Haiti: Convent Founded By Mother Teresa Burned Down In Continued Escalation Of Violence

Missionaries of Charity during a religious procession in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo Credit: Willuconquer, Wikimedia Commons

 November 6, 2024

By CNA

By Madalaine Elhabbal

In an escalation of violence, an armed Haitian gang has looted and burned down a Missionaries of Charity convent, which had been founded by Mother Teresa herself in 1979. 

According to a report by Zenit news, the devastating attack took place on the night of Oct. 26. The group of attackers was led by one of Haiti’s most infamous gang leaders — ex-police officer Jimmy Chérizier, also known as “Barbeque.” 

Chérizier heads up the Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, a coalition of nine gangs based in the capital city, Port-au-Prince. He has been a principal agitator in efforts to topple the remnants of Haiti’s government.

Chérizier and his men looted the convent and its adjacent aid dispensary before leaving the property in flames. None of the nuns were injured, as police had asked them to vacate the property a month before the attack, according to a Vatican report. 

The Missionaries of Charity has provided free medical care to vulnerable members of the surrounding community since its establishment, serving approximately 1,500 inpatients and 30,000 outpatients per year, according to the report.  

“Stolen items are now openly sold in the market near the San José school,” Sister Paësie, founder of the Kizito Family — a religious community located in the largest slum in Port-au-Prince — told Zenit.

Attacks on religious sisters in Port-au-Prince have not been infrequent. At the beginning of the year, six nuns belonging to the St. Anne’s congregation were abducted by gang members.

Widespread chaos and violence from gangs have been rampant throughout the country since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse by a group of mostly foreign mercenaries in July 2021.

Moïse had refused to vacate office after his term ended in February 2021 and had faced calls from opposition parties to step down on account of his alleged corruption and incompetence. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry assumed office, which provoked further aggression. 

Chérizier has threatened civil war if Henry does not resign. 

“The situation in Port-au-Prince is unacceptable, intolerable, and inconceivable,” Father Baudelaire Martial, CSC, of the Congregation of Holy Cross told CNA in August. “We live in very precarious conditions.”

CNA

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) has been, since 2004, one of the fastest growing Catholic news providers to the English speaking world. The Catholic News Agency takes much of its mission from its sister agency, ACI Prensa, which was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1980 by Fr. Adalbert Marie Mohm (†1986).

The Jerusalem Temple And Its Older Brother: The Ka’ba – OpEd

 November 5, 2024 

By Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Narrated Abu Dhar: I said, “O Allah’s Messenger, which mosque was first built on the surface of the earth?” He said, “Al- Masjid-ul-,Haram (in Mecca).”

I said, “Which was built next?” He replied “The mosque of Al-Aqsa ( in Jerusalem) .” I said, “What was the period of construction between the two?” He said, “Forty years.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3366 In-book reference : Book 60, Hadith 45 USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 4, Book 55, Hadith 585)

The Jerusalem Temple (Beit HaMikdosh) and the Ka’ba, the House of God (Baitullah) in Mecca are the two most well-known sites for monotheistic pilgrimage in the world.

The Islamic Hajj to the Ka’ba in Makkah, and the Jewish Hajj to the Temple in Jerusalem, have been alternate swings of a single sacred pendulum connecting earthly humans to one monotheistic Divine source in the heavens.

The Ka’ba was the original site of the Islamic Hajj. Destroyed in the days of Noah, it was later rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ishmael. After several centuries it was desecrated by later generations of idol worshipers.

During the centuries while the Ka’ba was desecrated, Prophet Solomon built a Temple in Jerusalem for Jewish Haj on the site where Abraham bound his son Isaac as an offering to God.

Four centuries later the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 587 BCE by the Babylonians. Then the Temple was rebuilt with the support of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, and lasted for almost six centuries. As Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE) states; Jewish pilgrims came to Jerusalem  from the ends of the earth, and from all the compass points.

But with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the pilgrimage Hajj aspect of the week-long harvest festival of Hag Sukkot, began a gradual decline in the spiritual consciousness of the Jewish People.

