Candidate favoured by Christians wins Indonesia’s presidential election

Joko Widodo, the candidate favoured by Indonesia’s Christian population, has won the nation’s presidential election.

The Southeast Asian nation, the world’s 4th-most populous at 252 million, has the largest Muslim population of any nation but also has a sizable Christian population. It is 86% Muslim, 6% Protestant, 3% Catholic, and 2% Hindu.

Father Benny Suseyto, secretary of the Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, told the Fides news agency in June that Widodo, the current governor of Jakarta, is “a leader who has put on his agenda the issues of human rights and freedoms, the rights of minorities, the fight against religious intolerance, in addition to the urgent issue of the fight against corruption.”

Group of Laotians soon to be recognized as martyrs

The missionary Fr. Mario Borzaga, a catechist and 15 other missionaries are being fast tracked by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints

The small communist south-east Asian nation of Laos will have its very own martyrs, possibly within just a few months. Two parallel processes have begun for a group of religious, missionaries and lay people which have been split down the middle: the missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate (OMI), Mario Borzaga and the Laotian catechist Paul Thoj Xyooj killed in 1960 on the one hand and 15 martyrs including missionaries and lay catechists killed in Laos between 1954 and 1970 on the other.

Angelo Pelis, OMI, is Postulator for the Cause of Borzaga-Thoj Xyooj. He completed Borzaga’s “Positio” (a 480-page document) last April, after which it was reviewed and approved by the relator for the cause, Jozef Kijas. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints published the “Positio” (a text which presents evidence to support a cause for beatification, Ed.) on 9 June. Forty copies were printed and sent to a group of theologian advisors and cardinals to be examined. “Documents were gathered with a view to prove the martyrdom of the two servants of God,” Pelis told Vatican Insider. Once their martyrdom has been recognized, the beatification process can start. “Given Borzaga’s spiritual stature, emphasis was placed on his vocation for the sainthood, proof of which is to be found in his writings.”

Iraq faces ‘historic catastrophe’, Chaldean patriarch warns

The Chaldean patriarch has urged Iraq to turn away from its current path, warning that the new policies of Islamist jihadists threaten Christian-Muslim coexistence.

“Should this direction continue to be pursued, Iraq will come face to face with human, civil, and historic catastrophe,” Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon Louis Raphael I Sako said in a July 17 message he described as “urgent.”

He called for peace and co-existence “in a spirit of human brotherhood.”

“We implore in particular our Iraqi brothers, asking them to reconsider and reflect upon the strategy they have adopted and demanding that they must respect innocent and weaponless people of all nationalities, religions, and sects.”

He spoke weeks after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant occupied the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and as the organization was beginning to force Mosul’s remaining Christians from the city.

In deadly conflict, Boko Haram captures key Nigerian town

Islamic militant group Boko Haram has taken control of the northeastern Nigeria town of Damboa in a July 18 attack that killed at least 40 people.

The vigilante force defending the town fled when it ran out of ammunition. Damboa is one of the biggest towns in Borno state and a significant trading center, the BBC reports.

Fighting around the town has damaged electricity stations, leaving the regional capital of Maiduguri without power for three weeks. The capital is about 53 miles from the captured area.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has led an insurgency with the goal of creating an Islamic state. It drew international attention earlier this year when it kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls, many of whom are still prisoner.

Nigeria’s government has faced heavy criticism for failing to rescue the girls and to end the insurgency.

Meriam Ibrahim lands in Rome, meets with Pope Francis

A young Sudanese woman dismissed of a death sentence for refusing to renounce her Christian faith has arrived to Rome with her family, where they met with Pope Francis a few hours after landing.

“Pope Francis was very tender with her, her husband, who was in prison, and thanked her for her courageous witness to perseverance in the Faith,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said of the encounter in a July 24 statement.

Describing the meeting between the young family and the Roman Pontiff as “very serene and affectionate,” Fr. Lombardi explained that for him encounter was “a gesture of closeness and solidarity for those who suffer for their faith.”

Meriam Ibrahim Arrives in Rome

Christian Sentenced to Death for ‘Apostasy’ Welcomed by Italian Prime Minister

Meriam Ibrahim and her family arrived aboard an Italian government plane at Rome’s Ciampino airport at around 9 o’clock this morning. She was accompanied from Khartoum by Italy’s deputy foreign minister, Lapo Pistelli.

Italy’s Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, was among those present to welcome the Ibrahim family on their arrival. “It’s a day of celebration,” he said.

Pistelli said Ibrahim and her two children “are well and in very good shape”. He added they will have “important appointments over the next few days before they leave for the United States.” He also said the Prime Minister had informed Pope Francis of her release.

Born to a Muslim father and Christian mother, Ibrahim was jailed and in May sentenced to death by a Sudanese court, accused of converting from Islam to Christianity. She was also charged with committing adultery since her marriage to a Christian cannot be recognised under sharia law.

Australia’s oldest Catholic weekly newspaper shuts

The Record, Western Australia’s Catholic newspaper, which was established in 1874, will publish its final edition on July 23.

Perth Archbishop Timothy Costello said the decision to close the paper was reached after a five-month review with stakeholders following a protracted decline in subscriptions.

‘Change is sometimes difficult and there will be many people who will be sorry to see The Record in this present form no longer appear each week in our churches,’ Archbishop Costello said on Monday.

‘If our goal is to use the media to share the message of Jesus, we must try new methods and set out in new directions.’

Cristiano Ronaldo Is Alive Thanks to a Conscientious Objector

Mother of Talented Portuguese Soccer Player Says She Would Have Aborted Him But for Refusal of Her Doctor

Seventy individual prizes, among which are two Gold Balls and a FIFA World Player, a jumble of trophies won with the jerseys of Sporting Lisbona, Manchester United and Real Madrid. And even a string of records that require a good measure of patience for one who wants to read them all, as well as two high honors conferred by the Portuguese State.

No small merit for these achievements is owed to an unknown Portuguese doctor. Small and fragile is the vulnerable body that grows day by day in the womb of a woman, but great is the noble gesture of one who carries out his work with professionalism and faith and thus succeeds in saving a human life from abortion.

Conference for Ecclesial Movements, New Communities Set for November

The Pope’s words of encouragement to ecclesial communities to keep joy alive and to not be afraid have inspired a Vatican dicastery to spearhead a world congress in Rome this fall.

The Pontifical Council for the Laity will hold its third world congress of ecclesial movements and new communities November 20 to 22.

Titled “The joy of the Gospel: a missionary joy”, based on Pope Francis’ Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the event is to take place at the Pontifical International College Maria Mater Ecclesiae in Rome.

Before the Angelus prayer on May 19, 2013, the Sunday of Pentecost during the Year of Faith, the Holy Father addressed the new movements and new ecclesial communities, encouraging them to continue in their work: “You are a gift and wealth for the Church! Always carry forth the strength of the Gospel! Do not be afraid! Always keep alive your joy and passion for the communion of the Church!”

Islamists Seize Monastery in Northern Iraq

Monks of Mar Benham Forced to Leave With Nothing But Their Clothes

Jihadist militants have taken over one of the Iraq’s best-known Christian landmarks and expelled its resident monks, a cleric and residents said Monday.

Fighters from the Islamic State (ISIS) stormed Mar (Saint) Behnam, a fourth-century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic church near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq, on Sunday.

AFP reports the monks reportedly pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monastery’s relics but the fighters refused and ordered them to leave on foot with nothing but their clothes. After fleeing, the residents who included some families were eventually picked up on a deserted road by Kurdish peshmerga fighters who drove them to safety.