Mission World
28.11.2008
Christians hopeful for ‘good change’ under new Punjab Chief Minister
Pakistan (UCAN) - Christians in Punjab province say they are optimistic of progress under their new chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, who has promised education for all children and equality for religious minorities.
“We pray for the new leader to bring a good change. Obviously he has his hands full with people’s problems including a sinking economy, power deficit and a food crisis,” said Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore.
His archdiocese is based in Lahore, the provincial capital, 270kms southeast of Islamabad. About 80% of the Christians in Pakistan live in Punjab, the most populous of the country’s four provinces.
“He was a good administrator in the past,” Archbishop Saldanha said, adding that Sharif “surely can” bring progress to the province.
Media reported that during his inaugural speech at the assembly, Sharif said he would provide all schools in Punjab with computers by the end of next year and introduce legislation to ensure that by 2010, no child in Punjab would be left out of school.
The Catholic Church runs 235 schools in Punjab, according to its 2006 directory, and counts 618,500 Catholics among the province’s 129 million people. Around 95% of Pakistan’s 160 million people are Muslims. Less than 2% are Christians.
The Catholic Church has long called for a more secular syllabus, free of what it sees as systematic religious and communal bias. It has asserted that textbooks are insensitive to Pakistan’s religious diversity, incite violence and encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination toward women and religious minorities. Other religious minority communities and liberal educators have made the same criticisms.
The Nation, an English-language daily, reported that Sharif assured minorities of his full cooperation in his address to the Punjab assembly on June 9, after gaining its endorsement through a vote of confidence. “Besides (being) equal to all, the minorities are important segments of the society, and complete religious freedom will be ensured, as everyone has the right to practice his religion,” the paper’s June 10 edition reported.
The principal of La Salle Higher Secondary School in Multan, southern Punjab, La Salle Brother Zafer Daud hopes such statements are not just another “politician’s promise.”
Interreligious dialogue seen as tough, but necessary
Vatican City (ZENIT) - If we want a halt to violence carried out in the name of God, we must also engage in authentic dialogue with Islam, a Vatican spokesman affirmed.
Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, commented on the First International Islamic Conference on Dialogue - held recently in Mecca under the patronage of the King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
This initiative, which Abdullah already announced in his visit with the Pope at the Vatican, was presented as the preparatory phase of a major dialogue, first within Islam and then with Christianity and Judaism. The goal is to protect and promote the dignity of the human being, the family, whose identity is under threat, and peace among nations.
Abdullah explicitly said, “Some followers of Islam, victims of extremism, have upset Islam’s nature as a religion of peace,” Fr Lombardi noted.
The 500 participants in the conference, who represented different currents of Islamic thought from around the world, reiterated their “no” to conflict with civilization, inviting the leaders of all nations to concord and promote a culture of dialogue.
According to Fr Lombardi, “There is still a long road ahead of us in getting to know and understand each other; the theological differences remain irreducible; the concrete situation of many Christian minorities in Muslim countries is dramatic.
“Nevertheless, the more the conviction is repeated and taken to heart that one cannot hate in the name of God but must meet and dialogue, the better. The late Pope John Paul II had already indicated this road in Assisi.”
Mission Intention for August
That the answer of the entire people of God to the common calling to holiness and mission may be promoted and fostered by means of careful discernment of charisma and constant commitment to spiritual and cultural formation.
