On the way home, rather than avoid the CBD and take the most direct route onto the Hutt motorway, I decided for no particular reason to go through town.

I knew about the protest convoy that had rolled into town earlier that day but assumed it would have been all over by four in the afternoon.

Ha! More fool me.

I intended to drive up Molesworth St but found my way blocked by protest vehicles of all shapes and sizes, from massive trucks down to cars that looked as if they were rarely driven further than the nearest supermarket.

Most were bedecked with flags - New Zealand flags, tino rangatiratanga flags and others that I didn't recognise - and slogans.

The area around Parliament was hopelessly clogged.

No one was directing traffic (I didn't see a single cop), but an escape route opened up through the bus marshalling area at the bottom of Lambton Quay and I followed a line of cars through to Thorndon Quay and the open road.

Five days later, the protesters are still there.

More than 120 have been arrested for trespassing, and some illegally parked vehicles have been moved.

Others have been ticketed by council parking wardens, escorted by police. But despite violent clashes with the police on Thursday, more demonstrators kept arriving yesterday and it was obvious the occupants of the protest camp on the lawn in front of Parliament were in no hurry to leave.

What the hell is going on here? Wellington district police commander Superintendent Corrie Parnell described the protest as unprecedented, and I think he's probably right.

Admittedly there have been bigger protest rallies.

I remember massive union marches to Parliament during the industrial unrest of the late 1960s and 70s - in particular, one that followed the Arbitration Court's nil wage order in 1968.

Protests against the Vietnam War, the Security Intelligence Service and the 1981 Springbok tour also attracted thousands - far more, I would guess, than we saw on Tuesday*.

Students and unionists typically made up the bulk of the protesters.

But what happened in Wellington this week was different.

The protesters of the 60s, 70s and 80s made their point, let off steam and drifted off to the pub.

There was anger, but it was often tempered by jollity and humour, especially on those union marches. The mood this time seems darker and more febrile.

And the differences go far beyond that.

The public always knew what those protests were about. It was generally clear who organised them and what they were trying to achieve, even if their objectives were sometimes fanciful.

By way of contrast, the organisers of the so-called Freedom Convoy have kept a profile so low as to be invisible.

There seems to be no official spokesman or spokeswoman. Not until today did I learn on Stuff about the identity of at least one of the key figures.

Parnell has remarked on an "absence of leadership" that made it hard for police to deal with organisers.

Yet someone initiated and co-ordinated it.

These things don't happen magically and spontaneously.

Who's behind the protest, and why have they apparently been reluctant to step out from the shadows?

Public understanding of the protest, and possibly even sympathy for it, might be enhanced if someone was prepared to step forward and coherently explain their purpose.

It's called transparency, and its absence breeds suspicion.

Ah yes, their purpose.

That's another thing.

While the protest is nominally about the unfairness of the vaccination mandate that stops the unvaxxed from participating in society, even to the point of preventing them from earning a living, the message has been blurred by a miscellany of other grievances, not all of them related: Three Waters, Donald Trump's supposedly stolen election and Maori sovereignty, to name just three. Plus there's a strong element of religious fervour.

If there's a common factor, it's resentment and distrust of what is seen as an authoritarian government.

This hostility extends to people who are seen as agents of those in power - most notably the news media.

In fact it's possible that the reason we haven't heard much from the protest organisers is that reporters have been unwilling, or perhaps too frightened, to seek them out, preferring to get their information from official sources such as the police and politicians.

The result is a one-sided view that leaves us inadequately informed about the nature of the event, and the protesters more convinced than ever that the media are aligned with the government against them.

And just as the motivation for the protest hasn't always been obvious, so too there has been a lack of clarity about the objective - a point made by John Minto, who should know a thing or two about protests.

Minto says the Freedom Convoy lacks a strategy and an objective and is therefore bound to fail.

That might be an overstatement, but it's certainly true that the public is unlikely to get behind a protest if they don't know what its purpose is.

