TAIPEI (UCAN): Father Karl Stahli, from the Swiss Bethlehem Mission Society and a student of Bunun culture specialising in its witchcraft practices, died at the age of 80 after more than 50 years in Taiwan.

KAOHSIUNG (UCAN): Inspired by a 19th century missionary to China, Father Joseph Youta Djiba, from Togo, was ordained in Taiwan on February 18 for the Chinese province of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD).

Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan, from Taipei, who is a member of the same congregation, ordained the young Togolese at Our Lady of Fatima church in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan.

TAIPEI (SE): “As Your Holiness states in the Message for World Day of Peace, women are often leaders in nonviolent action,” the first female head of state in the ethnic Chinese world, Tsai Ing-wen, from Taiwan, says in a letter to Pope Francis dated January 5.

Tsai tells the pope that she is devoted to enhancing the wellbeing of the people of her domain and, significantly, creating a new era for cross-strait peace between Taiwan and mainland China.

TAIPEI (UCAN): The president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, met with Oscar Andres Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, the coordinator of the nine-member Council of Cardinal Advisers to Pope Francis during her recent visit to four Central American nations.

On the second day of her tour in Honduras, Tsai attended a Mass at the Basilica of Suyapa in Tegucigalpa and received a blessing from Cardinal Maradiaga.

TAIPEI (UCAN): The Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference in Taiwan issued a statement expressing the opposition of the Church to a bill that would allow same-sex marriage and asked the people of the island state to pray and fast for the cause.