The annual event was co-hosted by Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Speaker of the House Milton Dick MP in Canberra on 21 November.

It brought together more than 200 attendees, including parliamentarians and faith leaders.

Kohn highlighted the risks of ignoring religion's contributions to society.

Australian democracy relied on acknowledging the contributions of religion and history, not "distorting the past and pouring contempt on our faith traditions" she said.

Criticising what she called the "Vanguard of the New", Kohn noted that misrepresenting the past undermines the values underpinning democratic progress.

"The Vanguard of the New presents our history as a litany of failure, denies every virtue that our forebears upheld and rubbishes every step of progress that they laboured to achieve in the most adverse circumstances."

Mission to foster harmony

Drawing from her family's experiences of Nazism and Communism in Czechoslovakia, Kohn described how their suffering shaped her rejection of totalitarian ideologies.

She now advocates for religion's positive role in promoting dignity, community and shared purpose.

She cited St Mary MacKillop's example of collaboration across faiths, noting how a Jewish businessman provided shelter for MacKillop's school during her temporary excommunication. Such stories, she argued, reflect religion's ability to unite people in shared values.

Vice-Chancellor of ACU, Professor Zlatko Skrbis, praised Kohn's speech saying it echoed the interfaith breakfast's mission to foster harmony.

"For a decade, this event has brought together people of diverse faiths and backgrounds to engage in dialogue, prayer and reflection" he said.

Kohn produced and presented more than 1,700 programmes in her career, during which she interviewed thousands of respected religious leaders. Her guests included Archbishops, Chief Rabbis, the Dalai Lama and local clerics.

She also spoke with imams, laypeople, professionals and scholars. Additionally, she highlighted "unsung heroes" who discovered a greater purpose through their faith.

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Kohn was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for "distinguished service to the broadcast media - particularly radio, as a creator, producer and presenter, and to Jewish studies".

Sources

Australian Catholic University

CathNews New Zealand

The once powerful Brazilian basic church communities have declined since the 1990s.

Last week, 1,000 Brazilian basic church community leaders gathered to discuss Brazil's most pressing issues, from Amazon deforestation to unemployment. They also set up a future-focused strategy.

A central discussion point was ways to encourage more young Catholics to join them.

CEBs and Liberation Theology

Brazil's Basic Church Community movement grew strong in the 1970s during a military junta rule when people's basic rights were suppressed.

Priests and religious often accompanied basic church communities which played a central community role.

The basic church community movement inspired Catholics to participate directly in church life. It encouraged them to organise and act to improve their living conditions.

Liberation theology was the basic church community's theoretical counterpart. Many liberation theologians were persecuted in the 1980s.

"Attacks on Liberation theology were attacks on the basic church communities. That process was very strong during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI," professor of theology and long-time basic church community leader Celso Carias says.

Basic church community membership dropped from 50,000 to today's 20,000.

Clericalism and democracy

While the Church in Brazil became more centralised, clergy took over most parish life, Carias says.

"The community ... was gradually driven away from the decision-making spaces of the parishes."

What was challenged was the kind of spirituality directly connected to social causes which the basic church community stimulated.

Carias says resurrecting the relevance of basic church communities in Brazil will take daily effort - effort that ignores resistance.

An outgoing church

Pope Francis is an important CEB supporter. Last week, he sent a video to motivate basic church community members at a national gathering, urging them to keep working for an outgoing Church.

One of the 50 Brazilian episcopate members at the gathering is delighted that many clergy participated. But "there is a huge resistance among many in the Church to accept the basic church community model," he says.

"Many people continue to prefer a closed Church ... that looks only to itself. We have many barriers to overcome."

He suggests working with popular movements and community organisations as Francis does.

Beginning again

Members of Brazilian Indigenous groups were also at the gathering. Some led the liturgy.

Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa says "A person who was not an enthusiast of the basic church community told me that 'only in a Church like that did the Indigenous and other traditional peoples have a place'."

"It was a moment of conversion."

Many Youth Pastoral Ministry leaders at the gathering were invited to work with veteran leaders to reorganise basic church communities throughout Brazil.

Bible circles are reviving, and young people are joining them.

"We have to educate and form new leaders. That is how we will change things," basic church community leader Edson Canchilheri says.

In rural areas, basic church communities can help communities as they have formerly - promoting solidarity and practical support and supporting rural associations striving for better conditions for farmers, Canchilheri says.

Source

• La Croix

A whole lot of execs, having figured out that a whole lot of people are beginning to use AI to do their jobs, are going to dispense with the middleman.

They won't care very much if the resulting work — writing copy, reviewing documents, forming relationships — is done with little care, and less quality. They're just going to see the dollar signs.

And then what?

Because we're already in an economy where people are stretched so thin that they're using buy now, pay later to pay for groceries.

That's a last resort.

They're maxed out in every other way.

They've tapped out their "credit," their incomes have cratered in real terms relative to eye-watering inflation, they have no real resources left.

What happens if you take an economy stretched that thin…and pull?

It breaks.

Those layoffs will lead to delinquencies and bad debt, which will cause bank failures, which will require the classic sequence of bailouts, shrunken public services, and lower investment.

And then we'll be in the first economic AI crash — right when it's supposed to be booming.

Those jobs?

They're never coming back.

A hole will have been ripped in the economy.

You can already see glimmers of what those jobs are — not really jobs, entire fields and industries will be decimated, and already are.

Those who are proficient in manipulating AI think they're clever for holding down four, five, six jobs at once — but the flip side of the coin is that they're taking them from other people.

You can see the writing on the wall.

Many forms of pink-collar work? Toast. Clerical work, organizational work, secretarial slash assistant style work.

And then you can go up the ladder. Graphic designers and musicians?

Good luck, you're going to need it.

Writers (shudder) and publishers and editors? LOL.

All the way up to programmers, who used to be, not so long ago, the economy's newest and most in-demand profession.

We can keep going, almost endlessly. Therapists? Check. Doctors — GPs? Eventually.

Even…all those executives themselves…who will fire today's pink-collar masses?

Probably.

And from there, you begin to see the scale and scope of the problem.

It's not that AI's going to "kill us all." We're doing a pretty good job of that, in case you haven't noticed.

But it is that AI is going to rip away from us the three things that we value most. Our economies, human interaction, and in the end, democracy.