This brings us back to the lack of a spokesman or spokeswoman to clearly articulate the protesters' grievance(s) and objective(s).

Presumably, we can assume that if nothing else, the protesters at the very least want to attract wider public support - but there again, they blew it.

New Zealanders generally support the right to protest and may even take the view that the grounds of Parliament are a symbolically powerful place to do it, regardless of Trevor Mallard's preciousness.

But tolerance of the right to protest soon runs out when the protesters obstruct other New Zealanders from going about their lawful business, and it runs out even more quickly when protesters abuse people for exercising their freedom of choice by wearing a mask, or when they lose their temper with café and shop workers who refuse to serve them because laws over which they have no control say they can't.

That's no way to build public goodwill.

There's a massive PR problem, right there.

The majority of the protesters may be polite and non-aggressive - in fact, I'm sure they are; but if a minority exhibits arrogance, irrational anger and provocative behaviour verging on hysteria, that becomes the defining characteristic of the event.

As I was writing this, an acquaintance who supports the protest sent me a link to a 50-minute video in which he wandered among the crowd interviewing people, apparently at random.

It's easy to dismiss the protesters as nutters, conspiracy theorists and people with an anger management problem, all of which is almost certainly true of a few; but many of the interviewees struck me as calm, articulate, intelligent and motivated by valid, deeply felt beliefs.

The thought occurred to me that if the mainstream media had taken the trouble to do what the video-maker had done, the public would have a far more accurate picture of this otherwise perplexing event.

Sure, there was some wildly emotive rhetoric and hyperbole.

One man referred to his grandfather who fought in the Second World War - allusions to New Zealand soldiers risking their lives for freedom seem almost obligatory in this context - and said "We're fighting World War Three".

He was worried about the Pfizer vaccine making girls sterile.

Another protester referred to MPs as "pieces of sh.." and one expressed contempt for the "gutless ....ing police" (exactly what he expected them to do wasn't clear.)

But others talked about losing their jobs, having to take their kids out of school, being excluded from family gatherings and being denied access to community facilities such as libraries and swimming pools. Some of it made painful listening.

These people feel mainstream society has made them outcasts as a result of decisions sincerely made according to their conscience.

We may disapprove of their beliefs, but at least we can try to understand and not reflexively condemn them as pariahs.

Our attitude to the protesters may be seen as a test of our true tolerance of diversity.

Incidentally, the video I refer to was removed from YouTube hours after being posted.

The video-maker was suspended for 10 days, ostensibly for violating community standards, and put on notice that he risked being banned permanently.

And we wonder why people like the Freedom Convoy protesters get paranoid about the suppression of minority views …

The novelist Lloyd Jones has no such problems getting published.

In an open letter printed in the country's biggest-selling newspaper, he expressed a coldly elitist disdain for the protesters - a rabble, he called them - and implied they were no longer New Zealanders.

"Prime Minister Ardern says you are part of New Zealand," Jones wrote.

"I beg to differ. You are of New Zealand, but longer part of it."

"How dare they?" was the tone of Jones' polemic. It was a chilling demonstration of the ease with which people who think of themselves as liberals can morph into excuse-makers for authoritarianism and enforcers of approved orthodoxy.

This is how the marginalisation, and ultimately the persecution of outsiders, begins.

We're surely better than that.

• Karl du Fresne has been in journalism for more than 50 years. He is now a freelance journalist and blogger living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand.
• First published by Karl du Fresne. Republished with permission.

*Paradoxically, probably the biggest protest march of all was the "Kiwis Care" march of 1981, when 22-year-old sales rep Tania Harris led 50,000 people down Queen St. I say "paradoxically" because it was more in the nature of an anti-protest protest, motivated by public anger over militant unionism. It dwarfed a union march down the same street the previous day, when bystanders booed and hissed at the 4000 marchers.

In June, a student was stabbed in the stomach and another left with concussion after a brawl involving up to 30 teens outside De La Salle College. Read more

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the Lord said, "What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." (Gen 4:9-11)

In yet another iteration of state-sanctioned police brutality, the United States has witnessed the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minn.