The first time Hag/Hajj is mentioned in the Torah is in that famous scene when Prophets: “Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh; ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go into the wilderness, that they may hold a feast (Hag) for me.'” [Exodus 5:1]or better: “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh; ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a Hajj/pilgrimage feast for me in the wilderness.'”

But that one-time Hajj never occurred because Pharaoh refused to free the Jewish People thus incurring Divine wrath.

The normative annual two Jewish Hajj week-long pilgrimages was the liberation celebration of  Haj Passover; and especially the gratitude celebration of the harvest festival of Haj Sukkot. The Torah declares: “Celebrate Hajj Sukkot for seven days after you have harvested the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns…Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place He will choose: at the Hajj of Matzah (Passover), the Hajj of Weeks, and the Hajj of Sukkot. (Deuteronomy 16:13-16)

Hajj Sukkot was so important during the centuries when Solomon’s Temple stood that the holy  week of Sukkot was often called simply “the Hajj” because of the very large numbers of Jews who came up to the Temple in Jerusalem. Hajj Passover is also celebrated as a weeklong pilgrimage.

The third Hajj of Weeks is similar to Islamic Umrah, the non-mandatory lesser pilgrimage made by Muslims to Mecca, which may be performed at any time of the year. Although they share common rites, Umrah can be performed in less than a few hours; while Hajj is more time-consuming and involves many more rituals.

The third Jewish Hajj of Weeks, like Umrah, is much simpler than Hajj Passover and can be performed in less than a few hours; on any one day during the seven weeks following Hajj Passover.

The Sacred Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) is the largest mosque in the world and it surrounds one of Islam’s holiest places, the Ka-ba. Unlike other mosques which are gender segregated, men and women can worship at the Al-Masjid Al-Haram together.

The Holy Temple (Beit ha-Mikdash) of Jerusalem had two successive Temples on the Temple Mount where there now stands the Dome of the Rock. The Jerusalem Temple complex was separated into different areas where male priests, men, women and non-Jews could all come to worship the one God.

Why is the Ka’ba the older brother of the Jerusalem Temple? Prophet Abraham is connected to both sacred sites. Prophets Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the destroyed Ka’ba; and 40 years later, Prophets Abraham and Isaac were tested on the hill where the Jerusalem Temple would someday be built by Prophet Solomon. 

Since Islam is the last of the Abrahamic religions it is the most universal of them. Since Judaism is the first, and for over twelve centuries the only ongoing monotheistic religion, it is the least  universal and the most pluralistic and tribal of the three Abrahamic religions. 

For thousands of years before Prophet Abraham, Allah sent thousands of prophets to thousands of tribes and nations on the earth, and not one of them were able to establish an ongoing imageless monotheistic community. So Allah decided to do things in a different way.

Allah decided to make a covenant with a small tribe, and send six hundred of his prophets to this small tribe, and worked continually for more than a dozen centuries with the people of this tribe until they were able to establish an ongoing community that would always have a core of righteous and loyal believers.

Prophet Abraham, the Hebrew (Genesis 14:13) was the first, and only prophet, to successfully establish, through the descendants of his own two sons, three ongoing monotheistic religions, that have lasted into the 21st century: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; that now make up about half of the world’s population. 

Judaism discourages people who are interested in converting to Judaism because Judaism is the only true religion. Indeed, most non-Jews who become Jewish do it to unify a marriage or because they have a Jewish ancestor even if they do not yet know it. 

Judaism is not a missionary faith and so doesn’t actively try to convert non-Jewish people (in many countries anti-Jewish laws prohibited converting to Judaism for centuries). However, the modern Jewish community increasingly welcomes would-be converts. A person who converts to Judaism becomes a Jew and is just as Jewish as someone born into Judaism. 

As Prophet Micah (4:5) states: “For all the (other) peoples walk each in the name of its god; and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.”

Five hundred years before the birth of Prophet Muhammad Rabbi Yishmael, one of Judaism’s most important rabbis was recorded as saying: “In the future, the sons of Ishmael (the Arabs) will do fifteen things in the Land of Israel … They will fence in the breaches of the walls of the Temple, and construct a building (the Dome of  the Rock) on the site of the (ruined by the Romans) sanctuary”. 

