Catholic News 2

India’s national leaders have wished their fellow citizens and Christians on the occasion of Easter.  ‎Christianity’s holiest festival that commemorates the glorious rising of Jesus Christ from death, was ‎marked on Sunday, March 27. ‎

“On the auspicious occasion of Easter, I convey my greetings and good wishes to all fellow citizens, ‎especially our Christian brothers and sisters,” said President Pranab Mukherjee in his message on the ‎eve of Easter. “The sacred day of Easter is a constant reminder of Jesus Christ’s endless love for ‎humanity. As we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, may his teachings inspire each one of us to follow his ‎ideals of love, truth, sacrifice and forgiveness,” Mukherjee said. “ Let hatred and violence find no place ‎in our thoughts. May the humanism which Jesus Christ stood for always guide our path,” he added. ‎

Meanwhile India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari wrote, "The occasion reminds everyone that love is ‎stronger than hatred. He hoped that the festival will bring peace, harmony and happiness in people's ‎lives.”‎

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi also wished everyone with a tweet saying, “Easter ‎greetings to people around the world. Let us recall Jesus Christ's inspiring teachings & strengthen bonds ‎of harmony & togetherness.”‎

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) The hijack of an Egyptian jetliner, which was forced to land in Cyprus with 55 passengers and seven crew onboard has ended peacefully.

Nathan Morley reports from Cyprus: 

The domestic flight from Alexandria to Cairo -  Egyptair MS181 –diverted to Cyprus at 8.30 on Tuesday morning.

The hijacker – identified as Seif El Din Mustafa – is an Egyptian national, according to Cypriot authorities.

Mustafa claimed to be wearing a suicide vest - but his motives for seizing the aircraft remain unclear.

Most of the passengers were released from the jet just an hour after arrival at Larnaca Airport, the remaining passengers – including the captain and crew - managed to escape the plane several hours later, one via the cockpit window.

The hijacker finally surrendered himself to police soon after, disembarking the plane at 2.40pm local time with his hands up.

It was originally reported that Mustafa wanted to talk to his ex-wife, a Cypriot, who lives near the airport, while other media reports suggested he was seeking the release of female prisoners held in Egyptian prisons.

A Foreign Ministry official in Nicosia said the hijack was not a terrorist act but "a personal act" by an emotionally volatile person.

Passengers have been interviewed by police and are now in contact with consular authorities, many hoping to travel to their intended destinations.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades congratulated all involved emergency services for their coordinated efforts and successful outcome of the hijacking.

Full Article

Quebec City, Canada, Mar 29, 2016 / 06:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Canada’s decision to defund its Office of Religious Freedom will harm the country’s ability to defend religious minorities and human rights in general, said religious freedom advocates and other supporters of the office.

“If Canada shuts down its Office of Religious Freedom, it will not just harm religious freedom, but Canada’s ability to promote all other human rights,” attorney Gerald Chipeur told CNA March 21. Chipeur is an allied attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group and partner with the Miller Thomson law firm in Calgary.

He responded to the government’s decision to end funding for Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom, which ends on March 31.

“The reality is this that in countries where religious freedom is not protected, you will find most other freedoms are also not protected,” he said. “In fact, there is a direct correlation between the guarantees of religious freedom and the guarantees of other human rights and democracy.”

“Religious freedom is the most important discussion one can have,” he said. “You can talk about trade, defense, and other issues, but if you aren’t first talking about religious freedom, then you will miss a very important opportunity to promote human rights and democracy.”

On March 21 the Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, voted against a motion by Conservative MP Garrett Genius to extend funding for the office for another term.

The motion was voted down 226 to 90, with the NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green Party leader Elizabeth May all siding with the Liberal Party against funding.

Despite the result, Chipeur said other countries can still positively influence Canada’s decision.

“The U.S. government should step in and urge Canada not to go down this road,” he said. “Australia, the U.K., France, and other countries where there is a long tradition of constitutional protections of religious freedom, should stand up and plead with Canada to not to shut it down.”

