Catholic Leaders have welcomed the release of 21 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, and urged the Nigerian government to prioritise the release of the remaining girls.
Altogether 276 girls were kidnapped from a secondary school in Chibok in April 2014; 57 escaped the same day and one two years later.
The release of 21 girls on October 13 was part of a deal brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss and Nigerian governments.
Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, retired Archbishop of Lagos, said he had mixed feelings when he heard the news, because of the lengthy delay before their release and concerns about the girls’ welfare during their detainment.
“It is cheering news to the parents that they would be reunited with their abducted daughters,” he told US Catholic News Service.
Cardinal Okogie blamed the previous administration for not sanctioning the governor of the state under whose watch the incident happened. He also said the nation’s school system was becoming “a laughing stock” following kidnappings that occurred recently in two different schools in Lagos state.
Bishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Lafia told CNS that he was happy the girls were still alive.
“We pray that the remaining ones will be released very soon,” he said.
The bishop urged the government to arrange for counsellors and psychologists to help the young women become fully integrated back into society.
Leaders of the Bring BackOur Girls campaign said they would continue to work until all the girls were released.
Reformation statue insults Our Lady, say protesters
An image of the Virgin Mary in a museum in Estonia, designed to be desecrated to commemorate the Protestant Reformation, has provoked protests from religious and political leaders.
The exhibit in the recently opened National Museum of Estonia, in Tartu, is part of an exhibition on the Reformation to mark next year’s 500th anniversary. It shows a virtual image of Our Lady of Graces on a screen in a glass box. If visitors kick a marked spot on the plinth supporting the box, the image shatters into pieces and is replaced by the word “Reformation”.
The museum’s Facebook page says the exhibit is an “artistic representation of the theme of iconoclasm”.
Archbishop Urmas Viilma of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church said that the exhibit was “unacceptable”.
He wrote on Facebook: “Our Lady is not merely a statue or an idea, but a real saint who resides with God”.
“The Protestant Reformation was largely a political and economic movement, in addition to a religious schism. Our Lady was not part of that evil.”
Estonia has around 100,000 Lutherans and 4,500 Catholics.
Bibi blasphemy decision delayed
The appeal of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, has been postponed.
Justice Muhammad Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman, one of three judges, said he could not hear the case due to his involvement in a related case.
Mrs Bibi was accused of blasphemy after arguing with two Muslim women in her village in Punjab in 2009.
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