Paul Keenan
Filipino Bishops criticize use of Bible to justify death penalty
Catholic bishops in The Philippines have taken to task boxing champion and politician Manny Pacquiao for his claim that the Bible sanctions reviving the death penalty in the country.
The famed athlete, known for his Christian devotion, was delivering a speech to the Filipino Senate when he began to quote passages of the Bible and said: “Having read the Bible on a regular basis, I am convinced that God is not just a God of mercy, but he is also a God of justice.
“Whoever hurts a person who died would also be killed,” he added, quoting from the Book of Exodus.
Acknowledging Pacquiao’s right to free speech, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kaloocan nevertheless responded that he should not use the Bible to justify his personal beliefs. He added that if people were to use the Bible in this way, “we might as well restore slavery, misogyny, the death penalty for gays, and ancient inhumane laws”. Meanwhile, Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila said “to promote the death penalty is an action of denial to Christ and to Christianity”.
Capital punishment was ended in The Philippines in 2006, but under newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte, who has taken a very tough stance on crime, debate on its reintroduction has been renewed.
Georgetown University appoints first Hindu chaplain
There has been a warm welcome from the Hindu community in the US for the announcement that Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Catholic seat of learning, is to appoint the first Hindu priest chaplain in the country.
Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, praised Georgetown for the move as one “in a positive direction” and called for other colleges and universities to follow suit.
He said that places of learning need to recognise the intersection of spirituality and education, an important issue within Hinduism.
Religious leaders lobby on behalf of political prisoners in Sri Lanka
Religious leaders in Sri Lanka have joined in calling for the immediate release of Tamil political prisoners in the country.
Along with human rights activists and politicians, Catholic, Christian and Buddhist leaders staged a demonstration outside the main prison in the capital, Colombo, on August 8, in which they called on the government to free those arrested during the civil war on suspicion of having links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), often known simply as the Tamil Tigers. The civil conflict ended in 2009 with a decisive victory over the Tamils, and one mired in controversy over claims of human rights abuses by government troops against civilians caught up in the final battles. Today, some 150 political prisoners remain in detention.
“The political prisoners followed the orders and commands of the leaders of the LTTE. Today these leaders are out of prison but the innocent ones are held inside and without charge for many years,” Father Jayawardena Sherad pointed out. Calling for the government to work towards understanding why the Tamils took up arms in the first place, Fr Sherad said such an understanding would lead to the post-conflict reconciliation the government claims to pursue.