Foreign Minister Stephane Dion was among the opponents of the motion to fund the office. He advocated a consolidation of human rights efforts.

“We have to consider whether it might not be more effective to combine all of Global Affairs Canada’s efforts to defend and promote human rights into a single office, to advance and to leverage the resources of the department and its embassy network around the world to advance this mission,” Dion said.

But Peter Stockland, a senior writer with the Canadian think tank Cardus, said that the minister’s explanation undermines religious freedom and why the office was established.

“Religious freedom is not a right that is on a continuum of rights that is indistinguishable from all others,” he said. “It is ineffective to lump all rights together and treat them equally,” Stockland told CNA March 23.

“To stop religious oppression and hatred, you need something that actually addresses violations against religious freedom, not a general office committed to a smorgasbord of rights,” Stockland explained. “The Office of Religious Freedom was established specifically to root out religious persecution.”

Barry W. Bussey, director of legal affairs for the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, said focusing on religious freedom does not devalue other rights.

“Having an Office of Religious Freedom does not mean that religious freedom trumps other human rights,” told CNA March 23. “It is simply that we are living in a time when religious freedom is in peril because of all that is happening on the international scene with respect to religious minorities.”

In 2013, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Andrew P.W. Bennett as the first Canadian Ambassador for Religious Freedom. During the 2011 federal election, Harper promised to create an office of religious freedom. He said the effort was inspired by the brutal assassination of Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani politician who criticized Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws and defended victims of religious persecution.

With a $5 million dollar budget, the office has funded various projects in Nigeria, Ukraine, Pakistan, Myanmar and Iraq. The projects have focused on promoting religious tolerance in schools and helping religious minorities under threat.  

Bussey explained that religious minorities will be adversely affected by the decision.

“Fundamentally, the office raised the profile of religious minorities and helped bring greater understanding between various religious groups,” he said. “Religious minorities are very disappointed that the office is closing.”

“Many minorities chose to settle in Canada and other western countries like the U.S., because they were fleeing persecution in their home state,” Bussey explained. “The creation of the Office for Religious Freedom showed religious minorities that their new country was concerned about their plight and the fate of their fellow believers back home. The closing of the office puts this concern in question.”

Although Dion voted against the office, the foreign minister said Canada will still “enhance and strengthen Canada’s fight for religious freedom everywhere.”

Bussey said that religious minorities will hold the government accountable.

“Religious minorities will be watching the Canadian government closely to see if it holds true to its promise to maintain the same level of concern about religious persecution as it did with the Office of Religious Freedom,” he said.

“These minorities have family members back in their home state and will watch very carefully what the government does with respect to religious freedom and the persecution of their fellow countrymen,” Bussey explained.

He said he hopes the Canadian government will keep its promise to value religious freedom.

“Once the office is closed, there is a real fear that religious freedom will get lost in the sea of other international concerns of the government,” Bussey concluded. “I hope the government will prove everyone with such fears wrong and that religious freedom will still be maintained as a high priority.”

 

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Addressing about 100 people standing outside the White House March 28, Beatriz Mejia, a native of El Salvador, called on the United States to recognize that the thousands of mothers and children like her who have fled Central America in search of safety pose no threat to America.

"We have come here from an unjust situation," said Mejia, the mother of a 7-year-old son, who spent months in one of the family detention centers open since mid-2014 in the Southwest U.S. but now lives in the Washington area awaiting a hearing on her case. "Many of us have lost our loved ones because of the violence we are experiencing."

She said through an interpreter that she was the victim of an attempted murder in her homeland and the incident caused her to flee northward.

"We are here to seek opportunities in this country and we are not a threat," she said of the families who have seen family members and friends beaten or killed as Central America experiences periodic waves of violence.

Mejia's testimony came at a rally planned by the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Representation and Advocacy Project as President Barack Obama hosted the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for hundreds of children. Rally organizers said they chose the day and the site to highlight how children being held in the detention centers did not have the freedom to participate in any Easter celebration.

