Shrouded in darkness save for the light of a solitary candle flickering across his drawn face, Augustine stares thoughtfully at the well-worn chess board between himself and this reporter. The old man’s body is feeble, but his mind - and his English - are as sharp as ever. (National Catholic Reporter)
“I’ll tell you, studying English [...]
Indigenous groups in Malaysia are accusing the government of using religion as a condition for development aid, reports Al-Jazeera.
For decades, China’s Catholics - estimated at more than 12 million - have been bitterly divided. Some worship in China’s government-sanctioned Catholic churches, others in “underground” churches loyal to the Vatican. (Louisa Lim, NPR)
Official Chinese surveys now show that nearly one in three Chinese describe themselves as religious, an astonishing figure for an officially atheist country, where religion was banned until three decades ago. (Louisa Lim, NPR)
(Korea’s ) Peace Weekly reported two articles about Catholic Church in Korea during Korean War. (Totus Tuus blog)
Brides and grooms, each from a tribal group different from their partner, were married in a mass wedding ceremony in the Indian state of Gujarat recently, breaking an age-old custom of marrying only within clans. (Fatima Tanveer, ucanews.com)
The international popularity of Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o means that Ivory Coast and Cameroon aren’t now always associated in the popular imagination with civil war – or presidents who forgot to leave office – but with goals scored and trophies lifted, too. (Daniel Howden, The Independent)
Kashmir today is a state divided: between India which claims the whole of the former princely state of Jammu Kashmir, and occupies 43 percent of it; and Pakistan which claims and occupies 37 percent of it to the west and the north-west; and China which claims and occupies 20% of it to the north-east as part of its autonomous region of Xinjiang. (Paul Stenhouse, Aid to the Church in Need)
It is hard to live a normal life when you suspect that the person passing by you may be a suicide bomber. (Kamran Chaudhry, UCA News)
When Winnie D’Souza wanted to marry her daughter into a ‘decent’ family, she scanned the matrimonial columns of Catholic periodicals in Panaji. After shortlisting a few young men, D’Souza made inquiries about their caste. She wanted her daughter to marry a Brahmin. (Ashley D’Mello, TNN/Times of India)
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