UN steps up campaign to end child marriage
RENEWED efforts to end child marriage by 2030 were announced by the UN on International Women’s Day (Tuesday). Funded by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund, the initiative will seek to engage governments of countries with a high prevalence of child marriage, and deploy “proven strategies”, including increasing girls’ access to education and health-care services, educating parents and communities on the dangers of child marriage, increasing economic support for families, and strengthening and enforcing laws that establish 18 as the minimum age for marriage.
FCANZ launches series of conferences
THE launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans New Zealand is to take place through a series of conferences, it was announced last month. This follows the publication of a working-group report proposing that dioceses in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia could decide if they wished to opt into offering a blessing in church for couples who had entered into a civil same-sex marriage (News, 26 February). Among the speakers at the April conferences will be the Rector of St Ebbe’s, Oxford, the Revd Vaughan Roberts, a member of Living Out.
Priest in Germany resigns after receiving death threats
A CONGOLESE Roman Catholic priest in Bavaria, the Revd Olivier Ndjimbi-Tshiende, who supported Angela Merkel’s immigration policy, and challenged local conservative politicians, has resigned, after being subject to racist abuse, The Times reported this week. Fr Ndjimbi-Tshiende said that he had received five death threats since challenging the views of Sylvia Boher, who chairs the Christian Social Union party in his village. He has filed complaints of sedition, insults, and threats. Police are investigating.
Okoh praises police after kidnapped schoolgirls returned
THE Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, has praised the Nigerian police and government officials after the rescue of three teenage schoolgirls who were kidnapped from their church-run boarding school in Lagos. They were taken from their dormitory at the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary on Monday. Three suspects have been arrested, reports suggest. Archbishop Okoh said that the officers had “performed exceptionally well”, and that security at the school had been tightened.