In harrowing fulfilment of what political philosopher Hannah Arendt once defined counter-intuitively as the "banality" of evil, Officer Chauvin seemed frighteningly calm as he slowly asphyxiated Mr Floyd with his knee outside a corner store: eight minutes and 46 seconds of deafening, uncontested silence, save the plaintive protest of a passerby, and Mr Floyd himself, gasping for enough air to call for his mother.

How do we protest such a grotesque execution of injustice? How indeed do we cry out against its quiet collusion with systemic racism, which shapeshifts in response to each civil rights victory in order to ensure its transmission to the next generation?

An inventory of our treasures

As a Catholic, it has been both encouraging and indicting to follow the Catholic Church's response to the death of George Floyd: from watching clerical leadership denounce the "real and present danger" and "ongoing reality" of racism in America; to hearing lay prophetic voices, including EWTN radio show host Gloria Purvis, calling us to consider the extent to which racism has become an ecclesial "blindspot" among white American Catholics; to finding so few Catholic Church communities marching alongside our Christian and non-Christian brothers and sisters.

Why are we not, as Presbyterian minister Rev Alexis Waggoner of the Church of the Village in New York City recently described it, "putting [our] body where [our] theology is"?

Perhaps, in fact, we are: Increasingly privatized religion means privatized bodies. We have fulfilled, not forgotten, our seclusive theology.

At worst, Christians have preferred instead to cry foul in the face of church property damage and graffiti, blithely unaware that our central liturgical image is the crucified Christ, whose body was broken by violence and adorned with Roman graffiti, "INRI."

That is to say, our fidelity to Christ and his body the church has less to do with becoming an aggrieved church of fire damage than a compassionate church of kinship with the broken.

Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman once opined concerning the Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition, "[w]e have a vast inheritance, but no inventory of our treasures."

In a brief attempt to take stock of our shared inventory, then, and likewise to advocate a more self-consciously incarnational practice of Christianity in the world, I would like to propose that Christianity is best understood in nature and practice as a form of protest.

Who God is in the world

That is, Christianity offers a radically divergent vision of how humanity might confront, interrupt, and heal experiences of violence, suffering and loss, and in so doing both reveal and enact who God is in the world: the God of boundless compassion for the afflicted, the morally outcast and the enemy; and the God of unity, that binds together the "beloved community" in charity against temptations to self-conceit, the abuse of power, and indifference to the poor.

To begin, Christianity as protest reveals who God is in the world. Let us begin with the daring, plaintive story of the Book of Job. Continue reading

In 2003, after the SARS epidemic, attempts were made to introduce a national security law.

Similarly, it is happening now as the coronavirus recedes. But this time we fear there will be no happy ending.

It is difficult to find words that we have not already written to tell about the danger Hong Kong is facing.

For some, we are alarmists: the tanks have not been seen in Hong Kong, and therefore we can think that things have not got out of hand.

The world has its head elsewhere, and we seem repetitive.

On May 18, 15 well-known leaders of the democratic opposition appeared in court. Their case will be resumed on June 15. For five of them, including our friend Lee Cheuk-yan, the charges have been extended, and they foresee very severe penalties, up to five years of imprisonment.

But the worst news comes from Beijing, where the National People's Congress has been formally endorsing what has already been decided by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the real body that governs China.

But even the Central Committee (politburo) counts less since President Xi Jinping concentrated all powers on himself, as only Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping had done in the past.

It is therefore a decision by Xi that we are talking about.

A bill has been introduced that sends a chill down the backs of those who love Hong Kong, its young students and its people, freedom and democracy.

The new law introduces national security regulations in Hong Kong. It will be included as a new "third annex" to the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs the "high degree of autonomy" of the city.

The law, which consists of seven articles, provides provisions punishing offenses such as treason, secession, sedition, subversion and foreign interference.

It is not difficult to imagine how the provisions will be conveniently used to suppress the popular protests that began in June 2019 and any other form of opposition.