Several speakers called on Obama and Congress to close the detention centers, alter policies in order to keep families together and to enact comprehensive immigration reform for the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

"There are children here (in detention) who would like to be there," Sister Eileen Campbell, a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, told Catholic News Service as she pointed to the White House. "It's a human rights issue, not a terrorist issue. If we are as good as we say, we ought to be sharing. If we're this country with great resources, the greatest security, I don't think we should be afraid of women and children."

The group included several people holding posters and signs calling on the White House and Congress to end the practice of detaining families for weeks or months until they are processed. Some of the signs had images of immigrant children who had been held in the detention centers.

The centers opened in 2014 in response to waves of immigrants, many of them unaccompanied children, from throughout Central America who made their way to the U.S. border and were discovered state or federal authorities. Five baskets of brightly colored plastic Easter eggs were placed on the ground in front of the sign holders.

In addressing the gathering, Sister Eileen said she wanted to let the detained families to know that women religious throughout the country stood with them and were joining the call for new policies in how the country handles immigrant families.

She called the detention of families "immoral and unjust."

Attorney Isabel Saavedra worked with the CARA project from July through November in the 2,400-bed South Texas Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, and now works for the Archdiocese of Washington, helping families who have been released and have relocated. She said she found people living in "inhumane conditions" including a lack of adequate health care and facilities that were too cold for people accustomed to warmer temperatures.

Housing children in what amounts to prison is not sound policy, Saavedra said. "Family detention is not the answer or how we should be treating refugees," she said.

Other speakers called for a policy that upholds human dignity and provides adequate shelter, food, education, health care and other services to the immigrants who have fled traumatic settings.

The CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Representation and Advocacy Project was formed a year ago by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, American Immigration Council, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and American Immigration Lawyers Association in response to Immigration and Custom Enforcement's expansion of family detention and the opening of three facilities to detain women and children in New Mexico and Texas. It provides no-cost legal service to detained families and advocates for the end of family detention legislatively and in the courts.

- - -

Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

- - -

Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy WYD

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- World Youth Day organizers in the United States and Poland remain in touch with diplomatic and security officials in their respective countries to ensure that pilgrims will remain safe during the festival of faith in late July.

Security is expected to be extremely tight in Krakow, Poland, the WYD host city, as authorities in both countries work to prevent any incident that would threaten visitors, said Paul Jarzembowski, World Youth Day USA coordinator and assistant director of youth and young adult ministries for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He told Catholic News Service current information indicates no threat to the celebration, scheduled for July 26-31.

"The pilgrims' families can be assured that we're in regular communication with the State Department, the organizers in Krakow and the Polish Embassy in the United States," Jarzembowski said.

"Pilgrims can rest assured if they are vigilant and aware and up to date on the security situation, that the U.S. and, most especially Poland, are doing everything they can to assure their safety," he added.

About 2 million people, including 30,000 Americans, are expected for the 14th international gathering of young people to celebrate their Catholic faith.

The USCCB will conduct a webinar on safety and security at 2 p.m. April 14. Information is available at bit.ly/1UrnhZE.

Jarzembowski's office has devoted a section of its World Youth Day USA website to safety and security. It details how the USCCB is partnering with other organizations to address security concerns and offers tips on preparing for the trip, including routine measures that travelers can take ahead of any international journey.

Updates are also available on Facebook and on Twitter at @WYDUSA.

As the host country, Poland is taking the lead on security arrangements, and local law enforcement authorities have joined with the Polish military in planning for the influx of visitors for months, Jarzembowski said.

"We don't want to let fear dictate what we do with World Youth Day," he said.

He cited the calls for prayers for peace from St. John Paul II at previous World Youth Day events in the 1980s and 1990s when attacks by extremists posed similar concerns.

"We continue to meet and we continue to pray for peace and we continue to be bold by stepping out and doing that," Jarzembowski said.

- - -

Editor's Note: Information about World Youth Day USA preparations is available online at www.usccb.org/about/world-youth-day/index.cfm.

- - -

Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

- - -

Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article