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August 2017

Call for sea change in relations with North Korea
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HONG KONG (SE): The World Council of Churches called on all Christian organisations and Churches to observe a Sunday of Prayer for the Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula on August 13, basing their prayer around the theme from Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”
 
Although this is an annual call from the council to Christians worldwide, it says that this year it has taken on a...

Invisible faces glow in the limelight
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HONG KONG (SE): The faces of a mostly invisible group in Hong Kong were shown off in fine style on July 30, as a group of 55 young, Hong Kong-born and bred Filipinos aged between 10 and 20 took to the stage in a classy production of a musical written by local educator and artist, Catherine Tating Marsden, called The Sway of the Cradle (Ang Ugoy ng Duyan).
 
Held at the McPherson Stadium in Mong Kok, the musical was presented by Teatro Filipino (Theatre of The...

New Dominican prior provincial
(Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HONG KONG (SE): Father Bonifacio García Solís was elected prior provincial for the Province of Our Lady of the Rosary by the capitular friars of the Dominican Order at a gathering at the Convent of St. Thomas Aquinas in Avila, Spain. The election was confirmed by the master of the order, Father Bruno Cadoré.
 
Father Solís succeeds Father Javier Gonzalez Izquierdo, who has concluded his second term.
 
Father Bonifacio was born in...

Who are the kite runners?
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HONG KONG (SE): After several reports appeared recently pointing to hiccups in the current round of talks taking place between the Holy See and Beijing, the Vatican secretary of state, Pietro Cardinal Parolin, admitted in his diplomatic way that things are rocky, saying that new challenges had been presented.
 
It was reported by Chinese observers that the last meeting on June 28, which took place in Rome, did not go smoothly and on July 27, Cardinal Parolin told Il Sole...

Two new priests for Hong Kong diocese
(Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

 
HONG KONG (SE): Reverend Francis Xavier Wong Kwan-yau and Reverend Vincent Wu Wan-shun were ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on July 29.
 
The two deacons knelt before the bishop of Hong Kong to be ordained to the title of the diocese and both have received pastoral appointments in local parishes.
 
In his position as rector of the diocesan Holy Spirit Seminary College in Aberdeen, Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-...

Hiroshima with a difference
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HIROSHIMA (SE): As the president of the United States of America (US), Donald Trump, and his countepart from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, talked big bang theories, the sombre tone of the Peace Bell and the hush of the minute’s silence at the epicentre in the Peace Park in Hiroshima at 8.15am on August 6, exactly 72 years after the first atomic bomb exploded over the city, took on a greater significance.
 
For the first time, the mayor...

The voice of survivors
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

IN THEIR PEACE Declarations at the commemoration of the anniversaries of the only two cities in the world to have been victim of an atomic explosion, the mayors of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki focussed on the July 7 vote in the United Nations (UN) when 122 nations put up their hands in favour of an across the board ban on nuclear weaponry and called for pressure to be put on all nuclear powers to dismantle their stockpiles.
 
The mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, bowed and...

Bringing schools and parishes closer together
(Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

HONG KONG (SE): Around 230 school pastoral workers, teachers and principals from Catholic education institutes in Hong Kong, together with parish youth leaders and priests joined a forum for young people at the Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Tseung Kwan O, on July 15.
 
Organised by the Diocesan Youth Commission, the forum focussed on how parishes and schools can improve their cooperation level, so that non-Catholic students in Catholic secondary schools who want to...

Different views hard to stomach
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

ROME (SE): Emma Bonino, who is best known in Italy for her boast of having performed around 10,000 abortions illegally, was the guest speaker at the parish of San Defendente in San Rocco di Cossato in Beilla, northern Italy, on July 26.
 
While various groups protested against her presence and tried to disrupt the meeting, they were ejected from the church while Bonino spoke about the immigration policies of the country and her advocacy for refugees and migrants.
...

Around the Traps
 (Saturday, 19 August 2017 )

 
Priest stabbed on altar now brain dead
MEXICO CITY (SE): Father José Miguel Machorro, who was stabbed at the end of Mass in Mexico City cathedral on May 15, is now considered to be brain dead.
 
The archdiocese announced that Father Machorro had shown signs of recovery and was moved out of an intensive care unit at the end of June. But he suffered a reversal and was transferred back into intensive care.
 
On August...