INDIA
Bloody protests after Qur’an desecration
EIGHTEEN PEOPLE were killed during protests in Indian Kashmir after reports of Christian activists tearing pages out of the Qur’an in Washington on Saturday – the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US by Islamists – were broadcast around the world, writes Anto Akkara. Seventeen protesters and one policeman died when security forces fired on violent Muslim mobs at several places across Kashmir on Monday. Two Christian schools – the Catholic Good Shepherd School at Pulwama and the Anglican missionary-founded Tyndale-Biscoe School at Tangmarg, were torched by protesters. Local priest Fr Soosai Nathan said police
saved another Christian school from being attacked by barricading the road to the school. In nearby Punjab state a Muslim mob set fire to a Protestant church in the city of Malerkotla. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and other Churches and Christian groups all condemned the Qur’an desecration in the US and subsequent violent protests in India.
POLAND
John Paul II beatification delay denied
Jonathan Luxmoore In Warsaw
THE CHURCH’S official postulator for the beatification of Pope John Paul II has vigor- ously denied that the process could be delayed by the exposure of sex-abuse scandals dating from his pontificate. “It hasn’t been slowed by a single moment,” said Mgr Slawomir Oder, a Rome-based Polish priest. “Certain things are obvious for us, since we’re deeply aware of what John Paul II was and remains for us. From the perspective of church history, how- ever, the time we are passing through is sometimes short. The process now under way is designed for grasping the historical truth. For this reason, we can’t speak of delays or postponements, only of reliability.” The priest was speaking in Warsaw at the launch of his latest book, Why a Saint, co- authored with Italian journalist Saverio Gaeta,
containing material gathered from 114 wit- nesses before the beatification tribunal. He said he had attempted an “internal, spiritual approach” to the late Pope, but also rejected suggestions the beatification could be announced on the sixth anniversary of his death in April 2011. “All historic aspects of this pontificate have been studied,” Mgr Oder added. “This has enabled us to recognise the heroic virtues of John Paul II, while also taking account of the problems associated with abuse. But the process has not been postponed.” Dozens of Catholic parishes in the Pope’s
Polish homeland have been designated for re-dedication to the “Blessed John Paul II”, since a beatification process was launched by the Rome diocese in June 2005, less than three months after his death. The beatification has been actively pursued by Polish Church leaders, including John Paul II’s former private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow. Meanwhile, Polish newspapers have speculated that Benedict XVI could personally conduct the ceremony in Poland, suggesting the anniversary of his death, his birthday on 18 May or the anniversary of the May 1981 attempt on his life for the ceremony. In August, the mass-circulation Gazeta
Wyborcza daily said the beatification could face delays following reports that John Paul II failed to react to high-profile abuse cases.
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40 | THE TABLET | 18 September 2010
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