Prophet Zechariah even includes those who were previously Israel’s enemies: “Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem, will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate Hajj Sukkot.” (Zechariah 14:16)

There is vacant land on the Temple Mount, and a three dimensional virtual reality broadcast station could be erected adjacent to the Dome of the Rock fulfilling the vision of  Prophet Micah (4:1-3) “In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and (monotheistic) peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths. Torah will be broadcast out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” provided that Muslim leaders would cooperate.  

Just as the Ka’ba has always welcomed all Muslims who answer the call: “Call upon the people for Hajj. They will come to you on their bare feet, or riding any weak camel, and they come to you from every far desert. (Qur’an 22:27).

When all those, both near and far, who revere this place as a standard, share it in love with everyone else who reveres it, then I will do as Prophet Abraham requested, and “Make this a land of Peace, and provide its people with the produce of the land”. (Qur’an 2:126). Then will all the children of Prophet Abraham live in Holiness, Peace and Prosperity.

The Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: “Abraham was a nation-community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) 

If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided.

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.  

“On that day Israel  will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5)

Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Allen Maller retired in 2006 after 39 years as Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Calif. He is the author of an introduction to Jewish mysticism. God. Sex and Kabbalah and editor of the Tikun series of High Holy Day prayerbooks.

Sacred Artifact Dispute Reveals Japan-Korea Tensions – OpEd

 November 5, 2024

By UCA News

By Cristian Martini Grimaldi

 

(UCA News) — Long-standing tensions between Japan and South Korea have reached a symbolic peak over a Buddhist statue stolen from Kannonji Temple on the Japanese island of Tsushima and transported to South Korea in 2012. This is despite South Korea’s Supreme Court recently ruling in favor of its return.

Though a small group of individuals stole the statue, its fate has become a broader reflection of unresolved tensions that echo historical grievances dating back to Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

Even though both governments formally signed a UNESCO convention mandating the return of the stolen cultural property, the South Korean government’s inaction has reignited the complex debate surrounding anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea.

The Buddhist statue at the center of this controversy, the “Seated Statue of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva,” holds a special place in Japan as a designated cultural property of Nagasaki Prefecture.

It was stolen by a South Korean group in 2012, marking one of many artifacts removed from Japanese temples by South Korean thieves during a time when Tsushima’s temples and shrines were under repeated assault.

This theft wave led to intense anti-theft security measures across the island and fueled frustration among the Japanese population.

Korean authorities recovered the religious artifact in early 2013, but Buseoksa Temple in South Korea claimed ownership, arguing that the statue had been initially looted by Japanese pirates centuries ago.

In response, Kannonji Temple stated that it had acquired the statue legally during the Joseon Period to protect it from frequent iconoclasm. This position holds historical support given the extensive records of Korean iconoclastic acts in temples at that time.

The dispute over the statue, therefore, represents not just a question of ownership but an ongoing struggle over the memory of Japan’s occupation of Korea and how history is perceived on both sides of the East Sea.

This is far from the only point of contention between Japan and South Korea, as recent years have seen multiple diplomatic and economic disputes that underscore the fragility of their relationship:

For instance, South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies to pay reparations to Korean laborers forced to work during World War II, a ruling Japan strongly opposed. Japan argues that all reparation issues were settled in a 1965 treaty, but many in Korea see this as insufficient acknowledgment of historical wrongs.

And of course, in 2019, Japan placed export restrictions on materials vital to South Korea’s technology sector, officially citing security concerns. South Korea interpreted this as retaliation for the forced labor compensation rulings, resulting in a trade dispute that impacted high-tech industries in both countries.

And the most internationally known case of comfort women. South Korea has long demanded a more formal apology and compensation for the Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the occupation.

While Japan has offered apologies and financial support over the years, South Korean public sentiment is that Japan’s remorse is thus incomplete. The topic often arises on anniversaries and at international forums, fueling resentment on both sides.

Let’s not forget the territorial disputes over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands. Both countries claim sovereignty over the Dokdo (in Korean) or Takeshima (in Japanese) Islands, which are located in the Sea of Japan. This territorial dispute is another recurring issue that stirs up strong emotions, with both sides staging protests and diplomatic statements asserting their claims.

