Published in The Star 24 March 2013 (Sunday) It was girl power as females dominated the competition in the ninth Datuk CQ Teo Debate Challenge at KDU University College recently. The two all-girl teams from Tunku Kurshiah College (TKC) and SMK Assunta, Petaling Jaya, beat their peers in the semi-finals and went head to head in the finals on the topic — this house believes that the people and not the cardinals should elect the pope — with TKC emerging champs. The team from TKC consisted of Marina Mohd Hamdan, 16, Ira Zalis Ismail, 17, and Ilmira Murni Mohd Hareeff, 17. Urging all religions to work together for peace and justice, Pope Francis meets religious leaders from around the world, including non-Catholic Christians, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist delegations, at the Vatican a day after his inaugural Mass.
A new investigation by Global Witness reveals the systemic corruption and illegality at the heart of government in Sarawak, Malaysia's largest state. This film, shot undercover during the investigation, reveals for the first time the instruments used by members of the ruling Taib family and its local lawyers to skirt Malaysia's laws and taxes, creaming off huge profits at the expense of indigenous people and hiding their dirty money in Singapore.
Many years ago, when I was just a 16 year-old teenager, a Christian minister gave me a verse from Scripture which I had carried with me until today and which I continue embracing as the essence of the humble ministry entrusted to me as a deacon of the Church, a minister of the Gospel. The words he wrote for me were the words of the very apostle I had come to admire, whose letters I would read over and over again as a teenager, St Paul: "I do not place any value on my own life, provided that I complete the mission the Lord Jesus gave me - to bear witness to the good news of God's grace." (Acts 20.24) Second Sunday of Lent Year C One of the types of places I love visiting for a holiday are mountains. I love driving up mountains (not climbing them!), firstly because I love cold temperatures. The other reason I love being on mountains is that the sheer height gives me a sense of transcendence. Whatever the stress I may be experiencing at a particular point of my life journey, being on a mountain gives me a sense that I am able to transcend all these stresses life has brought me. The transfiguration event seems to point to a similar kind of experience that the disciples went through when they ascended the mountain with Jesus. First Sunday of Lent Year C For some of us who have a deep love and affection for the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, our Lent this year might have begun rather prematurely. I remember the evening five days ago when the news was released, I was having a short nap and was awoken by a series of successive text messages on my phone from people enquiring if it was true that Pope Benedict XVI was going to abdicate the Chair of St Peter. After all, this was an unprecedented decision in the past 700 years of the Church, and none of us alive today has ever lived to see a Pope resign. Until now. I have sometimes wondered to myself if I have truly become Catholic at heart, at an affective level, not just at an intellectual level. Until now. In April 2005, when Pope John Paul II passed away, I felt like my neighbour's father had passed away. It came with a subtle tinge of melancholy, but not a very heavy heart. I felt, well, sorry at the grief expressed by many Catholic faithful throughout the world, but I shed no tear. The one who had passed away was a very, very good man. But he was "someone else". |
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