I've taken you through the first, just a little bit. Let's consider the second, human interaction. Continue reading

• Umair Haque is one of the world's leading thinkers. He is a member of the Thinkers50, the authoritative ranking of the globe's top management experts.

When Dong Luobin, now 39, fled from Auckland's Consulate for the People's Republic of China nearly five years ago, he told NZ police he feared his Catholicism was putting his life in danger.

Six months later New Zealand authorities granted him refugee status. They concluded he faced persecution over his religious and political views were he to return to China.

"Defections are a particularly rare occurrence," says Rhys Ball, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University. This is the first defection of a foreign government official or employee on New Zealand soil that Ball is aware of since the 1947-1991 Cold War.

Dong says he's speaking out publicly about his experiences to help New Zealanders understand the importance of their democratic freedoms.

He describes his early working life in Auckland as one where he and others were constantly watched, monitored and controlled.

He worked in a multi-building compound surrounded by a high barbed-wire-topped wall. Staff, mostly non-English speakers lived on site, had to surrender their passports to the consulate, and were able to leave the compound only in groups of three or more.

When Dong started work at the consulate in 2016, physical security wasn't as tight, enabling him to sneak out during lunchtimes or evenings to visit a nearby church.

Dong is a third-generation Catholic. He says practising his faith in China was subject to surveillance and repression.

His absences to attend church secretly were noticed and on 7 May 2018 he was questioned by consulate staff about his whereabouts the previous day and why he did not answer his phone.

He began to fear the crucifix he wore around his neck may also have been noticed and his religious beliefs would soon be discovered.

Coincidentally that morning he had been given possession of his passport to take to the Automobile Association for his New Zealand driver's licence: It presented an opportunity for escape.

The Catholic defector first tried seeking asylum in the church he had surreptitiously visited, but the pastor he sought was not present and staff called police. He was taken to an Auckland police station where he was interviewed with the assistance of a Mandarin-speaking officer.

"I said to the translating officer, ‘If you send me back to the consulate I will die'. Then the police perhaps understood my situation. The officer said, ‘Don't worry, we will protect you.'"

The following day Dong made contact with a lawyer who immediately filed an application for asylum.

National Party MP Simon O'Connor says while most New Zealanders will be aware of the [Chinese Communist Party's] repression of Uighur Muslims or suppression of freedoms in Hong Kong, they mightn't know Christians are also aggressively targeted.

O'Connor, a staunch Catholic, said Dong's story should be a warning for New Zealand: "His story, and why he defected, illustrates the paranoia of authoritarian regimes."

Source

• NZ Herald

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, involves a Mississippi law that bans abortion starting at the 15th week of pregnancy.

Significantly, the statute draws the line before fetal viability—the point at which survival is possible outside the womb.

The Court has previously held that before viability, "the state's interests are not strong enough to support a prohibition of abortion or substantial obstacle to the woman's effective right to elect the procedure."

To uphold Mississippi's law, the Court would have to rewrite the rules—perhaps just the opportunity it needs to overturn Roe altogether.

If that happens, it will represent the culmination of decades of work by anti-abortion-rights activists.

But for those activists, gutting Roe would be just the beginning.

Ever since Roe, abortion-rights foes and their Republican allies have been asking the Court to reverse course—to acknowledge that the Constitution has nothing whatsoever to say about abortion, either in favor of or against it.

Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice arguably most beloved by conservatives, routinely stated that the Constitution is silent on abortion.

Republicans have railed against the Court's judicial activism in Roe, insisting that the justices robbed the American people of the opportunity to decide the abortion issue for themselves.

In this account, Roe did not just destroy valuable opportunities for compromise on abortion; the decision did fundamental damage to America's democratic principles, removing one of the most controversial issues from representative legislatures and resolving it by judicial fiat.

But within the anti-abortion-rights movement, there is not so much talk about democracy anymore.

Now some abortion-rights opponents are quite literally looking for a Roe of their own, asking the Court to recognize fetal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Remember that overturning Roe wouldn't make abortion illegal; it would mean that states could set their own abortion limits, which would no longer be subject to constitutional review.

That will never be enough for anti-abortion-rights activists, though.

In the conservative magazine First Things, John Finnis, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, recently made an argument that could provide the framework an anti-abortion-rights Supreme Court could use to outlaw abortion across the country: that the legislators who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment viewed unborn children as persons.

If the Constitution recognizes fetal personhood, then unborn children would have the right to equal protection under and due process of the law.

Abortion would be unconstitutional in New York as well as in Alabama.

Other leading anti-abortion-rights scholars have made the same argument.

Finnis's article has provoked debate across the ideological spectrum.

The conservative attorney Ed Whelan has taken issue with the substance of Finnis's claim, suggesting that unless the anti-abortion-rights movement first wins over public opinion, Finnis's approach will backfire.

Progressives have been far harsher, unsurprisingly.

Writing in The New York Times, the columnist Michelle Goldberg denounced what she calls an authoritarian turn in anti-abortion-rights advocacy—one more sign that the GOP has changed fundamentally in the post-Trump era.

The abortion debate has never been about just Roe—and it's never been about letting a popular majority have a say.

What's new is that this argument now meets a receptive Supreme Court for the first time in more than a generation. Continue reading

Unfortunately, this brutal reaction is only the latest in a series of repressive moves across Southeast Asia in recent years as political groups, backed by powerful militaries, intervene in government.

Such dictatorships have arrested the growth of participatory democracies in countries close to Myanmar, including Thailand and Cambodia.

The enduring authoritarian governments in Laos and Vietnam do nothing to enhance democracy or respect for human rights, while nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are fragile democracies.

The semi-democracy that had prevailed in Myanmar since the military began to share power in 2015 came to an abrupt end with the coup.

The military's willingness in 2015 to ease its tight controls on the people of Myanmar was in sharp contrast to its performance since it seized power in a 1962 coup.

Under the leadership of General Ne Win, Myanmar (then called Burma) endured 26 years of military rule. In 1988, nationwide protests broke out but were ruthlessly suppressed as hundreds were killed and jailed.

The actions of the Tatmadaw have provoked widespread condemnation from the international community.

Economic sanctions have followed from countries in Europe and Asia, but unfortunately, those restrictions on trade and income do not necessarily mean trouble for the coup masters who have their own industries, wealth and resources.

In fact, the sanctions imposed on the country - trade embargos, freezing assets, blocks on tourism and student travel, for example - will greatly impact the blameless poor and middle class.

