VATICAN (CNS): Few probably know it outside the ranks of the craft, but February is Catholic Press Month in the United States of America and Canada, a time when the Church recognises the importance of the Catholic media and members of the Catholic media reflect in a special way on their service to the Church. 

According to the Pew Research Centre’s Restrictions on Religion report, issued on January 14, there are 5.3 billion people facing harsh constraints on religious freedom. 

Chen Xiuxia, a mother of three, was desperate to have a baby boy a few years after China implemented the single child policy in 1980.

A resident of Zhaoqing in southern China, she was then living in a village on the outskirts of the city in the country’s most populated province, Guangdong. Like most Chinese women in rural areas, she felt under pressure to have a male child to continue the family bloodline.

But it wasn’t to be. Her first child was a girl.

January 15 this year marks 100 years since Etty Hillesum, who was killed in Auschwitz on 30 November 1943, was born in the Netherlands

HONG KONG (SE): “She looked at me strangely and said, ‘You don’t understand me’. Then she said, ‘I want to share the destiny of my people’,” Klaas Smelik relates in describing the resignation to fate of Etty Hillesum.

Her resignation is somewhat explained in the last lines of her dairy where she expresses her readiness to offer herself to the Holocaust.

HONG KONG (SE): Undoubtedly the biggest event of 2013 in the Church was Pope Benedict XVI becoming the first pope in recent times to resign from the job. This was followed by the election of the first pope from the Americas, Argentinean, Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio.

Cardinal Bergoglio chose the name which today is in the top echelon of mega Internet stars: Francis.

Early in the year we learned that Pope Benedict XVI wished to step down from the papacy.

This was quite a surprise because even though we knew about his failing health, we had never heard of a pope in recent times finding the freedom to resign.

He officially stepped down at the end of February. 

Liu Yunxiao may have visited more churches in China than anyone and there’s little doubt no one has seen more of them in his home province of Shaanxi.

A stocky man with silvery hair, 65-year-old Liu has spent the past 30 years documenting Catholicism in this central province, often in mind-numbing detail.

In his self-published book on his home diocese of Zhouzhi, Liu notes the priest’s house in Fujiazhuang village has a modest kitchen of 5.4 square metres.

The late-Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini made Jerusalem his life’s place of the heart: I found in him a model and an inspiration in the unforgettable six months, which I wish had been never-ending, that I spent in the Holy City from February to August 2013.

And from Cardinal Martini I now borrow some thoughts to describe how I lived through that period.

VATICAN (AsiaNews): A symposium held at the Aula Magna of the Pontifical Urbaniana University on October 9 and 10 heard that the future good of Asia can be guaranteed if religious freedom and the commitment of Christians in society is affirmed.

The opinion was also expressed that despite suffering from persecution and marginalisation, Christians are even now able to be signs of humanity full of hope for their continent and the world.

HONG KONG (SE): In the early 19th century, Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice, a successful business entrepreneur in Ireland, dreamed of setting up an educational system for poor children.

His dream materialised in the foundation of the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers’ Schools, which today can be found operating in almost every country in the world.