Suspect in Missionary Murder Arrested in India

THE IRISH TIMES, Feb. 1—The main suspect in the murder of an Australian missionary and his two young sons a year ago was arrested in the eastern Indian state of Orissa Feb.1, the Irish daily reported.

Police said Dara Singh, a radical Hindu activist, walked into their trap in the jungles near Gohirta village, 180 miles north of the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, a year after he burned to death Graham Staines, 58, and his sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, as they slept in their jeep after attending a Bible study meeting in a remote village.

Later, Singh reportedly burned alive a Muslim trader and murdered a Catholic priest in nearby districts. “I am glad that [Singh] has been arrested and is no longer free to kill other people,” said Gladys Staines, the missionary's widow.

The Times called the Staines killing “the most serious of dozens of [recent] attacks on Christians, their property and churches by Hindu fundamentalists linked to the federal coalition government of the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.”

The fanatics claim that missionaries forcibly convert poor Hindus to Christianity.

Relics Bring Filipino Prisoners to Tears

FOX News.Com, Feb. 3—The relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux were brought inside the Philippine national penitentiary Feb. 1, moving many death row inmates to tears as they prayed before the reliquary, the on-line news service reported.

The French saint's remains arrived Jan. 30 from Honolulu for a three-month tour of Asia's largest Catholic nation.

The prison chaplain, Father Roberto Olaguer, said St. Thérèse's remains were taken to the prison's maximum-security section where a Mass was celebrated with the help of a 40-member prisoners' choir. A small plane dropped rose petals from overhead.

Inmates formed a long line to touch a glass container protecting the saint's reliquary, bowing their heads in prayer, FOX reported.

The relics were later taken to the prison's death row and inmates inside were allowed to touch and pray before the reliquary in groups of three. Father Olaguer said “most of the death row inmates were crying quietly.”

Christians in the Holy Land Dying Out

THE BOSTON GLOBE, Feb. 7—The number of Christians now living in the Holy Land is dwindling and is in danger of extinction, the Boston daily reported. In the early 1900s Christians comprised 20% of the population of the Holy Land, but has dwindled to 2% as people have fled from violence and sought economic opportunities elsewhere, the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation told the Globe. The foundation is working to maintain a Christian presence in the land where Christianity began.