Pope appeals for dialogue

As security forces in Myanmar have increased their crackdown on civilians, with disappearances, detentions and the killing of peaceful protestors, Pope Francis appealed for an end to violence and the start of dialogue.

"Once again, and with much sorrow, I feel compelled to mention the tragic situation in Myanmar, where so many people, especially young people, are losing their lives for offering hope to their country," the pope said at the end of his weekly general audience on March 17.

The spectre of authoritarian rule shadowed the pope's visit to Myanmar in November 2017. Every effort was made by the papal mission to work in unison with the local Church.

Catholics make up a very small minority in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country, and making a move deemed to be "wrong" by the Tatmadaw would have meant considerable trouble for the majority, ethnic Bamar Catholics, though most belong to ethnic minorities.

Pope Francis was extremely aware of the trouble the Rohingya minority were in at the time of his visit. But he reserved any expression of that concern to his time in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees had fled after brutal treatment by the Tatmadaw.

In 2021, life in Myanmar has got worse for many more than the Rohingya.

Without mentioning her name, the pope recalled the iconic gestures of Sister Ann Rosa Nu Tawng in a street in the city of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.

This nun made world headlines when photographs were published of her kneeling before police and extending her arms while begging police not to shoot or hurt protesters. "I, too, kneel on the streets of Myanmar and say, ‘Stop the violence,'"

Pope Francis said. "I, too, spread wide my arms and say, ‘Make way for dialogue.'"

It was the fourth time the pope had spoken about the crisis unfolding in Myanmar.

"Bloodshed resolves nothing," he said, repeating his call for dialogue to begin.

Nuns have played a significant role in the nationwide anti-coup protests by marching in the streets, praying at convents and standing before churches to express their solidarity with the people of Myanmar.

In early February, the sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition reached out to protesters and offered them drinks and snacks. They also visited the families of two Buddhists killed by security forces in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city where, to console them and pray for the departed souls.

Nuns from various congregations have joined laypeople and seminarians to march in the streets for a peaceful solution to the crisis by reciting the rosary and singing gospel songs in Yangon, Mandalay and Loikaw.

On March 6, nuns from the Sisters of Charity congregation reached out to six families in Monywa in central Myanmar to pray for the deceased and provide rice and cooking oil.

Cardinal Bo leads the Catholic response

Catholic responses in Myanmar have been led by Cardinal Charles Bo, the archbishop of Yangon and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences.

In a March 14 open letter to all the people of the nation, including jailed civilian leaders and the military, he wrote:

"As the leaders of the Myanmar Catholic Church [we bishops] urge all parties in Myanmar to seek peace. This crisis will not be resolved by bloodshed. The killings must stop at once. So many have perished.

The blood spilt is not the blood of an enemy. It is the blood of our own sisters and brothers, our own citizens."

His letter wanted to put a stop to the rising number of dead among the protesters.

The protesters are demanding the military release their elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which scored its second landslide victory in the November 2020 elections. She and many elected leaders are being detained in unknown locations.

Suu Kyi is facing several charges that her supporters say have been fabricated.

On March 11, Suu Kyi was accused of accepting illegal payments worth US$600,000 as well as gold while she was in government. She had already been charged with illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios and flouting Covid-19 restrictions.

The military junta, ‘a murderous, illegal regime'

The United Nations, human rights groups, bishops and Catholic organizations have condemned the brutal military crackdown in Myanmar.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council on March 11, rights envoy Tom Andrews said that "Myanmar was currently being controlled by a murderous, illegal regime."

He said the junta's security forces were committing acts of murder, imprisonment, persecution, torture and reclusion as part of a coordinated campaign in a widespread and systematic manner with the knowledge of the junta's leadership that is "likely committing crimes against humanity."

Andrews called for a united global response as "the people of Myanmar need not only words of support but supportive action. They need the help of the international community now."

He said the UN Security Council's statement on March 10 that expressed deep concern about developments in Myanmar was welcome but "wholly insufficient."

He urged member states to commit to taking strong, decisive and coordinated action as a coalition of nations — an emergency coalition for the people of Myanmar.

Christine Schraner Burgener, the UN special envoy on Myanmar, condemned the continued bloodshed as the military defied international calls, including from the UN Security Council, for restraint, dialogue and full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

"The ongoing brutality, including against medical personnel and destruction of public infrastructure, severely undermines any prospects for peace and stability," she said in a statement on March 14.

"The international community, including regional actors, must come together in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and their democratic aspirations." She said she had heard from contacts in Myanmar heartbreaking accounts of killings, mistreatment of demonstrators and torture of prisoners.

A team of UN investigators appealed for people to collect documentary evidence of crimes ordered by the military to build cases against its leaders.

Catholics feel Myanmar's pain

Showing more unity in their opposition to the coup than ASEAN, the regional grouping of southeast Asian nations, the Catholic Church has rallied strongly to the support of people of Myanmar.

SIGNIS, Pax Christi International and the Focolare movement released a joint statement on March 15 that voiced solidarity with Myanmar's citizens.

They said they had heard the message of the people of Myanmar stating that "this coup is essentially about overthrowing them, their will."

"We deplore the extreme authoritarianism that saw fit to trample on the nation's constitution, which in fact permitted limited democracy while maintaining much of the armed forces' power," said the statement.

"It is ultimately not about removing political opponents or supposed public order. It undoes years of patient work for the fundamental rights of citizens and crushes tenuous dreams of a free, democratic country."

The three groups joined the United Nations and other human rights organizations in calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other detained Myanmar officials and leaders.

They asked the military to stop using violence and arbitrarily detaining peaceful protesters and journalists.

They called for justice and accountability for the atrocities committed against the Rohingya people and other ethnic minorities as well as prevention of such crimes and abuses in the future.

The response of the Asian Churches

South Korean bishops have raised deep concerns about Myanmar's brutal response to peaceful protesters as they called for freedom, democracy and peace.

"We learned from history that the normal and innocent people's appeals and solidarity could open a door to a new world," the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea said in a March 11 statement.

It said, in the past South Korea also went through the pain and suffering that Myanmar is now experiencing.

Cardinal Archbishop Andrew Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul wrote to Myanmar's Cardinal Bo and expressed concern about the ruthless military actions.