With such laws in China, every form of dissent is condemned, with punishments up to the death penalty.

Particularly disturbing is the fourth article: "If necessary, the central government will establish bodies in Hong Kong with the task of implementing the safeguarding of national security."

This provision would lead to the emptying of the power of parliament and of the local government in favour of an entirely political office, which has never been seen in Hong Kong.

The drastic downsizing of the parliament is particularly concerning because in the elections due in September the opposition parties will have, according to all forecasts, a larger representation, as happened for the district elections of last November.

It will be the end of the "one country, two systems" framework and the "high degree of autonomy," the two principles that govern Hong Kong today.

We will have important tests in the coming weeks: the vigil for the massacre in Tiananmen Square on June 4; the first anniversary of the start of the protests on June 9; and the traditional protest march of July 1.

Can they be done? And how?

In the summer of 2003, as many certainly remember, attempts were made to introduce a national security law.

It happened in the aftermath of the SARS epidemic. But the then chief executive, the Beijing-appointed Tung Chee-hwa, withdrew the proposal after a single mass demonstration on July 1 of that fateful year. Various ministers resigned, and Tung himself paid the political price with his early departure from the political scene — a choice that restored some dignity to the man. And Hong Kong, for many more years, was saved.

Today's government, led by Carrie Lam, has faced hundreds of demonstrations, most of them more immense than that of July 1, 2003.

Carrie Lam, 'I am writing it with pain', will go down in Hong Kong history as the single political figure that has done the most damage ever.

There has been a new pandemic, and plans are back to introduce a liberticidal law that will not only prevent Hong Kong from having what it was promised — a progressive and full democratisation — but would also remove what it already has now.

Lam rushed to say that the Hong Kong government will "fully cooperate" in the implementation of this law.

The education minister says students will have to study it well.

There is a shiver!

Allan Lee, a long-time politician from the business world, founder of the Liberal Party and part of the pro-Chinese camp (he had been a communist as a boy), recently died.

He was perhaps little known internationally but in Hong Kong he was a familiar face.

I remember him well. He had the good of Hong Kong at heart: after the demonstration on July 1, 2003, he pledged to persuade Beijing to desist from the implementation of the national security law.

He had courage.

He was heard.

And Allan Lee, who in the meantime had become a moderate right-wing man, spent the last years of his life asking for full democracy and freedom for Hong Kong.

Today the pro-government camp lacks men with Allan Lee's wisdom.

In power today we have figures without political dignity and without courage, opportunists enslaved to the power of the strongest.

It is not true that democracy in Hong Kong is only wanted by "reckless young people" and "opponents without a sense of responsibility."

Hong Kong's democracy and freedom are a serious matter, desired by the best people of our beloved city.

After all, it is not difficult too difficult to understand what's going on.

Things are what they seem.

The threats of a regime opposed to freedom, democracy and human rights are not intended to strike emptily.

As long as possible, we will say it: the end of Hong Kong is being prepared.

• Father Gianni Criveller of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions is dean of studies and a teacher at PIME International Missionary School of Theology in Milan, Italy. He taught in Greater China for 27 years and is a lecturer in mission theology and the history of Christianity in China at the Holy Spirit Seminary College of Philosophy and Theology in Hong Kong.
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

The Catholic Archbishop of Wellington, Cardinal John Dew, is supporting their efforts.

"We all need to listen to young people about climate change," he said.

Dew acknowledged that opinions will differ about whether students should be taking time off school.

However, he thinks that engaging with one of the most pressing and urgent moral issues of our time is far more important than leaving school to cheer for a sports team or visiting celebrity.

The cardinal asked people not to focus on what they are doing, but rather on why they are doing it.

He said young people should have had opportunities for their opinions to be heard without being forced to take this action, which may have consequences for their studies.

"Despite being the group in our society who will be most affected by environmental decisions being made today, young people are telling us, as strongly and loudly as they can, that they don't feel that they have a voice in the conversation."

