Philippines Priest Forgives Bishop's Killers...Philippine priest forgives Muslims following bishop’s murder, works for peace

November 01, 2010

Vatican Radio has profiled Father Roberto Laysan, a missionary in a predominantly Muslim area of the Philippines who worked closely with Bishop Benjamin D. de Jesus of Jolo before the bishop was murdered in front of his cathedral in 1997. While 81% of the nation’s 88.7 million people are Catholic, the Jolo area is heavily Muslim: fewer than 3% of the area’s 1 million residents are Catholic.

Father Laysan subsequently asked to be transferred because of the hatred he felt towards Muslims, according to the profile. He then worked in an evacuation center for persons fleeing the fighting on Mindanao between Philippine forces and Islamic separatist rebels. “When you hear the sounds of mothers and children weeping in the night, you no longer ask whether they are Muslim or Christian,” he recounts.

Father Laysan now works as a mediator between the government and Islamic rebels in the troubled region.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=8119

'Tolerant Indonesia': 700 Churches Attacked in 10 Years

October 26, 2010

Some 700 Catholic and Protestant churches have been attacked in Indonesia over the past decade, according to the Indonesian Christian Communication Forum. Between October 12 and October 17, a Catholic parish was attacked, another was threatened with attack, and a Protestant church was burned down.

“The violence and attacks, against Christian churches of all denominations, has grown in recent years and now in the past several days,” said Bishop Johannes Pujasumarta of Bandung, secretary general of the Indonesian bishops’ conference. “Those responsible are small radical Islamic groups that are sowing panic among our people, especially in the Dioceses of Jakarta, Bandung, and Bogor. They are minority groups, but they should be stopped. The violence also increases the indifference of the civil authorities and police, who shrug off the violence. We demand more attention and protection for the Christian communities and that such acts may not remain unpunished.”

3% of the nation’s 224.9 million people are Catholic, according to Vatican statistics; 6% are Protestant and 86% are Muslim, making Indonesia the country with the largest Muslim population.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=8057

Vatican: Koran encourages 'killing Christians'

Vatican City, 22 Oct. (AKI) - The Koran is a text that encourages Islam to impose itself with force and permits the killing of Christians, said Lebanon's Catholic Patriarch of Antioch Archbishop Raboula Beylouni, addressing a Vatican meeting of Middle East bishops.

"The Koran gives Muslims the right to judge Christians and kill them with Jihad," he said. "It gives orders to impose religion with force, with the sword. For this reason, Muslims don't recognise the freedom of religion among themselves or others."

Pope Benedict XVI on 11 Oct. the opened the two-week-long meeting of 246 Middle East bishops and other religious leaders by lashing out against violence "in God's name".

The pontiff warned delegates to guard against the spread of "terrorist ideology" in the modern world.

Among clerics attending the meeting were Muhammad al-Sammak, political counsellor to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, representing Sunni Islam; and Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi, a law professor at the Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran and member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, representing Shia Islam. 

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.1.1142668038