austraLasia #2093

Salesians in Lahore sharing the agony of the people

LAHORE: 12th March 2008 -- The Salesians living and working in Lahore have been in touch - firstly to tell their Provincial and their Regional that they are OK, and then to comment to austraLasia that they are sharing in the situation of fear created by recent violence in which at least 24 people were killed and more than 100 injured.  Lahore has been the scene of three bomb attacks in recent months.
    As is well known from the general media reports, the target of the most recent attack appears to have been a security agency building, but 'collateral damage' included the Cathedral, the Caritas building and the St Paul's bookstore-library. Added to this and perhaps not as widely known, was the attack on a Sister in a convent just minutes away from our community.  In fact, in a contact just a few minutes ago, our confrère in charge there indicated that he has the boys now guarding the convent.  The attack on the Sister was nearly fatal - her throat was cut but some prompt action saved her life.
    Amidst all this chaos, the community and its work tries to keep some semblance of normal activity in place.  The boys go home for vacation on Friday and that will relieve the pressure a bit.  When the bomb blast occurred, one of them was but a few minutes away from the location attending tuition.  He came away unscathed.  Since local communications have been interrupted, the Nuncio requested one of our men to help out in contacting the Bishop and to in fact help out in clearing rubble from the partly destroyed Church buildings.
    Perhaps in a few days time, when there is a little more perspective on all of this, we will be able to run another article which puts a few elements together, just to help readers gain a better picture of it all.
    Not quite as much agony going on at the Pisana (!), though one has to say that the most recent session, which involved the reporting of Commissions' work on the second core topic (Nucleo, as they call it in Italian) has raised the spectre of a rather large eventual document!  Mind you, that's an alarmist perspective and common sense will eventually prevail.  This is quite a personal comment so must be taken that way, but it seems to this observer that while Commissions have a kind of free reign to pick at the existing base document, there is a tendency to be saying things like "this section is rather ample in extent and needs to be cut back a little" while on the other, then adding "but we found such-and-such missing and are hereby adding another couple of dot points".  In the end something's gotta give!  It will - the editorial commission has a tough job but it's got some good men, including the redoubtable Fr Elio Capra AUL!
  _________________
 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2008 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2093
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces FIS Pakistan bomb blasts
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2093