Mission & Justice

14/6/07

In a wide ranging interview, Brazilian Dominican liberation theologian, Frei Betto, has slammed “vaticanisation” of the Church and held up Cuban strongman, Fidel Castro, as a model of the revolutionary “new man”. In the interview with the Fray Tito News Agency for Latin America, Dominican Alberto Libanio Christo, known as “Friar Betto”, expressed his admiration for Fidel Castro and for the “father” of urban terrorism, Carlos Marighella.

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3/5/07; Toni Harris OP Prakash Lohale OP; International Dominican Co-Promoters for Justice and Peace; mailto:jp@curia.op.org

Members of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) have been among the Christian minority in Iraq for more than 250 years. Currently, there are Iraqi Dominican Friars, Sisters, and Laity struggling to survive conditions in their homeland. As the International Dominican Co-Promoters for Justice and Peace at the Curia (headquarters) of the Order in Rome, Italy, we endorse the plea for protection of the Christian minority voiced recently by church leaders in Iraq.

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See: 30/5/07

Two years ago Siu Gich, a member of the Gia Rai ethnic minority, felt embarrassed and self-conscious walking into a church full of Kinh (majority Vietnamese) people. “They looked at us as if we came from another world,” said Gich, a dark-skinned migrant worker who typifies her central highland community by wearing traditional clothes. “But now many of them are friendly with us,” she told UCA News. The 19-year-old is one of 80 Gia Rai who are part of the Go Xoai parish community in Dong Nai province, 1,684 kilometers south of Ha Noi.

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See: 30/5/07

For the third time in his life, Habib Ahmad, a Muslim, entered a Catholic church. This time he came to attend a memorial Mass for his wife concelebrated by their son, a Capuchin priest. More than 500 Catholics including 30 priests, 50 nuns and dozens of seminarians attended the Mass for Maria Habib, who died in a car accident on May 12 at the age of 81. The May 19 memorial liturgy at St. Joseph’s Church in Lahore was celebrated a week after her funeral, also held at the same church.

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29/4/07

A strong earthquake has shaken the northwest Solomon Islands where an 8.1 magnitude quake and ensuing tsunami killed at least 52 people and made thousands homeless on April 2. The US Geological Survey reported that at around 2.45pm local time (1545 AEST) a 5.4 magnitude quake occurred 10km deep, 40km southeast of the region’s main town of Gizo.

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26/4/07

The Solomon Islands Agriculture Ministry has rejected garden food from Bougainville to the tsunami devastated province of Gizo. The garden food, mostly banana, cassava and kaukau, were off-loaded from MV Isabella. The cargo boat, sent by the Solomon Islands government for relief supplies, medication and Red Cross-donated supplies, left Bougainville last week without the garden produce. Only store goods were loaded at Buka, Kieta and Kangu wharves.

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24/4/07

Solomon Islanders traumatised by the tsunami that struck on April 2 feel their friend the sea has turned against them, the country’s prime minister says. At a service to remember those who died in the 8.1 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami in the northwest Solomons, Manasseh Sogavare said it was the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.

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Dominicans in Iraq - Religion
From the Dominican Sisters of Adrian (USA); 24/4/07
A report from our sisters in Iraq tells us that yesterday, Monday, a car bomb attacked a Kuristan Center next to the Dominican convent and kindergarten in Telskouf. Three of the sisters were injured, two with head injuries and the other in the leg, but we do not know the seriousness of their wounds.
Two children and a man were killed in the explosion that was so powerful their bodies could not be recovered. Many of the kindergarten children were injured. The convent building sustained heavy damages, windows and doors destroyed along with the fence..
The sisters are deeply shaken by this attack, their safety and the safety of the rest of the Christian community is more compromised now. Please continue to hold them all in your prayers.

20/4/07; http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Solomons-to-remember-earthquake-victims/2007/04/20/1176697067743.html

Solomon Islanders will observe one minute’s silence on Monday to remember those who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country’s north-west on April 2. The 8.1 magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami killed at least 52 people and left thousands homeless, most of whom are now living in makeshift camps on hilltops too scared to return to live by the shore.
The government has set aside Monday, April 23, as a national day of mourning for the disaster victims.A minute’s silence will be observed from 7.39am local time, exactly three weeks after the quake struck, and church services will be held around the country.A big relief effort, involving local and overseas relief and aid agencies as well as Solomons and foreign government organisations, is under way.

19/4/07

Fourteen days after a major earthquake and tsunami ravaged the western Solomons diocese of Gizo, the World Youth Day cross and icon has arrived in the hard hit region. The Catholic Leader reports that the touring World Youth Day Cross and Icon of Our Lady lifted people’s spirits when they spent 24 hours in the diocese of Gizo.The cross and the icon were flown from the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara, to the local airstrip at Nusatupe on 16 April.

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