."

"Love for Jesus and the poor is greater than love for oneself: This is the power of Romero's message," Archbishop Paglia said. "A simple believer, if overwhelmed by love, becomes strong, unbeatable."

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