He said many decision-makers in the governments, businesses, community organisations and churches of the world won't be alive to experience the impact of climate change. But today's school students will be.

"They will have to live with the consequences if we over-consume the world's resources now, and if we do not find ways to keep temperature increases in check.

"The world was made by God for all to enjoy, to sustain life. That includes today's young people and future generations," Dew said.

"In justice, my generation should be handing on to the next generation what was given to us. We need to face the reality that we are not.

"Instead, we are leaving a legacy of pollution and wastefulness."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: coalaction.org.nz

Cardinal supports students' climate change protest - "Listen to them"]]> 115803 https://cathnews.co.nz/2018/07/26/prolife-prochoice-demonstartion/ Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:00:18 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=109680

Both sides of the abortion debate demonstrated on Parliament's front lawn on Wednesday. The Voice for Life prolife group laid out 13,285 pairs of baby booties on the lawn to represent the number of foetuses aborted in 2017. There was tension and some scuffles when a prochoice demonstrator started picking up handfuls of booties and Read more

On June 19, Father Joseph Nguyễn Duy Tân, pastor of Thọ Hòa parish in Đồng Nai province, came to the police detention centre of Biên Hòa, 30km North of Sàigòn, to demand the immediate release of a laywoman who had gone missing 10 days previously.

The last time Phạm Ngọc Hạnh, a mother of five, was seen in public was on June 10 when she participated in a peaceful protest at Đồng Nai's central park.

Footage of the protest posted on social media networks shows Hạnh being beaten and dragged on the street by a group of plain-clothed men.

She has remained incommunicado since.

The priest accused police of violently attacking and arbitrarily detaining a peaceful woman who just wanted to express legally her opposition to the new cybersecurity law and new special administrative-economic units that for many represent a sell-out to China.

Tân's protest was not successful and has attracted criticism from state-run news outlets.

"It's a beautiful image of a brave shepherd who dares to care for his flock amidst one the most difficult moments in the history of the nation," said Fr Paul Van Chi Chu, spokesperson of The Federation of Vietnamese Catholic Mass Media.

Tân, 50, has also been a victim of repression.

Two weeks earlier, he was stopped at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport by public security officers when he was going to board a plane to Malaysia with 24 other priests of Xuân Lộc Diocese.

He was told the Public Security Department of Đồng Nai province had requested that he be forbidden to travel abroad.

Source

• vietcatholic.org
• asianews.it
• Image: asianews.it

They were calling on lawmakers to support bipartisan immigration legislation that makes permanent protections available to Dreamers.

About 1.8 million Dreamers stand to lose the protection offered by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme.

Many protesters said they had no option but to participate in the act of civil disobedience and speak out against the failure of Congress and the Trump administration to help the Dreamers.

"I have never been arrested in my life, but with the blessing of my community, I am joining with two dozen other Catholic sisters and Catholic allies to risk arrest today as an act of solidarity ... " Dominican Sister Elise Garcia said.

"To our leaders in Congress and in the White House, I say 'arrest a nun, not a Dreamer.'"

Jesuit Father Thomas Reese said: "They [Dreamers] are our students, sitting in our classrooms, they are our parishioners, kneeling in our churches.

"They are our friends, they are our colleagues who have invited us into their homes.

"It is time for the people who work in that [the Capitol] building to realise this is a moral issue. It is a justice issue, and the political gamesmanship must stop."

Mercy Sister JoAnn Persch, who was one of eight Mercy sisters arrested, said frustration led her to be part of the protest.

"My prayer, my work for comprehensive immigration reform has had no impact on this administration," she said.

"I stand with Dreamers now at this moment of truth, which to me is a moral issue.

"When these traditional strategies we have used have no impact, we have to move to action that could involve taking a risk to disrupt this unjust system in some way."

Many of those who risked arrest, joined hands, singing hymns and praying.

Bishop Stowe said: "We stand with the Dreamers, we are one with the Dreamers. And now I ask God's blessing upon those who are acting in civil disobedience, part of a long-standing tradition of not supporting unjust laws."