"I strongly support the people of Myanmar and their desire for democracy, and I truly hope that they will get it back very soon," he wrote.

"Please know that all the clergy, religious and faithful of the Archdiocese of Seoul are sincerely praying for true democracy to be restored in the country."

In a rare gesture, Myanmar's most powerful Buddhist monks' association called on the junta to end violence against protesters and pursue dialogue.

Buddhist monks have played a leading role against military dictatorship as they led the 2007 uprising known as the Saffron Revolution, which was suppressed by a violent crackdown.

Myanmar's acting vice-president Mahn Win Khaing Than has called for a revolution against military dictatorship as this was "the darkest moment of the nation."

The ethnic Karen civilian leader, who is in hiding, was charged with high treason by the junta on March 17.

Where to from here?

Having lost its leader, Nobel Prize winner Suu Kyi, Myanmar faces dark days.

Half-developed democratic processes and economic reforms mean the country is poorly placed to weather this storm.

There will be little investment in the country apart from considerable Chinese interest in its resources and other opportunities. But what is worse is that Myanmar will return to the status of an untrustworthy and poor state that it thought it had escaped with the process leading to participatory democracy.

But as that happens, the legacy of British times will reassert itself.

Myanmar is a country of 135 ethnic groups and borders and divisions, as they are in India, are artificial. And the wars between the military and financially and militarily well-resourced ethnic armies will shape domestic politics and deprive the country of opportunities for development.

As broad and popular dissatisfaction with the rule of the Tatmadaw increases the opportunities for conflict and division will only grow.

The range of predictable problems of long gestation suggests that unless a leader of broad popular appeal like Suu Kyi emerges, Myanmar is in for a long wait until things get better.

However, it would be a mistake to think that the forces guiding the Tatmadaw to execute the February 1 coup are the only guiding spirits in that dark organization. For at least five years, some better interpreters of Myanmar's spirit have guided the country and they are still there in the army.

Moreover, and at a much more pragmatic level, many in the army have assets and investments that need a stable economy to thrive and for these wealthy generals to get returns on their investments.

There will be many in Myanmar's military and business elites (and the two overlap) that will not endorse a return to the no-win situation for the country that prevailed from 1962.

That was the military dictatorship of General Ne Win.

A return to that context will not be appealing to the military who saw things getting better for them.

In a recent interview [3] Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States declared:

"I don't think the coup will be reversed. Unfortunately, the policy of the generals will prevail in suppressing opposition to what they have done. Sadly, that's how I see it."

He also drew attention to "the context in which it is all taking place" and added that this is "a region of other authoritarian governments as well, so it is not as if they are getting denounced by their neighbours.

I think that unfortunately, the generals will not go back, and maybe international sanctions will have some impact but the generals have chosen their course, and I don't think that will be changed."

• John Zaw and Michael Kelly SJ
• First published DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 5 art. 1, 0521: 10.32009/22072446.0521.1 Republished with permission.

Why move against civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, when she had gone along with so much of their program, even defending their campaign against the Rohingya Muslims?

And what explains such a defence on the part of Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner celebrated for standing up for democracy and universal human rights?

Our frame of reference is that military rule is autocratic and therefore bad and that those opposed to it are democratic and therefore good. That's hopelessly simplistic when it comes to the country formerly known as Burma.

What we fail to appreciate is the degree to which Burmese Buddhism has over many centuries nurtured a very different conception of good versus bad government. I've learned better from anthropologist Ingrid Jordt, an expert on religion and politics in Myanmar who teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

In brilliant articles on the 2007 revolt against military rule and the anti-Rohingya campaign of the 2010s, Jordt explains the dynamic interplay of religion and political power in traditional Burmese statecraft and how this has functioned in recent times.

Briefly, Burmese Buddhism understands political legitimacy as derived from a species of spiritual potency called hpoun. The source of hpoun is the monastic order, or sangha, which acquires it by renouncing power and forswearing worldly things.

Political leaders, like everyone else outside the sangha, obtain hpoun through their support of the sangha, emblemized by placing of food in the monks' begging bowls. In this system of what Jordt calls "karmic kingship" (the title of her forthcoming book), hpoun is what differentiates a good (legitimate) ruler from a bad (illegitimate) one.

Although monks are required to be apolitical, they do have the right to act in order to protect the teachings of the Buddha. They do this by refusing to accept food donations from those they believe have violated those teachings. By "turning over the bowl," they withhold hpoun.

That is just what happened in 2007, during public protests over an unannounced removal of fuel subsidies by the military government.

After a brutal crackdown on several hundred monks who had joined the protests in the name of relieving human suffering (a core Buddhist teaching), tens of thousands of monks protested this assault on religion by marching through the streets holding their bowls upside down. In the end, junta leader Than Shwe earned the title "Monk Killer," lost his legitimacy and in 2011 resigned from the position of head of state he had held since 1992.

Not surprisingly, the military was anything but happy with this development. So they did what Burmese leaders in similar situations had always done: denounced those who denied them hpoun as false monks and found monks who would support them.

The campaign against the Rohingya was spearheaded by one of the latter, who sold the campaign to the Burmese public as all about preserving Buddhism against alien religious power and influence.

None of this is to say that Western ideas of democracy and human rights have been absent in Myanmar. In 2007, some younger Burmans, including monks, embraced them — but their standard-bearer, Aung San Suu Kyi, only up to a point.

The daughter of the martyred independence leader Aung San, Suu Kyi spent 15 years in house detention as head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party whose landslide electoral victory in 1990 the generals refused to accept. Despite the name, the party has been less pro-democracy than anti-dictator — in traditional Burmese terms, as opposed to illegitimate kingship.

According to Jordt, the arrangement of a shared civilian-military rule that has just been overthrown was a diarchy, an awkwardly shared rule that pitted Senior General Min Aung Hlaing against civilian leader Suu Kyi. The coup, led by Min Aung Hlaing was grounded in his hope that, at age 75, her power was on the wane.

His own current effort has been to build up his hpoun by donating to monks and important pagodas and consulting with the monastic leadership. He is seeking to demonstrate that the entire country, supernatural as well as natural, is with him and that he is the legitimate ruler in the traditional way. It remains to be seen whether he can bring the sangha with him.

This time around, however, exposure to social media has made the Burmese people far more aware and supportive of democracy as such. Gen Z has been at the forefront of a civil disobedience movement far more inclusive than anything that occurred in the past.

The activists are doing investigative reporting, doxing those who support the military. Significantly, many of the protest messages on Twitter and in the streets are being written in English — to let the world know what has been going on in their previously shuttered society.

In the face of these massive protests, Min Aung Hlaing has been compelled to make his claim to power in terms of democracy. "Democratic practice allows people to have freedom of expression," he said on Feb. 9. "Democracy can be destroyed if there is no discipline."

So far, however, there's no sign that the protesters consider this anything more than lip service.

"What's really changing is the idea of the location of power," says Jordt. "The old system of personalized sovereignty is being challenged by the broader system, the rule of the many. There's been a remarkable change in the landscape.

"We're in a period in which there are two competing concepts of political authority. I don't think we're going to see an eclipse of traditional Buddhist ideas. But what the younger generation is trying to bring about is a future in which many identities — ethnic, religious, age- and gender-related — have a place in the Burmese state. Whether such a future will come about is an open question."

• Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. He is a Contributing Editor of the Religion News Service.
• Reprinted with permission.

The government of China has imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong. This was done without systematic consultation with the general public.

This law seriously diminishes Hong Kong's freedoms and destroys the city's "high degree of autonomy" promised under the "one country, two systems" principle.

This action brings the most significant change to Hong Kong's constitution and is offensive to the spirit and letter of the 1997 handover agreement between Britain and China.

Hong Kong is one of the jewels of Asia, a "Pearl of the Orient", a crossroads between East and West, a gateway to China, a regional hub for free trade and until now has enjoyed a healthy mixture of freedom and creativity.

A national security law is not in itself wrong.

Every country has a right to legislate to safeguard protect national security.

However, such legislation should be balanced with the protection of human rights, human dignity and basic freedoms.

The imposition of the law by China's National People's Congress seriously weakens Hong Kong's Legislative Council and Hong Kong's autonomy.

It radically changes Hong Kong's identity.

I am concerned that the law poses a threat to basic freedoms and human rights in Hong Kong.

This legislation potentially undermines freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, media freedom and academic freedom. Arguably, freedom of religion or belief is put at risk.

According to many reports, freedom of religion or belief in mainland China is suffering the most severe restrictions experienced since the Cultural Revolution.

Even if freedom of worship in Hong Kong is not directly or immediately affected, the new security law and its broad criminalization of "subversion", "secession" and "colluding with foreign political forces" could result, for example, in the monitoring of religious preaching, the criminalization of candlelit prayer vigils, and the harassment of places of worship that offer sanctuary or sustenance to protesters.

It is my prayer that this law will not give the government license to interfere in the internal affairs of religious organizations and the services they provide to the general public.

Clear assurance should be given for my brother bishops and fellow priests as they prepare their homilies, Protestant clergy as they ponder their sermons, and for religious leaders of other faiths too who must instruct their communities.

The participation of religious bodies in social affairs should not be disturbed.

Provisions in Hong Kong's Basic Law guarantee freedom of belief.

Will religious leaders now be criminalized for preaching about human dignity, human rights, justice, liberty, truth?

We have learned from heavy experience that wherever freedom as a whole is undermined, freedom of religion or belief — sooner or later — is affected.

Over the past year, there have been many protests in Hong Kong, most of them peaceful.

However, while over 9,000 protesters have been arrested, not a single police officer has been held accountable for their disproportionate brutality.

We hold that all — protesters and police officers — are accountable according to the law.

It is imperative that the underlying causes of unrest should be attended to and that meaningful reforms and compromises are reached.

This national security law threatens to exacerbate tensions, not to provide solutions.

For these reasons and in the spirit of the prophets, martyrs and saints of our faith, I urge people to pray for Hong Kong today.

Pray for the leaders of China and Hong Kong that they respect the promises made to Hong Kong, the promise to protect basic liberties and rights. May I urge all to pray for peace.

Source: UCANews.com

• Cardinal Charles Bo is the president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences.

In 2003, after the SARS epidemic, attempts were made to introduce a national security law.

Similarly, it is happening now as the coronavirus recedes. But this time we fear there will be no happy ending.

It is difficult to find words that we have not already written to tell about the danger Hong Kong is facing.

For some, we are alarmists: the tanks have not been seen in Hong Kong, and therefore we can think that things have not got out of hand.

The world has its head elsewhere, and we seem repetitive.

On May 18, 15 well-known leaders of the democratic opposition appeared in court. Their case will be resumed on June 15. For five of them, including our friend Lee Cheuk-yan, the charges have been extended, and they foresee very severe penalties, up to five years of imprisonment.

But the worst news comes from Beijing, where the National People's Congress has been formally endorsing what has already been decided by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the real body that governs China.

But even the Central Committee (politburo) counts less since President Xi Jinping concentrated all powers on himself, as only Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had done in the past.

It is therefore a decision by Xi that we are talking about.

A bill has been introduced that sends a chill down the backs of those who love Hong Kong, its young students and its people, freedom and democracy.

The new law introduces national security regulations in Hong Kong. It will be included as a new "third annex" to the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs the "high degree of autonomy" of the city.

The law, which consists of seven articles, provides provisions punishing offenses such as treason, secession, sedition, subversion and foreign interference.

It is not difficult to imagine how the provisions will be conveniently used to suppress the popular protests that began in June 2019 and any other form of opposition.

With such laws in China, every form of dissent is condemned, with punishments up to the death penalty.

Particularly disturbing is the fourth article: "If necessary, the central government will establish bodies in Hong Kong with the task of implementing the safeguarding of national security."

This provision would lead to the emptying of the power of parliament and of the local government in favour of an entirely political office, which has never been seen in Hong Kong.

The drastic downsizing of the parliament is particularly concerning because in the elections due in September the opposition parties will have, according to all forecasts, a larger representation, as happened for the district elections of last November.

It will be the end of the "one country, two systems" framework and the "high degree of autonomy," the two principles that govern Hong Kong today.

We will have important tests in the coming weeks: the vigil for the massacre in Tiananmen Square on June 4; the first anniversary of the start of the protests on June 9; and the traditional protest march of July 1.

Can they be done? And how?

In the summer of 2003, as many certainly remember, attempts were made to introduce a national security law.

