The evolution of the rags to riches started five years ago with a vision held by a Jesuit seminarian who was assigned to a parish at the Payatas dumpsite, northeast of Manila; about 60,000 people live around the dump’s fringe. Father Xavier Alpasa said he saw exploitation flourishing as he ministered in this deeply impoverished community.

Women were buying dumpsite scraps that scavengers picked and sewing them into rugs to be sold commercially.

“Middlemen were coming in and buying the rugs at 9 pesos and selling them to department stores for 35 pesos,” Father Alpasa said. “Then I was asking, ‘Where did all the profit go? Why is it all going to the middlemen? How come the women would only get 1 peso as a profit?'”

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Witches have been breaking into churches and graveyards to perform black magic rituals, a leading Church in Wales cleric has revealed.

Bishop of Monmouth Dominic Walker said the incidents coincided with a resurgence in witchcraft in recent years, with the number of occult groups performing both wicca ”“ or white magic ”“ and black magic on the rise.

And while not a frequent occurrence, Bishop Walker said he had been called on several occasions during his nine-year ministry to help people escape these “satanic groups”.

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Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific appear to have failed to persuade North Korea to abort a rocket launch planned for as early as this week. Reports suggest that the region could be further unsettled by a rumored third nuclear weapons test by the regime.

The North insists that the launch, which could come on any morning between April 12 to 16 and will coincide with the centenary of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il-sung on April 15, is designed to put an observation satellite into orbit. Japan, South Korea, and the US, however, say the launch would violate United Nations Security Council resolutions banning the North from engaging in missile development.

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At least 38 people have died in a car bombing in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, officials said.

Many others were injured in the attack, which took place when officials stopped the vehicle as it approached a church.

Just hours afterwards, a bomb exploded in the central city of Jos, injuring several people.

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As I am in the US for the first time in many years, I find myself longing for the simplicity of Maua, Kenya, during Easter time. There Easter has none of the commercial trappings we find here. As I enter grocery stores, discount stores, and department stores I am shocked at the amount of space taken by the Easter candy, bunnies and stuffed animals, baskets, decorations, and new spring clothing. These items take more space than any grocery store has for all their goods in Maua.

I recently read that an estimated $2 billion will be spent on Easter candy this year in the US. Two billion dollars to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who asked us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, house the homeless, care for the sick and imprisoned, and welcome the stranger.

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Easter celebrations will be taking place in Nigeria under the threat of terrorist attacks by the Islamist group Boko Haram.

“In the past celebrations of the major feasts, Boku Haram has attacked the Christian Churches,” said Father Patrick Tor Alumuku, director of social communications for the Archdiocese of Abuja.

Last Christmas, Boko Haram killed 41 people in a series of shootings and bombings.

“There is a feeling of uncertainty and of worry, generally, about how these celebrations will be concluded” Father Alumuki told Vatican Radio. “However, we have hope, and we pray everything will go well.”

Father Alumuki also pointed out most Muslims in Nigeria do not support Boku Haram, and prominent leaders of the country’s Islamic community have sent messages wishing Christians a happy Easter.

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Think of Jesus. His words are few. He is exhausted and in pain. Two words however remain: a word of mercy to the criminal who repents; a word of fidelity, handing himself to his Father, his mission completed.

Lord we live in a world filled with words. Perhaps never in history have there been so many words: spoken, printed, electronically stored or moving invisibly. Help us to realise that few words are necessary. Empty words foster empty hearts. There are realities which do not need words. Give us Lord the words to ask for forgiveness, the words which touch those things in our hearts we would not want anyone to hear, but things that keep us entrapped in sinfulness and isolation. Give us words to forgive, to be generous and loving.Open our heart in mercy to those who long for freedom. Keep us faithful like Jesus to what we are called to, to what is most noble and good in our lives.

In a world where everything has a shelf-life and what we dislike can be quickly discarded, help us to learn that singular characteristic of God: being faithful. The events of Good Friday realise something that has been spoken of throughout the history of God’s encounter with his people. God remains faithful to his people, even when his people generation after generation fail him and fail him and betray him and betray him[.]
True goodness is not a passing emotion. It is not about feeling good. It is about being faithful to goodness when it is easy, when it is challenging, and even when it leads to our annihilation in the eyes of those who seek their only own interest.

Jesus dies. He breathes his last and that last is the same as the first words recorded about Jesus: “I must be about my Father’s business”; “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”.

Jesus humbles himself, he empties himself, and his love is so great that he empties himself even unto death, death on the Cross. But the Cross triumphs. His self-giving love is so complete that it brings new life, true live.

Lord help us to reject everything that is trivial and superficial. Give us the love that Jesus showed on the Cross: love that endures and that saves.

