Churches closed in China
In Bitter Winter, an online magazine that covers religious freedom and human rights in China, An Xin wrote:
“By January 16, over 10 Catholic churches have been closed in the county-level city Fu’an, administered by Ningde city in the southeastern province of Fujian. All of them refuse to register with the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and belong to the Diocese of Mindong, part of Fuzhou Archdiocese, where numerous churches have been shut down over the past year.
“After the signing of the Vatican-China deal of 2018, the situation of Catholic conscientious objectors who refuse to be registered continues to deteriorate across the country, churches closed down or demolished.”
How Satan works
Last Sunday, Pope Francis, said: “Today Satan breaks into people’s life to tempt them with his enticing proposals; he mixes his voice with the many voices that seek to tame the conscience. Messages arrive from many parts that invite you to ‘let oneself be tempted’ to experience the thrill of transgression.
“Jesus’experience teaches us that temptation is an attempt to follow alternative ways than those of God.”
Abortion, the West’s crisis
In Another Freedom. Against the New Prophets of ‘Heaven on Earth’, Cardinal Camillo Ruini writes: “In cases concerning the beginning of life, the claim to individual freedom is out of place, because one decides not about oneself but about another, the unborn child, unless one thinks that the unborn child is simply part of the mother’s body: an unsustainable absurdity because he has his own DNA, his own development, and interacts with the mother, as is increasingly clear. The alternative is to think that the unborn child is not a human being but can become one only later.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)