It happened in the aftermath of the SARS epidemic. But the then chief executive, the Beijing-appointed Tung Chee-hwa, withdrew the proposal after a single mass demonstration on July 1 of that fateful year. Various ministers resigned, and Tung himself paid the political price with his early departure from the political scene — a choice that restored some dignity to the man. And Hong Kong, for many more years, was saved.

Today's government, led by Carrie Lam, has faced hundreds of demonstrations, most of them more immense than that of July 1, 2003.

Carrie Lam, 'I am writing it with pain', will go down in Hong Kong history as the single political figure that has done the most damage ever.

There has been a new pandemic, and plans are back to introduce a liberticidal law that will not only prevent Hong Kong from having what it was promised — a progressive and full democratisation — but would also remove what it already has now.

Lam rushed to say that the Hong Kong government will "fully cooperate" in the implementation of this law.

The education minister says students will have to study it well.

There is a shiver!

Allan Lee, a long-time politician from the business world, founder of the Liberal Party and part of the pro-Chinese camp (he had been a communist as a boy), recently died.

He was perhaps little known internationally but in Hong Kong he was a familiar face.

I remember him well. He had the good of Hong Kong at heart: after the demonstration on July 1, 2003, he pledged to persuade Beijing to desist from the implementation of the national security law.

He had courage.

He was heard.

And Allan Lee, who in the meantime had become a moderate right-wing man, spent the last years of his life asking for full democracy and freedom for Hong Kong.

Today the pro-government camp lacks men with Allan Lee's wisdom.

In power today we have figures without political dignity and without courage, opportunists enslaved to the power of the strongest.

It is not true that democracy in Hong Kong is only wanted by "reckless young people" and "opponents without a sense of responsibility."

Hong Kong's democracy and freedom are a serious matter, desired by the best people of our beloved city.

After all, it is not difficult too difficult to understand what's going on.

Things are what they seem.

The threats of a regime opposed to freedom, democracy and human rights are not intended to strike emptily.

As long as possible, we will say it: the end of Hong Kong is being prepared.

• Father Gianni Criveller of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions is dean of studies and a teacher at PIME International Missionary School of Theology in Milan, Italy. He taught in Greater China for 27 years and is a lecturer in mission theology and the history of Christianity in China at the Holy Spirit Seminary College of Philosophy and Theology in Hong Kong.
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

They are angry their voices are denied a hearing by the special Select Committee taking public input on his Abortion Legislation Bill.

Committee chair, Ruth Dyson, Wednesday, announced the committee would only hear 150 of 2890 seeking an oral submission.

Dyson told RNZ, "Every voice that needs to be heard will be".

She confirmed the Committee had received more than 25,000 written submissions.

By comparison, the End of Life Choice Bill - legalising voluntary euthanasia - received a record 35,000 submissions last year, while same-sex marriage legislation in 2012 garnered 22,000.

Opponents of Little's legislation say too many submitters are being turned away and claim their rights are violated.

"This is totally unacceptable in the democracy", Right to Life says in a statement.

Family First is of a similar view.

"This means that more than 2,700 submitters from both sides of the debate are being denied the ability to engage with the politicians about this controversial bill," it says in a statement.

"95% of submitters are being muzzled".

"The committee has also said that they are ‘focusing on submissions that will most help it consider what, if any, changes should be recommended to the bill.'

Family First considers this indicates the general intent of the legislation is already accepted.

"This is a shocking abuse of the process and debate", it says.

Right to Life sounds a warning, accusing the committee of not properly doing its job.

"Those who govern should not forget that they govern with the consent of the governed.

"We the governed have an absolute right to be heard," it says.

Both groups accuse the Committee of doing a rush-job; ramming through Andrew Little's controversial legislation.

"The community should be concerned and alarmed that the Minister of Justice wants this committee to act with urgency in reporting this contentious bill back to Parliament in order that it can be rushed through Parliament and passed into law before the 19 December 2019 the last sitting day for this year", Right to Life says.

It says there is no urgency to pass this bill, but there is an urgency for the Committee to ensure all citizens, for and against, are heard.

Family First says a range of people have contacted them; lawyers, health care professionals, national organisations, women and families who are being denied the right to speak.

Sources

• Supplied
• NZ Herald

By voting in favour of this bill at the second reading, Parliament has abandoned its commitment to upholding a culture of life and its sacred duty to legislate for the protection of the lives of every human being from conception to natural death and not to preside over our destruction.

It is not the role of Parliament to decide who shall live and who can be killed.

Members who voted in favour of this bill at the second reading, have also put the democratic process of law in New Zealand in serious jeopardy.

In ignoring the overwhelming rejection of euthanasia, and this bill, by 91.8 per cent of the 39,159 written submissions and the 85 per cent rejection of the 3,600 oral submissions heard by the Select Committee, those politicians who voted in favour of the second reading have thumbed their noses at the very process they take an oath to uphold.

In reporting the bill back to Parliament, the Committee chairman advised that the Committee was unable to agree that the Bill should be passed, yet a majority of our elected representatives thought their conscience took priority over due parliamentary process!

The bill is also strongly opposed by the New Zealand Medical Association, by disability groups and Aged Concern.

I am disappointed that Parliament has embraced a culture of death by voting in favour of the EOLCB, which if passed at its third reading will allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.

This is a violation of the sanctity of life ethic and of the prohibition of the taking of the life of an innocent human being, the foundation of the law and of medicine, which we change at our peril.

That Parliament has decided at this stage that some lives not worthy of life is a tragic moment and a day of shame in the history of our Parliament and country.

It has placed in jeopardy the lives of some of our most vulnerable, the aged, the disabled and the seriously ill.

Right to Life now earnestly requests that Parliament defeats this bill at its third reading and ensures that every New Zealander has access to death with dignity with our world-class palliative care by ensuring that it is fully funded and accessible.

Parliament should also commit itself to implement the government's Suicide Prevention Strategy which aims to reduce our appalling suicide rate.

• Ken Orr is the Spokesman for Right to Life.

Wilson Waguk, from the Embassy of the Federated States of Micronesia to Fiji, led the team which observed the opening polling and counting on the islands of 'Eua and Tongatapu.

The team said the election, in general, was efficiently and effectively conducted with voters free to cast their votes without intimidation or coercion.

Waguk said even though the Commission had a shorter time to prepare due to the snap elections, they still managed to deliver a free and credible election.

He said there were some minor procedural issues but he didn't believe they were deliberate or affected the results.

