Week Commencing 31st May 2021

6th June

Following the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at Kamloops Indian Residential School, Aljazeera reports that Pope Francis has expressed pain but has not offered the apology sought by survivors of the system that a commission of enquiry said amounted to “cultural genocide”.

5th June

From Religion News Service: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is “deeply disappointed” that the Roman Catholic Church has not issued an apology and made amends for its involvement with Canada’s former system of church-run Indigenous boarding schools following the discovery of the remains of 215 children on the grounds of what was formerly the largest of these institutions.

4th June

In The Guardian: United Nations human rights experts urge the Canadian government to conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the discovery of the unmarked graves 215 Indigenous children at the Kamloops Indian Residential Schools.

The Guardian reports: Orthodox Jewish women are protesting their husbands’ refusals to give them a ‘get’. A ‘get’ is a document given by Orthodox men to their wives to seal a divorce in accordance with religious law, if this document is not provided then the wife remains chained to her former marriage.

The Guardian reports: Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of Germany’s most senior Catholics has offered his resignation to the pope over the “catastrophe” of sexual abuse by clerics and other church members. Marx said the church had reached a “dead end’ and his resignation was a way of helping to indicate the possibility of a new start.

From The Guardian, the corporate regulator has launched an investigation into and investment fund run by the collapsed Presbyterian Church of Queensland that took $26m from investors, including church employees and clergy.

3rd June

Religion News Service reports that Calvin University’s first openly gay student body president, Claire Murashima, has paved a path forward for the landmark Christian University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In the Guardian: A Pakistani court has ordered the release of a Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy for sending a text message insulting the prophet Muhammad in 2014.

1st June

The BBC reports that a Presbyterian minister in County Antrim is to step down over the Church’s decision to deny same-sex couples full membership. Rev Ian Carton says, ‘I just cant live with it’.