An increasingly beleaguered minority in an Islamic republic, they have become targets of harassment and violent attacks, often motivated by tensions and conflicts between Islamists and the West on the world stage.

This week, however, brings a notable exception.

On Saturday there will be a state funeral at St Patrick's Cathedral in Karachi for the German-born Catholic nun and doctor, Ruth Pfau, who died last week at the age of 87 after giving 50 years of her life to the service of patients with leprosy and other needs in Pakistan.

Announcing her death (and quoting a predecessor in office) Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi said:

"Dr Ruth came to Pakistan here at the dawn of a young nation, looking to make lives better for those afflicted by disease, and in doing so, found herself a home. [Although she] may have been born in Germany, her heart was always in Pakistan."

Dr Pfau was made an honorary citizen of Pakistan in 1988.

Like Mother Theresa of Calcutta, to whom she is often compared, Ruth Katharina Martha Pfau found her special vocation among the "poorest of the poor" in the post-independence era of the Indian sub-continent.

It happened, humanly speaking, by accident.

After converting to Catholicism while studying to be a doctor, she had joined a religious order in 1957. In 1960 she was on her way to a posting in southern India, when she found herself stuck in Karachi over a visa issue.

By chance, during the delay, she visited a leper colony in the city. The shock of the encounter moved her so much that she decided to dedicate herself to these souls. The BBC recalls:

"Well if it doesn't hit you the first time, I don't think it will ever hit you," she told the BBC in 2010.

"Actually the first patient who really made me decide was a young Pathan.

He must have been my age - I was at this time not yet 30 — and he crawled on hands and feet into this dispensary, acting as if this was quite as if this was quite normal, as if someone has to crawl there through that slime and dirt on hands and feet, like a dog." Continue reading

Sources

• MecatorNet article by Carolyn Moynihan
• Image: Tribal Network News

Sister Ruth Katharina Martha Pfau, who was a member of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary died last week at the age of 87.

Pakistani leaders mourned her death, praising Pfau who was both a doctor and religious sister, for her contributions in fighting the disfiguring disease that usually leads to its victims being ostracised.

"Sister Ruth was a model of total dedication. She inspired and mobilised all sections of society to join the fight against leprosy, irrespective of creed or ethnic identity," says Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi.

"We are happy that the government is according her a state funeral".

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi says Ruth, who became a citizen of Pakistan, would be remembered "for her courage, her loyalty, her service to the eradication of leprosy, and most of all, her patriotism.

"Pfau may have been born in Germany, her heart was always in Pakistan," he said.

Ruth, who had studied medicine in France, founded the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi. It was Pakistan's first hospital dedicated to treating Hansen's disease.

She later set up branches in all provinces of Pakistan.

In 1996, the World Health Organization declared Pakistan one of the first countries in Asia to be free of Hansen's disease. In 2016 the number being treated for the disease in Pakistan had fallen from over 19,000 in the 1980's to 531.

Source:

• The Catholic World Report
• The Tablet
• Image: Pakistan Defence

The number of new cases has been growing during the past four years.

Recently there has been an outbreak of leprosy affecting 24 people living in displaced people's centres in Honiara.

Over the past year there have been 115 cases of leprosy reported in Kiribati and 20 new cases in Samoa.

In New Zealand, 11 new cases were reported over the past 12 months, according to the Ministry of Health.

Pacific Leprosy Foundation general manager Jill Tomlinson said that as far as her organisation was aware all New Zealand cases were from infected people coming from overseas.

"Cases in leprosy tend to come in clusters as it is a disease that is transmitted by contact," she said.

Source

• Radio New Zealand International
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Leperpriest.blogspot.co.nz

For these individuals whose own families have abandoned them, God is their only refuge. Religion doesn't matter anymore and denominational differences are irrelevant. While the individuals in the lepers' colony don't necessarily believe in the same god, their common belief in the divine is enough to sustain them, to empower them and to enrich them in their destitution.

I have visited this chapel twice, on both my trips to India. The diversity that exists amongst its visitors is what makes the chapel such a special place. Had the chapel only opened its doors to lepers of a particular religion or denomination, it would not be the sacred place that it is today. Over many years, the chapel has been infused with tremendous depth, diversity and human experience.

This depth and diversity of human experience is what we are celebrating on Harmony Day (March 21), with this year's theme being, "Many Stories: One Australia". If you locate the word ‘harmony' in the dictionary, you are likely to find two meanings. The first definition will describe harmony as a situation in which people live or work well with other people. The second definition will describe harmony as a musical term that occurs when different notes are played at the same time, making a pleasant sound.

Harmony, in the music world, is a pleasant, beautiful thing. It doesn't simply occur when three amateur singers gather for the first time. Learning how to harmonise takes time. It requires you to listen to the other person, and to create your note in accordance with theirs. This year's Harmony Day theme calls us to remember that difference is no barrier to harmony. As humans, we all have unique and vivid stories. Our backgrounds are diverse, and harmony, in light of this, is about encouraging individuals and communities to flourish in their uniqueness. Continue reading

Sources

• Article and Image: The Good Oil

St Marianne died in 1918 of kidney and heart disease at age 80. She dedicated 30 years of her life, from 1888 to 1918, helping Hawaiian-born patients suffering with Hansen's disease (leprosy) who were exiled to the Kalaupapa peninsula on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai.

The canonisation ceremony included the presentation of "relics" to Benedict.

Sharon Smith carried one of the bone fragments exhumed from Cope's original grave site in 2005 at Kalaupapa's Bishop Home.

Smith had been wasting away with pancreatitis in 2005 in a Syracuse, N.Y., hospital founded by Cope. A stranger named Sister Michaeleen Cabral pinned a packet of soil from Cope's Kalaupapa grave to Smith's hospital gown and began praying for a miracle.

Smith eventually recovered, and last year the Vatican declared it the second miracle needed to elevate Cope to sainthood.

Click to view 18 photographs

Source

• Vancouver Courier
• Star Advertiser
• Image: CNN

However, Director for TB and Leprosy, Doctor Edwin Daiwo, says there are still some hot spots of the disease in parts of the country.

Listen to Radio Australia

In a recent article, Andrew Hamilton says that "a common public response to suicide is very similar to earlier attitudes to leprosy. The former makes silent people who need to speak. The latter makes invisible people who need to be seen."

• Read Andrew Hamilton's column in Eureka Street
• Image: 3 News

Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.

The hospital which was originally built on Makogai Island in the Lomaiviti Group has been the destination for the treatment of leprosy since 1911.

Two new leprosy wards, the Karuru Ward and the Mother Mary Agnes Ward were opened as part of the centenary celebrations.

The Pacific region's first specialised dermatology laboratory constructed at a cost of about $1million was known as the Daulako Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory, was also opened as part of centennial celebrations at the PJ Twomey.

A leprosarium Makogai was opened by the British Fijian government in 1911 and run by the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary,(SMSMs). In 1969 this leprosarium was closed and patients needing treatment continued to be cared for by the SMSM sisters at the P. J. Twomey Memorial Hospital in Suva. The sisters continued their involvement by running the hospital until it became a Fiji Government hospital in the 1990s.

Patrick Twomey, who become known as "The Leper Man" established a charity with the same name. This one-man operation grew into a dedicated team who ran the Trust Board which in turn gave rise to the Pacific Leprosy Foundation which continues operating today providing aid to leprosy sufferers in the South Pacific islands.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: The Fiji Times