The Commonwealth Observer Group to Tonga also expressed satisfaction with the way the election was conducted.

However the group's head, former New Zealand cabinet minister Margaret Wilson, said there was a need for ongoing information about the electoral system.

Wilson said there was also an issue with encouraging youth to participate in the process.

"That will be an ongoing issue, as it is in a lot of other countries, so a lot of our focus was on how in fact we can support youth participation."

Two of the 15 women candidates were elected. 'Akosita Lavulavu was re-elected and she is joined by a new MP, Losaline Ma'asi.

The executive director of the Civil Society Forum of Tonga, 'Emeline Siale 'Ilolahia, said even though the total vote for women was low at 14 percent, it was an improvement on the previous election when only six percent of the vote went to women.

Source

• RNZ
• RNZ
• RNZ
• Image: ABC

Catholic Church officials announced that Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly was released from jail on Friday morning, AFP reported.

President Obama started a three-day visit to Vietnam on Monday.

"Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly has returned to the mother diocese on Friday morning after his years and months in (northern) Nam Ha jail," Hue archdiocese announced.

The archdiocese's website ran several photos of the ageing priest, dressed in a loose white shirt and baseball cap, being welcomed by church members.

Neither church nor government officials were immediately available for comment.

Fr Ly, who is in his early 70s, is often compared to Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.

Both are veteran dissidents who have spent years in pursuit of greater democratic freedoms.

Fr Ly was jailed three times for a total of 14 years before his fourth and latest imprisonment in March 2007.

This came after he was charged for spreading propaganda against the communist state.

He had been accused of helping to found "Bloc 8406", considered one of the Vietnam's first organised pro-democracy coalitions.

He gained prominence with his anti-government actions, including hunger strikes and several widely circulated missives calling for a multi-party system.

Fr Ly was briefly released from jail in March 2010 to seek treatment for a brain tumour and was placed under house arrest.

He was returned to jail more than a year later, sparking calls from the United States and international rights groups for his release.

Priorities for President Obama's visit to Vietnam are believed to be trade, security and human rights issues.

Several political prisoners remain in jail in Vietnam.

Sources

• AFP
• ABC News
• Image: (Catholic Archdiocese of Hue via AP)

He points out that there are various definitions of democracy, "but the Oxford English Dictionary probably sums it up accurately saying it is ‘a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity… are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly'."

Fitzpatrick says this definition "aptly describes what people purport to call the Melanesian Way."

"Consensus means the involvement of everyone in the community or society, which is the case of both democracy and the Melanesian Way."

He says the perceived differences between western democracy and the Melanesian way lie in the application.

Democracy may exist at the grassroots level in Australia and its counterpart, the Melanesian Way, may exist at the grassroots level in Papua New Guinea but neither exists at the national level.

"In Australia we are run by greedy big business and the unions and in Papua New Guinea the nation is run by greedy big business, mostly from overseas, and individual and greedy politicians."

Phil Fitzpatrick has worked with indigenous communities for over 45 years, principally in Australia and Papua New Guinea but including places in the Pacific such as Vanuatu and the Cook Islands.

Much of his work has been within the resources sector, particularly mining and petroleum exploration.

He has researched and carried out hundreds of surveys and conducted numerous detailed Native Title, social mapping and heritage studies.

Source

• asopa.typepad.com
• jacksonpr.com.au
• Image: aljazeera.com

Ignorant media hype, foul abuse of the faith or godlessness of others, ugly violence calculated to scare and kill: such practices are now familiar features of daily life in democratic polities where religion was once supposed to be a settled issue.

India is no exception to the troubling trend.

The democracy with the most innovative constitutional formula for handling tensions among multiple faiths - the Indian brand of secularism - is nowadays plagued by organised bigotry, often led by elected representatives bent on outfoxing their opponents and winning elections.

The thuggish tone is audible in the recent remarks of Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of the BJP-run state of Haryana. ‘Muslims can continue to live in this country but they will have to give up eating beef. The cow is an article of faith here', he told The Indian Express.

‘Culturally, we are democratic', he added. ‘Democracy has freedoms, but those freedoms have a limitation. Freedom of one person is only to the extent that it is not hurting another person.'

Khattar conveniently forgot to mention that growing numbers of India's Muslim citizens (they're one-seventh of the total population) feel deeply offended and threatened by such remarks, and by the rising numbers of murderous assaults they're facing throughout the country.

Proud defender of his state's strict ban on the killing of cows, in a country that is among the world's largest beef exporters, Khattar instead went on to defend the mob that recently beat to death a Muslim farmer for allegedly eating beef at home.

It was the ‘result of a misunderstanding', he said, and ‘both sides' had committed wrongs. He claimed the victim had made a ‘halki tippani [loose comment]' about cows which hurt the sentiments of the men who subsequently went on the rampage.

Khattar compared the incident with a man whose anger gets the best of him after seeing his mother being killed, or his sister molested. Continue reading

Sources

• The Conversation, from an article by John Keane, Professor of Politics, University of Sydney.
• Image: wired.co.uk

The country that is the cradle of democracy has decided to ask the people if the financial markets have the right to rule over them.

Predictably the response has been a mixture of fury and disbelief. 'You are asking the people what they think? We tell you what to think' is the implicit message.

The great absurdity of modern geo-economics is that the world of money, which is just a human construct, is being treated like a natural force that must be obeyed, much as we have to respect the law of gravity.

One might call it the cart-before-the-horse syndrome. Money is supposed to serve us, but increasingly we are becoming servants to those who run it.

Few are being asked to be more servile than the Greeks. When the IMF came in with what is amusingly referred to as its austerity 'plan', the Greek economy was expected to grow at over 2 per cent, unemployment was below 9 per cent and the debt was about 120 per cent of GDP.

By 2014, after the 'plan' had taken effect, the country's economy had shrunk by a quarter, unemployment was over 25 per cent, youth unemployment was over 50 per cent and the debt had risen to over 170 per cent of GDP.

The IMF's abject failure to provide a sound strategy was hardly a surprise. IMF prescriptions have a long history of failing, and countries that ignore them are often the ones that do surprisingly well.

One especially prominent example was the reaction of Malaysian prime Mahathir during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. He was roundly criticised for ignoring the IMF prescriptions, instead fixing the currency and imposing capital controls.

