Pope: Surge in DRC violence ‘unacceptable’
POPE FRANCIS has condemned the surge in violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a number of people were killed in an attack on a RC mission hospital last week. “We watch in horror as events continue to bloody the country,” the Pope said at his General Audience on Wednesday, adding that he “strongly deplores the unacceptable assault” in the village of Maboja. The Allied Democratic Forces, a Congolese Islamic rebel group, killed patients and a healthcare worker, Sister Sylvie Kalima, before stealing drugs and medical equipment and setting the hospital on fire. “Let us pray for the victims and their families, as well as for the Christian community and the inhabitants of that region, who have been exhausted by violence for too long.” Earlier this month, 20 Christians were killed in the village of Kainama, within the same province.
Cameroonian religious workers freed
THE nine people, including five priests and a nun, who were abducted by dozens of unknown gunmen during an arson attack on a church in the diocese of Mamfe, in Cameroon, last month (News, 23 September), have been freed, local media report. Church people have increasingly been targeted in the conflict-ridden Anglophone regions, where separatists have been fighting the Francophone-controlled central government since 2017. The RC Bishop of Mamfe, the Rt Revd Aloysius Fondong Abangalo, said on Sunday: “For over one month, we have experienced great pain and sorrow on account of the desecration of the main church of St Mary’s Parish, Nchang, and the kidnap of our brothers and sisters. I announce with great joy the release of all nine who were abducted. . . Words will only do scant justice in expressing my sentiments of gratitude to all those who collaborated with us in the process of negotiating for their safety and release.”
ECHR orders France to compensate topless protester
THE European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered France to pay damages to a feminist who staged a topless pro-abortion protest in the church of the Madeleine, Paris, on the grounds that her criminal conviction was disproportionate and violated her freedom, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. Eloise Bouton, a member of the international Femen group, received a suspended one-month jail sentence and was ordered to compensate La Madeleine parish, after staging the protest in December 2013. The EHCR said that judges had been struck by the “harsh and unnecessary nature” of the penalties imposed on Ms Bouton, whose aim had been “to contribute to the public debate on women’s rights”. Having lost two previous appeals, she was awarded €9800 in damages and costs.
CMS Asia celebrates tenth anniversary
THE Church Mission Society in Asia, AsiaCMS, has marked its tenth anniversary “with a pledge to serve countries across Asia despite rising fundamentalism, religious extremism, urbanisation, and hostility from within Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism”. AsiaCMS was founded in 2012, focusing on establishing missionary education hubs across Asia, and now has 28 mission partners across South-East and South Asia, working on church-planting, pioneering ministry, theological education, and cross-cultural and leadership training. Speaking before a celebratory dinner this week, its executive director, the Revd Dr Chan NamChen, said: “Christianity now constitutes nine per cent of the population in Asia and is growing at twice the speed of population growth in Asia. . . No single group can claim credit for what has unfolded before us.”
Church leaders call for end to climate-driven hunger
CHURCH leaders and Christian organisations from Africa, Europe, and North America have committed to work together to end the hunger crisis which they say is being exacerbated by climate change, the World Council of Churches reports. The UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) takes place in Egypt next month. The statement says: “We share a fierce resolve to stand and work together to end the hunger made worse by climate instability. . . Climate justice is our means of furthering this resolve.” One of the signatories, the president of Bread for the World, the Revd Eugene Cho, said: “We hope the convocation and statement model how the western world can affirm the voices of Africans in tackling the issues of hunger and climate as a group of equals.”