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The Supreme Court of India has ordered four senior members of  Prime Minister Naredra Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to stand trial for conspiracy in the 1992 demolition of an ancient mosque that triggered Hindu-Muslim riots that killed thousands. A Bench of Justices P.C. Ghose and Rohinton F. Nariman, exercised the Supreme Court’s extraordinary constitutional powers under Article 142, to revive the criminal conspiracy charges of the Central Bureau of Investigation against L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh in the Babri Masjid demolition cases.  Singh, who was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1992, will not be tried now as he enjoys constitutional immunity as Rajasthan Governor, but can be tried only after he leaves office.

The Allahabad High Court had earlier dropped conspiracy charges against the accused.  The Bench has revived CBI’s appeal against the high court and also clubbed it with current cases going on in two courts in Raebareli and Lucknow against the four and others.

Hindu groups say the 16th century Babri Mosque was built after a temple dedicated to the Hindu god King Ram was destroyed by Muslim invaders. Hindu fundamentalists with pickaxes and crowbars razed the structure to the ground in December 1992.  The attack on the mosque in Ayodhya, 350 miles (550 kilometers) east of New Delhi, sparked the largest explosion of Hindu-Muslim violence in the country in decades, leaving 2,000 people dead. Thousands more died in later violence caused by disputes over the site.

Hindu hard-liners, including BJP members, say they want to build a new temple to Ram on the site.  The four party leaders are accused of making inflammatory speeches that incited thousands of their followers who had camped out in Ayodhya ahead of the attack on the mosque.  The four have said that the mosque's demolition was a spontaneous eruption by angry Hindu activists. Advani, now 89, has served as India's home minister and deputy prime minister. He also served as president of the BJP. Joshi and Bharti are both federal lawmakers, and Bharti is also member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet.

The Supreme Court said that the trial will held in Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital.  A separate case is already underway involving about 20 people accused of the actual demolition of the mosque.   The Supreme Court has said that both trials should be combined and a final verdict reached within two years.

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(Vatican Radio) Ten tones of humanitarian aid have, in the past few days, been handed over to the flood-stricken population of Mocoa, in Colombia’s southern Putumayo region thanks to a special collection set up by the Colombian Catholic Church and the local Caritas office.

The Bishop of Mocoa, Luis Albeiro Maldonado, said food, blankets, personal hygiene products and clothes are providing some relief to the needy children and families of Mocoa which was all but swept away on April 1 by landslides that killed at least 300 people and left many injured and displaced.
President Juan Manuel Santos declared a state of emergency in the region.

Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims and solidarity to all those affected by the devastating landslides. 
 
Father Luis Fernando Carvajal, Vicar General of the Diocese of Mocoa and coordinator of a special committee set up to respond to the crisis, said that first aid, urgent medical provisions and essential equipment are being donated by associations and organizations in Colombia and across the world. 

He also highlighted the invaluable work of about 80 volunteers who are visiting the flood-stricken families and the reception centers and distributing the aid.

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Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya has invited his compatriots in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) not yield to discouragement and a spirit of fatalism. 

The Cardinal said this at the weekend in a homily read in all parishes of the Archdiocese of Kinshasa on Easter Sunday.  

The Archbishop of Kinshasa recalled that the resurrection of Christ gives hope to a new world and humanity. This resurrection also gives men and women of today the possibility of relating to each other and Christ in a new way.

The Cardinal’s message of hope comes in the context of serious political and social uncertainties facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

"As Congolese people, we can sometimes feel as if we were an insignificant seed of grain thrown on the floor: We are ignored and continually trampled upon. We live in a country and at a time of confusion, obscurity, despair. But we know that in the depths of the night, the dawn is already looming on the horizon. Therefore, to all of you: I wish you Happy Easter. We will rise again with Christ so that the country will take on a new face, in peace, justice, truth and love, in the image of the love of God for us," said Cardinal Monsengwo.

The DRC is experiencing great political turmoil.  President Joseph Kabila's mandate ran out on 19 December 2016, but the DRC’s constitutional court extended his rule to 2018 because the government said it could not arrange elections before then.