Shortly after, they were arrested, handcuffed and led away, some praying, some singing.

They were charged with disorderly conduct, crowding, incommoding and obstruction.

They were all released by late Tuesday afternoon.

Source

• Think Progress
• Catholic News Service
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Sight Magazine

Last weekend's anti-government protests in the capital city of Kinshasa saw four people shot dead.

The United Nations mission in Congo says 47 people were wounded and over 100 arrested in the Sunday protests.

The casualties and arrests occurred two days after Pope Francis called for a worldwide day of prayer and fasting for peace in the DRC.

Many demonstrations occurred in and around Catholic churches.

Some priests held protests within the parameters of their parish grounds to minimise violence.

"Security forces blocked the roads around the churches. They came in and threw tear gas canisters into churches. They used live ammunition," Father Jean Claude Tabu, Curate of the St. Benoît Parish in the north of Kinshasa, says.

This is the third round of demonstrations organized by the Catholic Lay Committee. Previous protests on 31 December and 21 January left over a dozen dead.

"I note with sorrow and deep concern the loss of life and injuries that occurred at the hands of those who are supposed to protect life and the rule of law.

"I add my voice to that of the Holy Father in his call for calm and peace in the country," Archbishop Timothy Broglio, chair of U.S. Bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote on 14 February to the DRC bishops.

Since December, when Kabila again refused to step down, the church and a spiritual group called the Lay Coordination Committee have organised three protests. All have resulted in deaths and have ended violently.

Kabila's refusal to step down has aggravated violence between government forces and multiple armed groups in other areas of the country.

The Catholic church in the DRC has consistently advocated for free and fair elections.

The Congolese Catholic Bishops' Conference has called upon Kabila to confirm he will not run for an illegal third term as president.

He was supposed to leave office in December 2016, but elections have been continually postponed.

Mass atrocities have been carried out in the DRC, killing and displacing thousands in the last few years.

Source
• The Catholic Register
• Business Insider
• Image: eNCA

"The purpose of the protest was to prevent anyone inside from leaving", Peace Action Wellington spokeswoman Emma Cullen said.

"We're shutting them down for as long as we can … at least until the evening, to affect these people, and for these people to acknowledge and question what their government is doing," Cullen said, according to Stuff.

Three protesters chained themselves by the neck to the gates.

One of them, Helen Lyttelton, said she was protesting for the people without food and medication and said they were an incredibly vulnerable population.

"We're here to show them we don't need Australia's permission to take on refugees. All they're seeking is safety ... and they've been unable to leave."

She hoped high commission staff, when they tried to leave, would have some empathy for what the Manus Island detainees had experienced.

"For years, they've been unable to move. They've not had freedom of movement for up to four years."

Earlier this month, the word 'SHAME' was scrawled across the high commission's driveway and a poster declaring 'Justice for refugees' was posted on the front gate.

An unidentified liquid was also splashed over the sign at the front of the building.

Source

• Stuff
• NewsTalkZB
• SBS
• Asia Pacific Report
• Image: Stuff

Construction is expected to begin shortly, with the first homes finished by mid-2018.

In April, members of St David's Anglican Church in Naenae camped out for the weekend on land across the road from their church.

The protest organiser, Reverend Martin Robinson, said at the time it had reinforced his view that urgent action was required.

"I knew it was a crisis but I did not know just how bad it was ... scores of folk talked about their own personal experience of living in garages or cars, or jammed in overcrowded houses. There were heaps of couch surfers."

Planning is also underway at a number of other Lower Hutt sites, including Epuni, which together could provide 330 new homes.

In July, the then social housing minister Amy Adams announced plans to build and refurbish up to 700 homes in Lower Hutt over the next five years.

At the time there was cynicism about the government's commitment, with critics noting the proximity to the election.

Area manager Stephen Wilson said before HNZ began detailed planning it wanted to hear from the local community.

"That's why we've been talking with the local school, kindergarten, social service agencies and other local stakeholders to identify how the redevelopment can help the community to be vibrant and sustainable."

