A committee of Pakistani senators is to launch a review of the nation’s blasphemy laws, giving a rare glimpse of hope to campaigners.
Christians in Pakistan have long demanded reform of the laws, which have led to high-profile cases such as that of Asia Bibi, who is still awaiting her fate after being sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010 following an argument over drinking water from a village well.
The committee of human rights of Pakistan’s Senate, or upper house of parliament, decided last week to hold a series of meetings to discuss the laws with legal experts, religious scholars and other relevant bodies, including the Council of Islamic Ideology.
The chair of the committee, Senator Nasreen Jaleel, said the the meeting did not intend to seek amendments to the law, but to ensure fair implementation of it, as innocent people have suffered due to its misuse.
Retired justice Ali Nawaz Chohan of the National Commission for Human Rights said investigation of blasphemy cases should be conducted only by superintendents, and cases heard by senior judges. Anyone making false accusations of blasphemy should be punished, he said.
Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said “powerful forces” would be set against the review.
In March the government gave assurances that there would be no amendment to the law after four days of protest from 10,000 Islamists. Chowdhry said that if the review’s recommendations were carried out it would be a step in the right direction.
Cardinal: there is nothing Bishop Farrell cannot do
Pope Francis has named Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas to lead the Vatican’s new Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.During the bishop’s tenure in Dallas, the diocese saw an increase in priestly vocations, steady Catholic school enrolment and more than $1 billion in renovation and construction of churches and schools.
Bishop Farrell was born in Dublin on September 2, 1947, and was ordained to the priesthood in Rome as a member of the Legionaries of Christ in 1978. He was later incardinated as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, where he served in several parishes. In 2002 he was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Washington archdiocese.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick led the archdiocese when then Mgr Farrell was vicar-general. “If any great things were accomplished during my years of service as archbishop, much of the credit goes to Bishop Farrell, an extraordinary administrator and a most zealous pastor,” the cardinal said.
“I believe there is nothing Bishop Farrell cannot do and I have watched him do it with Irish charm and American efficiency,” the cardinal added.
Mercy is action, says Francis
jesus’s compassion towards people in need is not a vague sentiment, but a calling for Christians to bring that same compassion to others, the Pope has said at a general audience.By miraculously feeding thousands of people, Jesus made an act “of faith and prayer” that “shows the full strength of his will to be close to us and to save us,” Francis said. Christians, he added, “are compelled by Jesus to bring this service to others with the same compassion of Jesus.”
