Authorities have quarantined an estimated 40,000 people after a Sikh religious preacher who died of Covid-19 is feared to have caused community spread of coronavirus in India’s Punjab state. Baldev Singh, the 70-year-old Sikh guru, died on March 18 in Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar district, 11 days after he returned from Germany via virus-stricken Italy. Read more
The decrease in the number of consecrated men and women is “worrying,” according to the Vatican statistics office. While the number of religious brothers in Africa and Asia continues to increase, the number of religious brothers worldwide experienced an 8 percent drop between 2013 and 2018. During the same period, the number of women religious Read more
Pope Francis offered a prayer for media professionals who are covering the coronavirus pandemic before his daily Mass on Wednesday. “Those who work in the media, who work to communicate today so that people are not so isolated … help us to bear this time of isolation,” Pope Francis said April 1. The pope asked Read more
An increase in family violence has Women’s Refuge calling for help to contain abusers if numbers exceed what police can manage. The refuge’s six safe houses were all in lockdown so they could not take in any new women or children and Albert said it was hard to find other accommodation. Waikato Women’s Refuge -Te Whakaruruhau chief executive officer Ruahine Read more
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Pope Francis’ vicar for the diocese of Rome, on Monday became the highest-ranking Catholic official known to test positive for coronavirus. De Donatis’ office said he was tested for the virus after feeling unwell and was admitted to a Rome hospital. His closest aides had gone into voluntary quarantine as a Read more
Concerns have been mounting that members of the Gloriavale Christian community are not adhering to the nationwide lockdown. Those close to the exclusive, controlling Christian community 67km east of Greymouth told the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust the rules were being ignored. Police said they were working with the Gloriavale community to make sure its members Read more
After years of pressure to return potentially smuggled artifacts, the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, is facing yet another blow. Its board chairman, Steve Green, who is also president of the Hobby Lobby stores, is returning 11,500 antiquities from his biblical art collection to the governments of Iraq and Egypt, with the assistance Read more
In Guwahati, the commercial capital of Assam state in northeastern India, Sister Rose Hauniang Paite has adapted her tailoring school in response to the looming threat of coronavirus over surrounding slums. The school is normally run as a community development initiative, offering skills training to local women and children who are vulnerable to exploitation such Read more
The Vatican spokesman today confirmed that Pope Francis and his closest collaborators do not have Covid-19, but a sixth employee in the city-state has tested positive, following tests carried out “on more than 170 employees of the Holy See and residents at the Santa Marta guesthouse,” where Pope Francis lives. The news came in a Read more