Wallace said he was pleased HNZ was finally making progress, as housing remained a major problem in the city.

He hoped HNZ would look at providing a range of accommodation and the need for housing families was not overlooked.

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Stuff

Six people appeared before a registrar in the Wellington District Court last Friday morning. Continue reading

At least 69 priests from Ruteng Diocese submitted letters of resignation this week and demanded that Bishop Hubertus Leteng heed their calls for a complete overhaul of how the diocese is run.

According to reports, the priests say the bishop borrowed over $94,000 from the Indonesian Bishop's Conference and an additional $30,000 from his own diocese.

He did not provide a report for these sums, and it remains unclear how the money was spent.

Priests accuse him of giving the money to a woman with whom they allege he was having an affair.

Leteng, has dismissed the allegations, calling them "slanderous."

He says the money was given to a young man to attend flight school so he could become a commercial pilot. He added that the details were none of the priest's business.

Last year 112 of 167 diocesan priests signed a letter of no confidence in the bishop, according to the priest who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An appeal has been made to the the Vatican to intervene and resolve the dispute.

Representatives of the priests, accompanied by a bishops' conference official, met Archbishop Antonio Filipazzi, the outgoing apostolic nuncio in Indonesia June 16.

Father Alfonsius Segar, one of the priests who met with the nuncio, told ucanews.com that Archbishop Filipazzi has promised to help resolve the dispute.

"He will immediately take this issue up with the Vatican," Father Segar said.

Source

• ucannews.com
• catholic.org
• catholicherald.co.uk
• Image: directory.ucannews.com

In the Australian states of Tasmania and Victoria, filming, intimidation and protests are banned within 150m of abortion centres.

In New South Wales, a bill to provide a 150m "safe access zone" has just been introduced by a Green MP on the grounds of ensuring the right to medical privacy.

Logie and Catherine Delahunty recently attended a meeting in Thames organised by people concerned about pro-life protesters who protest outside the Thames Hospital abortion clinic on Fridays.

Logie said the Green Party had no plans for a member's bill on the issue but another speaker had raised the Australian example.

There were different views expressed on it and she believed a broader discussion was needed.

"I do think there's is a genuine issue around the impact of those protests directly targeting women and making their lives worse."

Secretary of the Hauraki branch of Voice for Life Lynn Hopkins said they started the protests outside Thames Hospital about five years ago to try to end abortion. She would not support legislation that bans their protests.

"I would think it was rather unfair against the idea of free speech."

Hopkins protests with a placard that reads "women deserve better".

"They deserve better care than being pushed towards having an abortion."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: stream.org

About 200 carloads of people showed up in the cold and rain, with many saying they hoped the demonstration would raise public awareness and encourage the government to do something about homelessness. Continue reading

Around 60 students with megaphones, rainbow flags and a trombone drowned out large parts of the event organised by the University of Sydney Union Catholic Society on May 4.

At issue was guest speaker James Parker's alleged previous association with gay conversion therapy, through a British group called "People Can Change".

In 2014, Mr Parker was the author of an article in the International Business Times titled "Gay Conversion: I Slept With Over 200 Men, Now I'm a Happily Married Heterosexual Dad".

Several complaints were made to the University of Sydney Union and university's vice-chancellor's office before the event.

On the morning of the event on May 4, the union withdrew its support.

At one point during the protest, Mr Parker walked outside with a handmade sign that read "God Loves Gays".

Mr Parker also denied being an advocate of conversion therapy, attributing his conversion to "regular therapy", the University of Sydney's student council's publication Honi Soit reported.

He described his previous homosexuality as the result of a fundamental opposition to men he developed in utero, which he claimed to have overcome through a combination of therapy and faith, Honi Soit reported.

"Once I found deep resolution within myself, my voice began to drop, and my walk began to change," he said to the crowd.

"I began to see women."

One gay student who attended the event described Mr Parker's talk as "hurtful".

Catholic Society president Francis Tamer said he thought "the event went really well".

