SYDNEY (SE): The Australian bishops describe the modern economic environment as being not family-friendly in a 21-page message released on September 21 to coincide with the celebration of Social Justice Sunday, which was marked in the Land Down Under on September 23.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another’

John 13: 34-35

HONG KONG (SE): “In busy, noisy, hyperactive Hong Kong, contemplative spirituality is rare, hard to find and even harder to practice,” Louis Tong told the Sunday Examiner in reflecting on his experience at a meditation retreat put on at the Wu Kai Sha YMCA Youth Camp by Buddhist monk, Thye Ngat Hanh, in 2010, that over 300 Catholic people attended.

BOSTON (SE): Boston College in the United States of America launched a new website, Beyond Ricci, on August 20, which provides access to books containing historical narratives, maps, correspondence and musical compositions depicting life in China during the era of early east-west exchange, which was initiated by the Jesuits.

Published in five languages, the website can be found at www.bc.edu/beyondricci.

Walking is a test of
perseverance and faith

A group of 56 people, representing a full range of ages, walked for 12 days in the middle of July from Chengdu to Chongqing, in the Sichuan area of southwestern China, covering a total distance of 360 kilometres.

This is the fifth summer pilgrim walk the group has undertaken.

HONG KONG (SE): “Most people I meet overseas imagine Palestine as a bombed out wreck,” De La Salle Brother Peter Bray, the vice chancellor of the only Catholic university in the occupied state of Palestine, told the Sunday Examiner during a stopover in Hong Kong in February this year.

WASHINGTON (CNS): More than 20,000 people descended on the Washington DC, the United States of America, for the 19th International AIDS Conference, and Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo felt right at home. 

As the Catholic Church’s point man on HIV and AIDS, he moves among the scientists, politicians and activists with ease, having worked for years to make sure that those involved in faith-based responses to the disease have their voices heard in the biennial gatherings. 

HONG KONG (SE): “During my three years working for a human rights agency in Hong Kong, I have discovered that people seem to think that I must be trying to be some kind of saviour of the poor,” Poon Wan-yu told the Sunday Examiner.

Joining the Asian Centre for the Progress of Peoples immediately after graduating in Chinese literature from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the 25-year-old described her work in human rights as not just a job, but a vocation.

HONG KONG (SE): The history of the Maronite Rite of the Catholic Church is literally a story of keeping the faith.

With its tradition inherited from the thriving commercial city of Antioch, it has direct connections with apostolic times, as St. Paul and his companion, St. Barnabas, both ministered there and St. Peter himself was the bishop.

Crossing oceans to China

People have been travelling to China for more years than we may know, but we do know that a lot of missionary priests and sisters have been crossing by land and sea from Europe to China for hundreds of years, the earliest recorded journey would be around 1293, undertaken by Franciscan Father John Montecorvino (1246-1328), who was called the founder of the Catholic mission in China.