A German Sister known as the Mother Teresa of Pakistan has died aged 87.
Sister Ruth Katharina Martha Pfau, a member of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, devoted her life to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan.
Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, president of the bishops’ conference, said she would be given a state funeral.
“Sister Ruth was a model of total dedication. She inspired and mobilised all sections of society to join the fight against leprosy, irrespective of creed or ethnic identity,” he said.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Sr Ruth would be remembered “for her courage, her loyalty, her service to the eradication of leprosy, and most of all, her patriotism”. She “may have been born in Germany [but] her heart was always in Pakistan,” he said.
Born in Leipzig in 1929, Sr Ruth went to France to study medicine and later joined the Society of Daughters of the Heart of Mary. Archbishop Coutts said she arrived in Karachi in 1960 owing to visa problems en route to India, and was touched by what she saw at the leprosy colony in the city. Two years later she founded the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi, Pakistan’s first hospital dedicated to treating Hansen’s disease, and later set up branches in all provinces of Pakistan. She spent the rest of her life in the country and was granted Pakistani citizenship.
In 1996, the World Health Organisation declared Pakistan one of the first countries in Asia to be free of Hansen’s disease. The Dawn daily reported in 2016 that the number of those under treatment fell to 531 from more than 19,000 in the 1980s.
The bishops’ commission for justice and peace called Sister Ruth a “national hero of Pakistan”. It said her services for humanity “were nothing less than a pure manifestation of God’s divine love”.
Vatican investigates bishop after dozens of priests resign
The Vatican has appointed an apostolic visitor to investigate claims by Indonesian priests that their bishop had a mistress and misappropriated Church funds.
Bishop Antonius Subianto Bunyamin of Bandung, told ucanews.com that the Vatican had asked him to look into accusations against Bishop Hubertus Leteng of Ruteng.
Bishop Bunyamin, general secretary of the Indonesian bishops’ conference, was scheduled to visit Ruteng diocese this week, according to ucanews.com.
The conflict erupted in June when 69 diocesan priests submitted letters of resignation demanding that Bishop Leteng change how the diocese is run.
The move followed allegations that the bishop secretly borrowed £94,000 from the bishops’ conference and £30,000 from the diocese without accounting for how the money was spent.
The bishop told priests the money was used to finance the education of a poor youth studying to be a pilot in the United States. The priests said they suspected the money was used for the bishop’s personal purposes. Bishop Leteng has denied the charge, calling it “slanderous”.
Hate crime complaint dismissed
The Spanish state prosecutor has dismissed a hate crime complaint against the Archbishop of Granada after a gay rights group claimed that a homily he gave in February was “transphobic”.
The Observatory Against LGBT-phobia complained that Archbishop Francisco Javier Martínez “promoted hate”. In a homily he had said there was a “pathology” behind the teaching of gender theory in schools. “We are equal in dignity, but not interchangeable,” he said.
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