He said that those opposed had a right to protest, but said he would "also like to make clear that anyone who listened would have found that [Parker] was not in favour of the things that people thought he was in favour of, such as gay conversion therapy".

"Hopefully those that did attend did learn something new from it, whether or not they agreed."

So-called gay conversion therapy has been condemned by the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Australian Psychological Society, Honi Soit reported.

Sources

• Honi Soit
• Buzz Feed
• International Business Times
• Bible Society Australia
• Image: Catholic Weekly

Fr Berrigan died peacefully on April 30 at Murray-Weigel Hall in New York City, after a long illness.

Fr Berrigan and his younger brother, Fr Philip Berrigan, emerged as leaders of the radical anti-war movement in the 1960s, becoming household names.

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The group refused to leave Australian justice minister Michael Keenan's office on February 20.

At the Perth Magistrates Court last week, the protestors were given "spent" convictions for trespassing and were released on good behaviour bonds.

They were protesting a court decision, since overturned, to return 267 refugees, including Australian-born babies, to Nauru's immigration detention centre.

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The protest in Jayapura by the Union of Catholic University Students of Indonesia and Catholic Youth organisations was in response to police treatment of Fr John Djonga.

Last month, Fr Djonga led a prayer service at the opening of an office of the Papuan Indigenous Council, from which a banner of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua was displayed.

Four days later, Fr Djonga was subjected to an intense grilling by police.

According to police, Fr Djonga was considered a witness to a violation of Indonesia's criminal code pertaining to treason.

Protesters from the Catholic Youth and the Union of Catholic University Students of Indonesia organisations marched several kilometres to the police headquarters to hold their protest.

They called on police to stop harassing Fr Djonga.

The priest said he was told police may call him in for further questioning, but insisted he was unfazed by police scrutiny.

This is not the first time Fr Djonga has faced scrutiny by Indonesia's authorities.

In 2012, he was charged with colluding and supporting pro-independence leaders in hiding in the forests and abroad.

His phone, which contained phone numbers of pro-independence leaders, became evidence.

In his defence, Fr Djonga asked authorities also to reveal a phone list of his containing the numbers of Indonesian police and military officials, and announce the names of all Jakarta officials, including ministers, who had contacted him and communicated with him.

He told investigators at that time that, as a pastor, it was his duty to bridge communication and dialogue with all parties, without resorting to the use of violence.

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has been urged by West Papua Action Auckland to express concern to Indonesian authorities about the intimidation of peaceful human rights activists.

Sources

• Radio New Zealand
• Scoop
• UCA News
• Image: UCA News

The bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia, Bishop Giuseppe Piemontese, wanted to transfer the saint's remains from San Valentino Basilica in Terni to a cathedral five kilometres away.

This was part of a Year of Mercy celebration of St Valentine's Day on February 14 and the remains would have been returned to the basilica within days.

Bishop Piemontese was reported to have paid out of his own pocket for a specially modified car to transport the remains

But dozens of angry church-goers positioning chairs around a glass coffin containing the remains and held hands to form a human barrier against their removal.

The shouts of the protesters grew louder as Bishop Piemontese tried to explain himself.

His increasingly desperate calls for silence went unheard.

Parishioners said their town has been abandoned in recent years, falling into a state of decay.

One resident, heading to the church to protest, said they "had lost everything" and would not allow a much-loved piece of their history, as well as an important tourist attraction, to be taken from them.

"We are staying here together with our patron saint," another protester told local Italian media.

"No-one is going to take him away.

"If they really want to do it, they're going to have to get past us, because we're not moving even one step backwards."

On February 14, the remains were still at the San Valentino Basilica, in the town of St Valentine's birth.

The remains have been at the basilica since the 17th century.

During his homily on Sunday morning, Bishop Piemontese accused protesting parishioners of behaving in an "intolerant, arrogant and disrespectful manner".

The bishop implied there may have been other motives behind the protest, although he did not specify what these were.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Image: Villa in Umbria