ICHA Board Members 2021

Catholic News

• Australian priest acknowledges stealing $500,000 from parish (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
  Criminal charges against Father Joseph Walsh were dropped in 2020, but the Perth priest, who had previously asserted his innocence, has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to reimburse his former parish in a civil settlement.
• In Bangladesh, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians say no to Islam as state religion (AsiaNews)
  On June 9, 1988, Islam became the state religion of Bangladesh, and a protest took place on the law’s anniversary. The South Asian nation of 163 million (map) is 89% Muslim and 9% Hindu; Pope Francis made an apostolic journey there in 2017.
• EU human rights court criticizes Lithuanian lawmakers for considering bishops' statement during deliberations (European Court of Human Rights)
  The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Lithuania’s Seimas (parliament) violated a human rights treaty when it refused to grant official recognition to a pagan group. The nation’s bishops have not objected to government recognition of Protestant bodies, but did object to the recognition of the pagan group. “Nor does it escape the Court’s […]
• Baptism violates children's rights, former Irish president says (The Independent)
  Mary McAleese, Ireland’s president from 1997 to 2011, said in a lecture at Oxford that “it is difficult, arguably impossible, to sustain any longer the proposition that the 37,000 babies who are baptized every single day into the Catholic Church have, as a consequence of that christening, made promises which bind them to serious lifelong […]