The recent resistance from South Korea to returning the stolen Buddhist statue demonstrates that its national identity is still fueled by lingering resentment toward Japan. This unwillingness to fully reconcile reflects a societal perspective in which Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 remains a defining trauma.

For many South Koreans, Japan’s actions during the occupation are not merely historical facts but a reminder of a brutal period that shaped the nation’s modern identity.

South Korea’s national ethos continues to be influenced by historical remembrance, which, in some ways, also shapes the political landscape. Political leaders in South Korea occasionally evoke anti-Japanese sentiment to rally public support or to divert attention from internal challenges, a tactic that has successfully resonated due to the ingrained historical narratives.

The question of returning the Buddhist statue may seem like a small diplomatic matter, but it highlights the broader, unresolved issues between Japan and South Korea. While both nations are allies of the United States and share common concerns over regional security, including the threat from North Korea, their strained relations often limit real effective cooperation.

In the end, the fate of the Buddhist statue remains a powerful symbol of a fractured history that, even in modern times, still holds sway over both nations’ political and cultural landscapes. The broader question is whether Japan and South Korea can move beyond symbolic disputes to focus on a future that acknowledges but is not overshadowed by their shared past.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

China Restricts Young Tibetan Monks In ‘Prison-Like’ Schools

 November 4, 2024

By UCA News

(UCA News) — Tibetans have accused the pro-Beijing authorities in the region of housing hundreds of young Tibetan Buddhist monks in prison-like conditions at government-run boarding schools, says a report.

The students forcibly transferred from the  Kirti Monastery schools in Sichuan province’s Ngaba county are not even permitted to leave the school grounds or meet their parents, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Oct. 31.

“Since being forcibly removed from the monastery, the students have been denied contact with their parents and receive inadequate medical care when ill,” RFA reported, citing an unnamed source.

“When parents request to meet their children, they are given various excuses about needing higher-level approval and ultimately face threats of imprisonment if they persist,” the unnamed source added.

The students between the ages of 6-17 are taught exclusively in Mandarin, RFA reported.

Some of the students who attempted to escape the school were apprehended and are now being treated “like criminals” and forbidden from leaving the school grounds.

Over 1,000 young Tibetan monks were transferred from the Kirti Monastery to state-administered “colonial style” boarding schools in July.

The authorities closed another school at Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoge county, affecting some 600 students.x

The authorities had compelled parents to sign agreements ensuring that their children would be enrolled in government-run schools, where they would undergo state-approved “patriotic education.”

Pro-Beijing authorities in Tibet cite China’s regulations on religious affairs which mandate that the students at monastic schools must be 18 or older, display patriotism, and be compliant with national laws.

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Tibetan critics of China’s communist-led government allege that these regulations are part of a broader policy to eradicate the use of the Tibetan language, suppress Tibetan culture, and enforce “patriotic education.”

China’s patriotic education policy mandates that the love of China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party be incorporated into work and study for all citizens.

The Chinese authorities in the region have also intensified surveillance and restrictions on Tibetans in Ngaba county following the school closures.

A high-ranking official from China’s United Front Work Department is permanently stationed in Ngaba for several months, overseeing control measures over both the monastery and the local community.

The authorities have also unleashed a crackdown on any form of communication with the outside world, RFA reported.

In October, the authorities in Dzoge seized the phones of monks and teachers of Lhamo Kirti Monastery, accusing them of sharing the news of school closures.

In September, the authorities arrested four Tibetans, including two monks from Kirti Monastery, as well as two laypersons in Ngaba, accusing them of contacting Tibetans outside the region.

The Chinese government has claimed that the communication between Tibetans and their family members and friends abroad undermines national unity as a reason for communication restrictions, RFA reported.

Tibetans have denounced Beijing’s surveillance, accusing the authorities of violating their human rights and trying to eradicate their religious, linguistic, and cultural identity.'

UCA News

The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News, UCAN) is the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia. A network of journalists and editors that spans East, South and Southeast Asia, UCA News has for four decades aimed to provide the most accurate and up-to-date news, feature, commentary and analysis, and multimedia content on social, political and religious developments that relate or are of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia.