There are poignant online reports about another religious and legal angle of the story of the executions in Indonesia.
Here is the essential question: Were these three Catholics denied opportunities for a final chance to say confession and take Holy Communion before they were shot by a firing squad?
According to an early report in Asia News in Italy, their spiritual director was able to meet with them for confession the day before they died.
However, the lede on the Indian Catholic story bluntly states:
After their last request for the sacrament of reconciliation was refused, three Catholics who had been convicted of anti-Muslim violence were executed early today near Palu, the capital of Sulawesi province in Indonesia.
Catholic World News has basically the same story. As it turns out, this is based on another Asia News report with many, many more details:
Authorities in Indonesia denied three Catholic men the right to attend Mass on the day before their execution, which was carried out on just after midnight on September 22, the AsiaNews service reports.
Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva were scheduled to face a firing squad on early in the morning of September 21, but their execution was postponed for a day, without any official explanation. Prison officials refused to allow a priest to hear the men’s confessions and celebrate Mass for them one last time on Thursday.
The officials’ decision — along with an accompanying decision that the bodies of the three men cannot lie in state in the Paul cathedral— appears to violate Indonesian law, which stipulates that a prisoner’s last wishes should be granted before execution.
It does appear that the delay in the executions was a key element in this decision. However, try to imagine the MSM coverage — outraged coverage that would be completely valid, by the way — if a Western government denied Muslim prisoners an essential element of their faith in the hours before their executions. The basic Associated Press report in today’s newspapers contains many details about the aftermath of the executions, but does not address the issue of the final denied Mass.
Has anyone seen this detail in the coverage offered by American newspapers and television broadcasts?
Big tip of the GetReligion hat to reader Parick Redmon for alerting me to this issue.
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Comments (8) |
September 23, 2006, at 11:30 am
Very, very sad. I was especially struck by this bit:
The Bali bombers were scheduled to have been executed last month, but the executions were postponed. They will not happen for at least a month, until after Ramadan, which begins Sunday.
One gets the feeling that the Christians had to be executed quickly, because otherwise true justice and international opinion might have prevailed during the intervening month of Ramadan, and they might have had to commute the executions.
September 23, 2006, at 12:07 pm
The Boston Globe yesterday printed a small, presumably very edited version of the AP wire story deep inside the paper. After reading what little they printed one could easily conclude that the executed men were getting what they deserved after a legitimate trial and that only the pope was seriously concerned because they were fellow Catholics.
Unmentioned were a few details I found on internet sites:
Amnesty International determined the trial did not “meet international standards of fairness.” In particular the court may have ignored defense witness testimony in its verdict. Amnesty International also expressed concern that mobs outside the courthouse demanding a conviction may have affected the outcome of the trial.
Appeals came, not only from the pope, but also from U.S. senators, the European Union, Jubilee and Amnesty International.
September 23, 2006, at 12:13 pm
Deacon:
Please write a calm letter to the Globe noting all of that.
Post it here, too.
September 23, 2006, at 5:40 pm
tmatt—I already did and it was pretty much what I posted here and in the same manner and format. The Lynn Item (my local city daily newspaper) and the Boston Herald have already printed letters I wrote pointing out how little mainstream media coverage the murder of the Italian nun got. The letters were calm (I know sometimes I’m not when an injustice gets under my skin) as was the letter I sent to the Globe.
September 23, 2006, at 11:06 pm
I don’t know, I’m not sure the lack of media outrage is because of some Christian vs. Muslim double standard or because Americans don’t have high expectations of justice from non-Western nations. I think the correct comparison would be media reaction to Christians being denied a final mass in Indonesia and Muslims being denied some final religious wish in, say, Peru.
September 24, 2006, at 2:34 am
tmatt -
OT but something you might like to follow up - it seems that in New Zealand the Exclusive Brethren have been spying on government ministers using a private detective; last year they secretly funded the opposition in the election.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10402664
September 25, 2006, at 6:21 pm
The account about their being denied Mass did appear in the Washington Times. I added to the AP story some reporting I did here in Washington.
September 27, 2006, at 6:14 pm
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