Malaysia performed best during the crisis and it was later hailed as a master stroke. It is almost a case of the best strategy is to ask the IMF what to do, then do the opposite. Continue reading

• David James is a business journalist with a PhD in English literature. He edits Personal Super Investor.

Since uninterrogated assumptions are never helpful, it may be worth seeing if there is another perspective available.

I will not argue that Putin is a democrat.

An abiding image from my visit to Russia in 2008 was that of armed and uniformed people on the street. So, not Scandinavia.

His background - like that of George Bush the elder - was in intelligence and Russian democracy.

It remains imperfect, with extraordinary concentration of wealth, legally mandated internal surveillance of its citizens, pliable courts and very little civic opposition.

(Then again, the Snowden revelations, the use of torture and drone strikes by Western nations, the homogeneity of our parties and the power of our own richest should give us pause.)

Nevertheless, there are good reasons - beyond media control - why the Russian president enjoys poll ratings of which an Abbott or an Obama could only dream.

To understand them, a brief retrospective is in order.

The fall of the Soviet Union saw state assets distributed to party bosses and friends of Boris Yeltsin, himself a weak and unstable, albeit authoritarian leader (when sober).

Unemployment and crime skyrocketed, and pensions and wages fell through the floor (when they were paid at all).

I remember being shocked when I heard Russian and Ukrainian friends referring to the Brezhnev era as schastliviye vyek (a happy age) - because people had a job and food to eat.

Gorbachev, beloved of many in the West, is regarded by just as many Russians with loathing, as the man who opened the path to Yeltsin and the wholesale destruction of the state. Continue reading

• Justin Glyn SJ in Eureka Street.

Justin Glyn is a Jesuit presently studying for the priesthood.

The protesters are calling for democratic elections in Hong Kong, demanding the right to vote for a leader of their choice in 2017, without restrictions from Beijing.

But some commentators see a broader struggle to protect Hong Kong's culture from China's communist government, as it increases its influence on the city.

Christianity has been a visible element of the demonstrations, with prayer groups and crosses seen, and protesters reading Bibles in the street.

Hong Kong's former bishop, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, said the fight for democracy is "a question of the whole culture, the whole way of living, in this our city".

Beijing's influence through Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying "brings to Hong Kong the whole culture which is now reigning in China, a culture of falsity, of dishonesty, a lack of spiritual values", Cardinal Zen told the Wall Street Journal.

"We can see that it is coming, so we have to resist."

Some see the gap between Christians and the Chinese government as unbridgeable.

"Christians, by definition, don't trust the communists. The communists suppress Christians wherever they are," said Joseph Cheng, a political-science professor at City University of Hong Kong and a supporter of the protesters.

Hong Kong's major church organisations have taken largely neutral stances toward the Occupy Central movement.

Cardinal John Tong issued a brief statement last week urging the Hong Kong government to exercise "restraint in deployment of force" and telling protesters to be "calm" in voicing their grievances.

A spokesperson for the city's Anglican Church said in July that it wouldn't encourage its parishioners to break the law.

Bui in July, 2013, Hong Kong Catholic diocese issued a statement urging that "the Chief Executive shall be directly elected by universal suffrage in 2017 - on a one person, one vote basis".

Some churches are providing aid to protesters and some of leaders of the demonstration movements are Christians.

Last week, the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students criticised the police's excessive use of violence when dispersing "unarmed students".

Mr Leung announced on Saturday that "all necessary actions" would be taken to ensure the protesters were removed by Monday morning and order restored.

On Sunday, blockades of official buildings began to be eased.

Sources

• Wall Street Journal
• The Tablet
• Voice of America
• The Guardian
• New York Times
• Image: Wall Street Journal

St Peter's is located in the Epsom electorate.

Over the past three weeks there have been campaigns, and a leaders' debate.

In the mock vote National won the poll with 29.6 percent of the vote, followed by Labour with 18.2 percent.

National's Paul Goldsmith won, followed by Labour's Michael Wood.

More than 60 percent of students out of a roll of 1200 took part in the voting.

Year 9 students were the biggest voters, with 88 percent turnout.

The vote was organised using the Electoral Commission's Kids Voting Programme that provided voting materials to encourage them to practise voting using real parties, real candidates and real issues.

Source

• TV3News
• Screenshot TV3 News

He says that honesty and commitment to the common good are essential ingredients of worthy politics.

Moreover in a true democratic system political authority is accountable to the people it represents."

"No person, including members of parliament, is above the law. There is the one law for everyone in Papua New Guinea."

"Yet recent events, with accusations, dismissals and political manouverings appear to disrespect the Constitution and the rule of law."

"Our people continue to search for security and prosperity in a socio-political scene that seems even more confusing and complex."

"Instability and oppressive law enforcement reflecting the interest of a few is hurting our entire society."

"If this continues it will be detrimental to the soul of the nation. Investors confident and a good image of our nation will be lost," said Orowa.

"'The truth will make you free' (John 8:32). As Church leaders we call for a peaceful and truthful resolution of the current political turmoil.

The values we refer to are found not only in the Holy Bible, but are expressed in civil law, yet have their origin in God."

"In God's name we call on the elected leaders of this nation to give priority to the respect for law, the common good and future of our nation."

The Papua New Guinea national court this week reinstated the anti-corruption task force Sweep which was disbanded by the prime minister, Peter O'Neill, last month after it turned its investigations towards him.

O'Neill disbanded the organisation and sacked its chief, Sam Koim, accusing it of being compromised by political and media ties, after new evidence in a long-running corruption investigation prompted an arrest warrant for O'Neill.

The warrant related to allegations he authorised multimillion-dollar illegal payments to a Port Moresby law firm, which he has consistently denied.

Koim had applied to the court last week to have O'Neill's decision overturned.

Fr Giorgio Licini writing in the Catholic Reporter PNG says that since independence Papua New Guinea has been marred in poor governance and corruption but now people have had enough.

"They had enough of dubious payments; uncompleted projects; political consent and votes captured every five years with unfulfilled promises."

There is a third post-independence generation of Papua New Guineans fast emerging after the Somares and the O'Neills.He says the dream for a clean and honest running of the public affairs is palpable at the grassroots. he says

"They want a more mature democratic process and a totally transparent management of public wealth and funds."

Source

• The Catholic Reporter PNG
• Supplied: The Catholic Reporter PNG
• The Guardian
• Image: The Catholic Reporter PNG