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[Shusaku] Endo locates the point of contact between Japanese life and the Gospel in what he observes, and has experienced personally, to be the essence of Japanese religious awareness. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person’s life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are intelligible only in the experience of their opposites. Endo sees them incarnate in the person of Jesus through his own experience of failure, rejection, and, most of all, ineffectualness. Only rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and find understanding and compassion. Endo argues that it is our universal human experience of failure in life that provides us with an understanding of Christian faith in its depth.

–Fumitaka Matsuoka, The Christology of Shusaku Endo, Theology Today (October 1982) [emphasis mine]

Two fighters from the Islamist group Boko Haram were killed in a shootout Monday that reveals mounting frustration among residents of northern Nigeria with the group’s campaign of violence.

The two came into the Sheka neighborhood of Kano on a motorcycle, shooting bullets into the air, according to an eyewitness who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “People in the area summoned courage and nabbed them. As they were planning to hand them over to the police, gunmen came from nowhere and shot them instantly to death,” the witness said.

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[Bishop Howard Gregory]… told The Gleaner that while his main focus would be to perform the duties of the church he leads, tackling corruption and other critical issues are high on his agenda for the nation’s good.

“I am concerned that those in governance are not doing enough to deal with issues of corruption. The contractor general has been making various recommendations of what should happen where persons violate and certain procedures, but those have still not taken place and who are the people violating those procedures?” he argued….

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Members of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnati Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram, may have concluded arrangements to engage the security operatives in Kaduna State in a free for all. They have warned residents to flee all security formations in the state.

In a letter distributed in Kaduna, the sect said it is ready to fight security operatives in the state and warns residents whose houses are located near military, police, SSS as well as prison formations to relocate with immediate effect to avoid being victims of the planned attack.

Confirming the report, the state police commissioner, Mohammed Abubakar, said: “Yes, we are aware of it… that unless their people are released from detention, if not they will come and stage attacks. We are aware of that one. We have strategized and are waiting for them….

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In my remarks today I’ll be suggesting four particular areas in which, I believe, community is most evident; four particular kinds of priority for those who want to turn society into community. And all of them depend on one foundational assumption; that community occurs when people take responsibility for one another.

When we’re occasionally told ‘We’re all in this together’ (with varying degree of plausibility), that appeals to the sense that a solidarity experience, a community experience, means that what happens to me and what happens to you are not separate issues. My fate and my wellbeing is bound up with yours, and if it is bound up with yours then I have some responsibility for understanding and managing and nurturing that reality.

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Hindu and Christian representatives say forced conversions to Islam have become the latest weapon of Islamic extremists in what they call a growing campaign against Pakistan’s religious minorities, on top of assassinations and mob intimidation of houses of worship. The groups are increasingly wondering if they still have a place in Pakistan.

“It is a conspiracy that Hindus and Christians and other minorities should leave Pakistan,” says Amar Lal, the lawyer representing Kumari in the Supreme Court. “As a minority, we feel more and more insecure. It is getting worse day by day.”

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The insurgent violence stalking northern Nigeria has struck a long list of official targets, killing police and army officers, elected officials, high-ranking civil servants, United Nations workers and other perceived supporters of the Nigerian government.

Now it has an ominous new front: a war against schools.

Public and private schools here have been doused with gasoline at night and set on fire. Crude homemade bombs ”” soda bottles filled with gasoline ”” have been hurled at the bare-bones concrete classrooms Nigeria offers its children.

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“The ongoing war against Christians and African indigenous people is more of an ”˜ethnic cleansing’ in that they kill all black people, including Muslims, but they give specific connotation to the war in targeting Christians to secure funding and support from the Arab and Islamic world by saying this war is a religious war,” he said. “And in so doing, they get huge support from those countries.”

Aerial bombardment killed the five members of the Asaja Dalami Kuku family, which belonged to the Episcopal Church of Sudan, in Umsirdipa in the Nuba Mountains on Feb. 25, the source said.

The government in Khartoum is using Antonov airplanes to drop bombs, “coupled with state-sponsored militia targeting churches and Christian families,” said the humanitarian worker.

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A Muslim cleric brokering peace talks between Nigeria’s government and Islamist militant group Boko Haram said on Sunday he was quitting the negotiations because he doubted the government’s sincerity after information was leaked.

The departure of Datti Ahmed, a former close ally of Boko Haram’s founder, could be a major blow for the discussions which were only in their early stages.

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Almighty God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

At times, Dr Williams’ dense academic language has left commentators and journalists struggling to understand him ”” a difficulty highlighted in the row that engulfed him in the early part of 2008 over his remarks about sharia law in a BBC radio interview and in a public lecture.

Dr Williams apologised later for what he famously termed his “unclarity” in a speech to the General Synod, the National Assembly of the Church of England, after an unprecedentedly hostile reaction from many sectors of society.

The row led to calls for him to resign and accusations that he was, however well-loved, essentially an academic who was not suited to the job of leading the Anglican Church.

