Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh was serving in Kontum Diocese where there is a relative lack of priests.

The attack took place on Jan 29, shortly before the celebration of the Vespers Mass on Saturday evening at the parish of Dak Mót, located 40 kilometers north of Kontum.

Father Tran was in the confessional when he was stabbed multiple times by a mentally unstable man, Fides reported. Police have arrested the attacker but say the man is "mentally ill".

The Dominican priest received treatment but succumbed to his injuries.

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"We call on each parish and mission station to stay alert ahead of the observance of Holy Week and Easter," said Father Felix Astono Atmojo, vicar-general of Palembang Archdiocese in South Sumatra.

He also called on Catholics to continue building good relations with people from other religious backgrounds.

In Semarang Archdiocese, Vicar General Father Franciscus Xaverius Sukendar Wignyosumarta said the Religious Affairs Ministry's Directorate General for Catholic Community Guidance issued a circular following the church attack, calling on Catholics to stay alert.

"Security in churches must be tightened, and cooperation with police and security personnel must be improved," he said.

Archbishop Anicetus Bongsu Sinaga of Medan in North Sumatra said the church attacks have made Catholics more vigilant.

"But be inclusive, don't create enemies," he said.

The archbishop said the Immaculate Conception of Mary Cathedral Church formed a 12-member security team.

This followed an earlier attack on a priest during Sunday Mass at a church in Medan in August 2016.

According to Maria Theresia Erlien, a parishioner from St. Joseph Church in Matraman, East Jakarta, the call to be on alert should get serious attention.

Four people were killed in a bomb blast at the church on Christmas Eve in 2000.

"Being vigilant is important despite security personnel usually being deployed [for Holy Week]," she said.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority nation in population. Alongside the 87 percent of its population who are Muslim, 10 percent of the population is Christian and 2 percent are Hindu. Discrimination and attacks on religious minorities occur not infrequently.

Source

• ucanews.com.
• catholicnewsagency.com
• Image: asianews.it

In a new book titled "Not in God's Name", Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks attempts to explain why religion and violence so often go hand in glove.

The explanation lies in religion's dual nature, posited a review of the book in The Telegraph.

The three great monotheisms - Judaism, Islam and Christianity - are spiritual belief systems that encourage prayer, charity and forgiveness.

But, writes Sacks, they are also tribal identities whose "noble sentiments have often been confined to fellow believers, or at least potential fellow believers".

Once a religion becomes an identity and builds a community, conflict will ensue.

Under Christian rule, Jews were either persecuted or allowed to live in sufferance until they converted; under Muslim rule, Jews and Christians were tolerated at various times, but treated as secondary subjects with restricted rights to worship.

The religious paradox is that while prophets and saints preach worldly detachment, the most successful religions have been attached to earthly powers.

In Sacks's words, religions have often lusted after "power, territory and glory, things that are secular, even profane".

The review states that it is all too easy to think that serving God means making everyone else worship as you worship.

At its most extreme, this becomes what Sacks calls "altruistic evil: evil committed in a sacred cause, in the name of high ideals".

For Sacks, only a subtle reading of scripture can save religion.

He interprets the sibling rivalries in Genesis as a model for competition between Jews, Christians and Muslims.

God might have chosen Isaac, writes Sacks, but his brother Ishmael joined him to bury their father Abraham; Jacob might have stolen Isaac's blessing from Esau, but the hairier brother is also blessed; Judah tried to kill his brother Joseph, but is forgiven.

This is Sacks's "theology of the Other": keep your own faith and identity, but acknowledge the stranger as your brother.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Image: BBC