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Category: World Touch
Asia

Health and Education are the Paths to Progress

The fight against poverty and underdevelopment, in Asia and in other parts of the world, is not only overcome through a growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but in an increase in access to health and education. This is what the international association “Social Watch” is showing in its new annual report entitled “Rights is the Answer.” Social Watch has developed a new method for measuring the social and economic conditions of the world population: the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), for analyzing the state of healthcare and level of basic education in 176 countries.

www.fides.org
Interreligious Dialogue

Muslims and Catholics Join to Promote Peace

Muslims and Catholics have much in common when it comes to beliefs about peace, participants decided at an interreligious meeting: Both faiths consider that peace should permeate all aspects of life. This was a conclusion from the Joint Committee for Dialogue of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Cairo-based Permanent Committee of al-Azhar for Dialogue Among the Monotheistic Religions. The group had their annual meeting last February.

www.zenit.org
Rome

Pontiff Lauds Aid for Agriculture

Assistance given to rural communities contributes to food security for the whole planet, said Benedict XVI. The Pope affirmed this in an address to members of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, who were marking the 30th anniversary of the Fund’s establishment. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference; the conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected Africa. The Holy Father affirmed that since its earliest days, the Fund “has achieved an exemplary form of cooperation and co-responsibility between nations at different stages of development.”

www.zenit.org
Africa/Asia

Rise in the Number of Priests and Laypeople

The number of Catholic priests has increased in Asia and Africa but dropped in the Western world, according to the Vatican’s latest statistical yearbook released in February. The number of Catholic priests worldwide rose from 405,178 in 2000 to 408,024 in 2007, after markedly dropping in the previous two decades, reported Radio Vatican and other media.

UCA News
India

Oscars Put Outcasts in the Limelight

India celebrated Slumdog Millionaire’s sweeping success at the Academy Award ceremony. In addition to the movie by director Danny Boyle, which took home eight Oscars, Smile Pinki won for Best Documentary Short Subject, telling the story of a six-year-old girl from the village of Dabai in Uttar Pradesh who becomes a social outcast because of a cleft lip. From the victories of British director Boyle and US documentary maker Megan Mylan, few Indians received also an award: they were composer A.R. Rahman, singer Sampooran Singh Gulzar and sound designer Resul Pookutty.

Nirmala Carvalho
U.S.A.

God has a Role in the “Mediasphere”

God has a role in the media, and the Church should have a voice to evangelize souls through all modern means of communication, says the Social Communications Council president. Archbishop Claudio Celli affirmed this at a conference in Dallas, USA, that was sponsored by the New Evangelization of America. His presentation was titled: “The Role of Mass Communications in Evangelization.”

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China

The List of Human Rights Dark Areas

Pro-rights organization listed a number of issues the United Nations should raise with China, whose human rights record went under scrutiny last month, when a UN commission examined the country’s “performance” in Geneva (Switzerland). According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a pro-rights group which has published a list of questions that need answers covering every aspect of Chinese life, the list of problematic issues start with personal freedom.

www.asianews.it / Agencies

Stop Genocide, Bishops Tell Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe, clinging illegitimately to power, is perpetrating genocide, the Catholic bishops of southern Africa have said. He should leave now: “We call on Mugabe to step down immediately.”

www.cisanewsafrica.org
Philippines

Vatican Recognizes First Asian Society of Priests

Canonical recognition was given to the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP), the first society of priests founded in Asia, now present in 13 countries. Asianews reported that the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Ivan Dias, signed the pontifical decree. MSP was created in 1965 by the Filipino bishops, on the fourth centennial of the nation’s evangelization. Their goal was “to express in the concrete our gratitude to God for the gift of our faith,” sharing it with “the peoples in Asia and the rest of the world.”

www.zenit.org
Sri Lanka

An Anti-conversion Law Presented in Parliament

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka is closely following the legal process of the new anti-conversion law that has been presented in recent days to the country’s Parliament. It is a strong measure being taken by the political parties of Buddhist influence, which will now be up for debate. The law, based on the model already approved in several states of India, would “impede the conversion of a person from one religion to the other, if carried out with the use of force, trickery, or fraudulent measures.”

www.fides.org
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