On the eve of the new year 2017, political parties in the DRC signed an agreement with the ruling party of Kabila. The accord called on Kabila to leave power after an election to be held by the end of this year, 2017 instead of mid-2018. 

DRC’s Catholic Bishops mediated the talks which were aimed at brokering a compromise between opposition political parties and the government of Kabila. 

The 2017 New Year's Eve agreement came after months of unrest that left dozens dead and threatened to further destabilise the vast Central African nation with a painful history of dictatorship and civil war. The agreement is yet to be fully implemented. 

Meanwhile, insecurity prevails in several parts of the country, and the socio-economic situation of citizens continues to deteriorate.

Perpetrators of the violence in the DRC include dozens of heavily armed groups marauding in areas where the government is non-existent. The militia stoke ethnic rivalries, fight proxy wars and vie for control of the DRC's valuable natural resources. 

Illegal mining, smuggling and poaching are rampant.

(Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va)

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Vatican City, Apr 19, 2017 / 06:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church jumps into the Easter season, Pope Francis on Wednesday offered a reflection on Christ’s Resurrection and the start of Christianity, saying it’s not about us and what we do, but what the Lord has done for us.

“(Christianity) is not so much our search for God, but rather God's search for us. How beautiful to think that Christianity, essentially, is this!”

Jesus, the Pope said April 19, “has taken us, has seized us, has conquered us in order to not leave us anymore.”

In his catechesis for his first general audience of the Easter season, Francis spoke about the “grace” and “surprise” found in our Christian faith, saying we need hearts able to wonder, because hearts that are closed-off cannot understand the truth of what Christianity is.

Even though we are sinners and might look at our lives realizing how many times we have failed to live out our good intentions, we can follow the example of the men and women in the Gospel on Easter morning, he said.

“We can do as those people spoken of in the Gospel: go to the tomb of Christ, see the large upturned stone and reflect that God is building for me, for all of us, an unforeseen future.”

And more, we can all go into the tomb of our hearts, he said, and see how God is able to transform death into life.

“Here is happiness, here is joy and life where everyone thought there was only sadness, defeat and darkness,” Francis said, adding that “God raises his most beautiful flowers in the midst of the most arid stones.”

Pope Francis then reflected on the start of Christianity following Christ’s death and resurrection, emphasizing that these events aren’t just an “ideology” or a “philosophical” belief, but real events witnessed by Jesus’ disciples.

These, he said, are the facts: “he died, was buried, is risen and has appeared. That is, Jesus is alive! This is the core of the Christian message.”

If facts had been different and Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, but only died for us, we would perhaps have an example of heroism or supreme dedication, but it could not be the source of our faith, he said.

Instead, our faith is born out of Christ’s resurrection, the Pope said, noting that this is true even for the faith of St. Paul, who was no “altar boy,” but actually persecuted Christians and the Church.

“And the persecutor becomes an apostle because?” he asked, explaining that the reason is because he saw the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus.

“This is the foundation of Paul's faith, like the faith of the other Apostles, like the faith of the Church, of our faith,” he said. “Because I have seen Jesus alive! I have seen the risen Jesus Christ!”

Francis closed his audience saying that Christianity comes not from death, but from God’s love for us in defeating our “bitter enemy.”

“God is bigger than anything, and you only need one lit candle to overcome the darkest of nights,” he said. “Paul cries, echoing the prophets: ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’”

“In these days of Easter, let us carry this cry in our hearts, and if they ask us for the reason for our smile and our patient sharing, then we can respond that Jesus is still here, he continues to live in the midst of us. Jesus is alive!”

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christian faith is a grace and can be perceived only in the hearts of those willing to be surprised by the joy of the Resurrection, Pope Francis said.

"A closed heart, a rationalistic heart" is incapable of understanding the Christian message which has God's love -- manifested in Christ's victory over death -- at its center, the pope said at his weekly general audience April 19.

"How beautiful it is to think that Christianity is essentially this: It is not so much our search for God -- a search that is, truthfully, somewhat shaky -- but rather God's search for us," the pope said.

