Philippine province aims to form young army of 'peace builders'?
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Local authorities in North Cotabato province in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao are building an army of young Christians, Muslims, and tribal "peace builders in communities." Cotabato Governor Emmylou Talino-Mendoza announced last week the holding of a "peace builders camp" for the youth starting on Wednesday. The activity will "instill the importance of peace and respect for religion" in the minds of young people, said the governor. She said, "The three-day peace camp aims to make young people appreciate the importance of peace, and their role in building and advocating for a peaceful community." Talino-Mendoza appealed to parents to allow their children to join the peace camp.The province of North Cotabato is home to Christians, Muslims, and tribal communities that have suffered from decades of war waged by Moro rebel groups in the region. More recently, the volatile Mindanao region has seen the ris...
Local authorities in North Cotabato province in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao are building an army of young Christians, Muslims, and tribal "peace builders in communities." Cotabato Governor Emmylou Talino-Mendoza announced last week the holding of a "peace builders camp" for the youth starting on Wednesday. The activity will "instill the importance of peace and respect for religion" in the minds of young people, said the governor. She said, "The three-day peace camp aims to make young people appreciate the importance of peace, and their role in building and advocating for a peaceful community." Talino-Mendoza appealed to parents to allow their children to join the peace camp.
The province of North Cotabato is home to Christians, Muslims, and tribal communities that have suffered from decades of war waged by Moro rebel groups in the region. More recently, the volatile Mindanao region has seen the rise of violent Islamist militancy. The Maute radical Islamist group that claims allegiance to the so-called Islamic State, on May 23 attacked the southern city of Marawi, burned the Catholic cathedral and a Protestant school, and took a Catholic priest and several church workers as hostages. Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte went on the offensive declaring martial law in Mindanao. Over 7 weeks of air strikes and battles with government troops have killed more than 500 people, including 411 militants, and displaced 260,000, marking the country's biggest security crisis in years.
In a new development, President Duterte on Monday vowed to fast-track a new legislation for autonomy in Mindanao, advancing a protracted process to end decades of rebellion and thwart rising Islamist militancy. Government and rebel representatives on Monday submitted to Duterte a draft legislation of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), aimed at establishing a more powerful and better-funded Muslim autonomous region in the country's south under a 2014 peace deal signed by the two sides. The BBL is the culmination of a rocky 20-year peace process between the government of the predominantly Catholic nation and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). According to MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar, the proposed law “is the best antidote to violent extremism that has wrought havoc” in many Muslim areas.
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Outer details of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Eric Allix RogersCNA Staff, May 15, 2024 / 12:12 pm (CNA).Catholics and city preservationists in Chicago are scrambling to try to preserve a historic parish on the city's North Side, one that has survived a century of the city's development including being fully moved to a new location after it was first built. Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will hold its final Mass on Sunday, May 19, before the parish merges with nearby St. Mary of the Lake. The consolidation is part of the Archdiocese of Chicago's ongoing "Renew My Church" initiative that has closed and merged dozens of parishes in order to address shrinking budgets and priest shortages. The archdiocese announced the Lourdes parish merger in 2021. Katerina Garcia, the president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church Preservation Society, told "EWTN News Nightly" anchor Tracy Sabol this week that parishioners at the parish dispute ...
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Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, archbishop of Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Daniel IbáñezRome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 14:17 pm (CNA).Cardinal Stephen Chow recently visited three Catholic dioceses in mainland China, one year after the bishop of Hong Kong's first historic trip to Beijing.Chow led a 10-person delegation of Catholics from Hong Kong to the southern Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shantou, and Shenzhen in April in his second official visit to China since becoming bishop of Hong Kong."We brought our people to have an encounter … where we share common concerns, for example, youth ministry, catechism, marriage and family," Chow said in a video interview published May 5.Here is a look at some of the Catholic communities Chow visited:St. Joseph's Cathedral in ShantouSt. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou, China. Credit: Kc1446 at Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsHundreds of Chinese Catholics attended a Mass in St. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou concelebrated...
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Stained-glass window at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. / Credit: Ella Manthey/ShutterstockSt. Louis, Mo., May 15, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).Two St. Louis parishes that appealed to the Vatican after Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski ordered them to merge last year have had their appeals upheld by the Holy See, reversing the archbishop's prior decision.As part of the archdiocese's major pastoral planning initiative dubbed "All Things New," Rozanski announced a year ago that the number of parishes would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures.Under canon law, a diocesan bishop has the authority to alter parishes, but only for a just reason specific to each parish. Concern for souls must be the principal motivation for modifying a parish.Amid the All Things New process, a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy's rulings. Af...