Activists urge end of ‘just war’
A CALL for an end to the theory of “just war” has been issued by a group of Roman Catholic peace activists. “We believe that there is no ‘just war’,” a statement reads. It was published last week at the end of the Nonviolence and Just Peace gathering, held in Rome, organised by Pax Christi International and the Vatican’s Justice and Peace Council. It proposes that the RC Church should “develop and consider shifting to a Just Peace approach, based on gospel non-violence”. When asked about airstrikes against Islamic State in 2014, Pope Francis said that it was “licit to stop the unjust aggressor”.
US Christians condemn payday loans
PROVIDERS of payday loans are “sinners”, a poll of Christians by LifeWay Research suggests. The online survey of 1000 Christians in the United States, conducted in February, found that more than 80 per cent believed that their states should have laws against the loans. Seventeen per cent of the respondents had taken out payday loans — a figure that rose to 49 per cent among African-Americans.
Chinese woman ‘buried alive’
A WOMAN, Ding Cuimei, has reportedly been buried alive while protesting against the demolition of her church in Henan province, China, on 14 April. The China Aid Association reports that she and her husband, Pastor Li Jiangong, stepped in front of a bulldozer as a local developer, supported by the government, attempted to demolish their church building in Zhumadian. Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports that a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Yang Jianwei, has gone missing in Hebei province. He is the third RC priest to have disappeared this month.
Beer of Jesus’s time recreated
A BREWERY in Jerusalem has produced a craft beer with a taste that, it says, dates back to the time of Jesus, Reuters reports. Herzl Brewery took wheat that, Tel Aviv University geneticists say, was the strain used for beer in the Holy Land 2000 years ago. The owner, Itai Gutman, and his friends have drunk almost all of the results. There are no plans to make more. “It’s really not the kind of flavour that has a market,” he said.
Correction: the diocese of San Joaquin, which lost its appeal against an order to return 27 church properties to a reaffiliated group of Episcopalians, is in the Anglican Church of North America, not the Episcopal Church, as reported last week.