The pope, bundled up in a white overcoat due to the unusually chilly and windy weather, entered a packed St. Peter's Square in his popemobile. Immediately, he invited two girls and a boy, dressed in their altar server robes, to board the vehicle and ride with him around the square.

Pope Francis also took a moment to greet an elderly woman who, overcome with emotion, cried and stretched out her arms to embrace the pope. He stooped over, warmly embracing the woman and gently caressing her face before making the sign of the cross over her forehead.

Continuing his series of talks on hope, the pope reflected on St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians in which the apostle emphasizes the Resurrection as "the heart of the Christian message."

"Christianity is born from here. It is not an ideology nor a philosophic system but a path of faith that begins from an event, witnessed by Jesus' first disciples," the pope said.

St. Paul's summary of those who witnessed the risen Christ, he noted, ends by describing himself as the "least worthy of all" given his dramatic history as a one-time adversary of the early Christians.

St. Paul "wasn't a 'choirboy.' He was a persecutor of the church, proud of his own convictions," the pope said, departing from his prepared remarks. But "one day something completely unpredictable happens: the encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus."

It is the surprise of this encounter, the pope continued, that all Christians are called to experience "even if we are sinners."

Like the first disciples who saw the stone overturned at Jesus' tomb, all men and women can find "happiness, joy and life where everyone thought there was only sadness, defeat and darkness," the pope said.

God, Pope Francis said, is greater than "nothingness and just one lit candle is able to overcome the darkest night."

"If we are asked the reason for our smile and our patient sharing, we can respond that Jesus is still here, he continues to be alive in our midst," the pope said. "Jesus is here, in this square with us, alive and risen."

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By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was scheduled to attend a peace conference in Cairo with Pope Francis and Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University.

While Patriarch Bartholomew's office did not release a detailed schedule of events he would be attending during the pope's April 28-29 visit to Cairo, the Vatican confirmed reports April 19 that Patriarch Bartholomew was invited to take part in the conference and was planning to attend.

Pope Francis also was scheduled to meet Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, soon after the conference April 28, making it a day the heirs of the Apostles Peter, Mark and Andrew all would be present in the ancient land of Egypt.

While Pope Francis is the successor of St. Peter, the Orthodox ecumenical patriarchate traces its lineage to St. Andrew and the Coptic Orthodox Church has St. Mark as its patron. The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches are not in full communion with each other, although they have been working closely together and have been engaged in theology dialogue aimed at unity.

The Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople is called the ecumenical patriarch and is considered "first among equals" for the Eastern Orthodox churches, even though his primacy does not entail direct or ultimate jurisdiction over them.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is one of six Oriental Orthodox churches that trace their roots to apostolic times, but distanced themselves from the rest of Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Like the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Oriental Orthodox accept seven sacraments and allow ordination of married men to the priesthood but choose their bishops only from among celibate priests. They are in communion with one another but not with the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox churches that split with Rome beginning in the 11th century.

Egypt's indigenous Christian community traces its faith all the way back to Jesus who, according to the Gospel of St. Matthew, sought refuge in Egypt from the wrath of Herod the Great 2,000 years ago.

Coptic Orthodox tradition holds that Christ stayed in Egypt for three years and that later, around the year 42, St. Mark the Evangelist arrived to evangelize in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, before being martyred there.

Christianity continued to spread and by the third century, Christianity was the country's dominant religion. By the time the newer religion of Islam arrived in Egypt in the middle of the seventh century, Egyptian Christianity had already provided the church with some of the world's major Christian saints and had introduced new forms of monastic life.

The Coptic Orthodox Church, led by Pope Tawadros, represents 95 percent of all Christians in Egypt. The other local Christian groups include Protestants and Catholics from different rites, including Coptic, Melkite, Maronite, Syrian, Armenian, Chaldean and Latin.

Egypt's Coptic Catholic Church is the largest of the Catholic rites in the country and accounts for as many as 300,000 faithful. Both Coptic Catholics and Coptic Orthodox refer to their respective leaders as "patriarch of Alexandria" and see themselves as the "original" Egyptians because of their ancient ties to the land.

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Copyright © 2017 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.

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