When he announced the Jubilee of Mercy Pope Francis said that a Door of Mercy should be opened in every diocese. In the Diocese of Gizo in the Solomon Islands the isolation and remoteness of parishes from the diocesan centre makes it virtually impossible for the people living in the villages to come to the Read more
Peter Loy Chong, the Archbishop of Suva, Fiji, has urged church leaders to adopt strict policies and guidelines on disciplining church pastors involved in sexual offences. Chong made the comment after the Fiji’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions released sexual offence statistics for last month. The statistics revealed there were 46 sexual offence Read more
The director of Papua New Guinea’s national museum said he would ensure compliance with a national court ruling against the Speaker of Parliament’s removal of cultural carvings and a totem pole from the national Parliament. The speaker, Theo Zurenuoc, had claimed that the cultural adornments were unholy and that their removal was part of the Read more
The archbishop of Apia, Alapati Lui Mataeliga, says the constitution already recognises Samoa as a Christian country and there should be a clear separation of church and state. The National Council of Churches has called for Christianity to be further entrenched in the constitution. The Archbishop said his representative on the National Council of Churches Read more
Aarif Rasheed, a Muslim New Zealander of Indo-Fijian ethnicity, says the Samoan government is too open-minded to ban Islam. He says the Samoan government was represented at the recent G20 interfaith summit in Fiji. Rasheed said he was going to help organise a dialogue with churches in Samoa and hoped to bring them together to Read more
The Nauru government has announced that the island’s Parliament this month passed a number of laws to bring the nation up to international human rights standards. A new act replaces a former criminal code that dated back to 1899 and was based on old Queensland laws. The law reforms come after a number of incidents at the Read more
Family violence cannot be addressed without taking due consideration of the gender inequalities faced by women and girls in the Solomon Islands says Ethel Sigimanu. She is Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs. Sigimanu was speaking at the opening of World Vision’s three day Channels of Hope for Gender, Church Read more
PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced on April 27 that Australian-funded Manus Island detention center, which houses refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants will be closed. The future of the detainees still remains uncertain. They have the option to settle in PNG or return home. The latest figures show just one in four transferees are opting Read more
Habit for Humanity has been assisted by the Catholic diocese of Suva and the Adventist relief agency to distribute emergency shelter-kits. Habitat for Humanity Fiji has provided more than 1000 families with emergency shelter-kits in the Northern Division. The non-profit organisation served 500 families in the Province of Bua last month reaching out to Wainunu, Read more
An imam in Samoa has questioned whether the proposed constitutional change to reinforce Samoa as a Christian country would mean it would no longer do business with non-Christian countries. Imam Mohammed Bin Yahya said there are a lot of non-Christian countries that give aid to Samoa. “Will they say no aid because you are not Christians, keep Read more