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The US, Japan and the European Union have filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports.

US President Barack Obama accused China of breaking agreed trade rules as he announced the case at the White House.

Beijing has set quotas for exports of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products from hybrid cars to flat-screen TVs.

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An estimated 100 people have been killed in South Sudan in the latest of a series of ethnic clashes and cattle raids, officials say.

Jonglei state Law Enforcement Minister Gabriel Duop Lam told the BBC that at least 200 people had been injured.

The BBC’s James Copnall, in Khartoum, says these figures suggest the attacks were on a very large scale.

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US President Barack Obama has promised that international forces will not “rush for the exits” in Afghanistan, after an American soldier was accused of murdering 16 civilians.

Mr Obama said foreign troops must be withdrawn in a responsible way.

The killings in Kandahar province have strained relations between Afghans and foreign forces.

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Up to 11 people were killed after a Catholic church was targeted by suspected suicide car bombers in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos, officials say.

The car was apparently stopped before it could enter the church compound.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

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The Book of Common Prayer, 1551

This object is doubly resonant. It is the first book printed in Ireland and, as such, marks the island’s rather belated acquisition of one of the defining features of modernity. The revolutionary process of printing on a press with moveable type was pioneered by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany almost exactly a century earlier. The delay in catching up with this new technology says much about Ireland’s absence from the mainstream of the Renaissance.

But if the advent of the first printed book brings a key aspect of modernity to Ireland, that modernity arrives in a form that is unwelcome to a substantial majority of the population….

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In the year since the largest quake in Japan’s recorded history, Christians have witnessed more than the walls of buildings come down. During Christianity Today’s recent travels through the quake zone, pastors and other Christian leaders said that the cultural and spiritual barriers that have for generations divided Christians from each other and from greater Japanese society have weakened in the aftermath.

“We’ve been called to remember in these months that the church really is the body of Christ,” said Joseph Handley, president of Asian Access, an interdenominational evangelical organization that works throughout Asia to develop Christian leaders.

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In other nation states a citizen’s obligations to the state or employer, trump friendship or family connections. In Nigeria the state and institutions often rank far lower than personal affiliations. Outsiders are often shocked at the way public institutions are looted and distributed to buy personal loyalty or simply given to family and friends. The state is not a revered institution serving all citizens. It is a treasure house of power and money to be captured and looted.

This, rather than Islamic fundamentalism, is the context of the tragic deaths of Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara in a bungled rescue bid in Sokoto on Thursday. A group calling itself Al-Qa’ida in the Land Beyond the Sahel claimed responsibility and it is said to be part of Boko Haram. Officials say that the demands they had made for the release of the hostages were confused.

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A high-ranking Nigerian customs officer has been shot dead by gunmen thought to be from the militant Islamist Boko Haram, police have said.

Adamu Ahmadu was killed in Yobe state in north-east Nigeria, weeks after tightening up border controls to stem the flow of arms in the region.

Boko Haram has its stronghold in Maiduguri in neighbouring Borno state.

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(Please note that this letter is referred to at the conclusion of the article in the previous post, which says it is to be read in every parish in England and Wales this weekend in worship–KSH).

Today we want to put before you the Catholic vision of marriage and the light it casts on the importance of marriage for our society.

The roots of the institution of marriage lie in our nature. Male and female we have been created, and written into our nature is this pattern of complementarity and fertility. This pattern is, of course, affirmed by many other religious traditions. Christian teaching fills out this pattern and reveals its deepest meaning, but neither the Church nor the State has the power to change this fundamental understanding of marriage itself.

Nor is this simply a matter of public opinion. Understood as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, and for the creation and upbringing of children, marriage is an expression of our fundamental humanity. Its status in law is the prudent fruit of experience, for the good of the spouses and the good of the family. In this way society esteems the married couple as the source and guardians of the next generation. As an institution marriage is at the foundation of our society.

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The recent theft of a 12th century Irish saint’s heart from a Dublin church has left local Christians stunned and devastated.

“All I would ask is that whoever took it would return it with no questions asked. It’s valueless to anyone but the Cathedral here and our community and the community of Dublin”¦we’re grieving over it, really,” church dean Rev. Dermot Dunne told CNA on March 5.

The heart of St. Laurence O’Toole was stolen from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on March 3 and has yet to be recovered.

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Not far from Copacabana Beach here is a control room that looks straight out of NASA.

City employees in white jumpsuits work quietly in front of a giant wall of screens ”” a sort of virtual Rio, rendered in real time. Video streams in from subway stations and major intersections. A sophisticated weather program predicts rainfall across the city. A map glows with the locations of car accidents, power failures and other problems.

The order and precision seem out of place in this easygoing Brazilian city, which on this February day was preparing for the controlled chaos that is Carnaval. But what is happening here reflects a bold and potentially lucrative experiment that could shape the future of cities around the world.

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