A Roman Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in eastern Turkey on Thursday, a day before he had planned to travel to Cyprus for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

The bishop, Luigi Padovese, 62, the apostolic vicar of Anatolia, or the Vatican’s representative to eastern Turkey, was found dead outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun, officials said. The police arrested his driver, who officials said had psychological problems.

The officials said the killing was not believed to be politically or religiously motivated. It nevertheless raised tensions between the Vatican and Turkey ahead of the pope’s visit to Cyprus, where he was expected to discuss the challenges facing Christians as religious minorities in the Middle East.

“We have no reason to believe that the homicide had a political motivation, but an investigation will determine that,” Alessandro Azzoni, the second in command of Italy’s embassy to Turkey, said in a telephone interview. A Franciscan friar, Bishop Padovese had been outspoken about the challenges facing Christians in Turkey and had urged dialogue.

In Turkey, Christians represent less than 1 percent of the population of 70 million. In recent years, several priests have been attacked in Turkey; one was shot to death in 2006 amid widespread Muslim anger over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican was “deeply saddened” by Bishop Padovese’s death. He said that the Vatican understood that the killing did not have a “political” motivation, but that the assailant was a man of Kurdish origin who had worked as a driver for the bishop and of late had shown signs of “unbalance” and “depression.”

“His motives weren’t political,” Father Lombardi told Italian national television. The Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing dismay at the death and calling Bishop Padovese “a friend of Turkey.”

The suspect’s full name and age were not immediately known, but Archbishop Antonio Lucibello, the Vatican’s nunzio, or ambassador to Turkey, said the man was called Murat and had confessed to the crime.

Reached at his office in Ankara, Archbishop Lucibello said that Bishop Padovese had been close with his driver. “The bishop treated him almost like a son,” he said. He said the driver, who was a Muslim, had always seemed “devoted” to the bishop, while the bishop had shown “great attention and preoccupation” to the man’s depression. Archbishop Lucibello described Bishop Padovese’s relationship with the driver as “the same relationship he had with everyone: he was a very sensitive man, very attentive, very kind.”

The driver had accompanied Bishop Padovese on several visits to Rome, sometimes driving him from Turkey to Rome by car “for practical reasons,” like carrying books, Archbishop Lucibello said. The two had come to dinner together in Rome at the residence of the Turkish ambassador to the Holy See in recent weeks, according to a person at the Turkish Embassy to the Holy See who requested anonymity, citing embassy practice.

The apostolic vicar in Anatolia since 2004, Bishop Padovese was a scholar of the history of the church fathers. He was interested in efforts “to resuscitate the roots of Christianity, which spread to Europe from Asia Minor,” Archbishop Lucibello said. In recent years, he had been working with the Turkish authorities to try to make it easier for Christian pilgrims to visit Tarsus, the ancient home of the Apostle Paul, the person at the Turkish Embassy to the Holy See said.

Bishop Padovese had been expected to travel to Cyprus for the visit of Benedict, who on Sunday was expected to deliver the working paper for a monthlong meeting of bishops in Rome this fall to discuss the Middle East.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/world/europe/04bishop.html?pagewanted=print

Goals & Objectives: Per Dr. K’s suggestion, we aimed to do discipleship teaching with young believers/seekers in these 2 towns where Dr. K frequents. He has been doing medical ministry, EV and gathering in both places for 5 or more years, though he admits that he is not a pastor/teacher. Because we have experience teaching the bible, he asked us to prepare some lessons and teach from the scriptures every night. We arrived not really knowing exactly what we were going to find. Dr. K was going to come with us, but he was not able to come at the last minute.

Town 1: Dr. K prepared his people well. In both locations, they arranged a dinner and a meeting at someone’s house for every night we were there. The first night in Town 1, we took it easy and just got to know everyone for the first two hours. Okan, who seems to be a leader of the group finally said, “Dr. K told us that there was a very talented teacher in your group and so we are ready to here some teaching now.

The next night, we arrived more prepared. Most of us shared verses from the bible, Jimmy taught a lesson, and Ergun (An experienced Turkish believer) performed beautifully as a translator/cultural filter, even adding his own thoughts and examples to several of the topics. Ergun and I agreed that most of these people really seemed like dedicated believers (They shared several stories of persecution including not being able to meet much more without the police coming, and most had paid a price w/ family, friends, or jobs) so we decided to go ahead and do the Lord’s supper that night.

Town 2: The first night we were packed into a hot living room of about 30 people. Praise God that that many people came knowing that we were going to teach from the Bible. I did a creation to Christ presentation and Rod shared some. We opened it up for questions and they had many. We answered questions like why did Jesus have to die for sins to be forgiven? Banu asked questions about miracles she had read about herself in the gospels. The next night, w/ fewer people, we watched the entire J film and answered questions about until 12.30 am. The last night there were probably 30 people again. We shared 4 passages that Dr. K had emailed us. I had Ergun just go ahead and do it himself. I translated most of the evening to our American guests. Everyone seemed to listen intently. After those 4 passages, they began to ask questions. How did the virgin birth happen? What is the old covenant and the new covenant? We answered these questions with chapter of scripture. We ended the night early (10.00), but you got the feeling that we could have kept on fielding questions and answering them from the scripture. The tone of the meetings was unlike anything I have seen here w/ non-believers. Was it cause they are of a different M-slim sect? Or they were respecting us because we are friends w/ Kemal? Or is God really doing something in their hearts? I think (and hope) it’s the last one.

During the days, we visited people’s homes from the group who invited us for tea (most ended up being full meals). We prayed in every home and shared at least one bible story (sometimes more) with each host. Banu, 24 yr old girl, seemed one of the most interested. She teared up when we described what forgiveness is in light of Christ’s sacrifice. We gave her a bible as she had had one in Istanbul but didn’t have one here.

Praise God

The damage appeared worst in the village of Okçular, which was almost razed. At least 15 of the village’s 900 residents were killed, Elazığ’s governor’s office said Monday, and the air was thick with dust from crumpled homes and barns.

The pre-dawn earthquake caught many residents in their sleep, shaking the area’s poorly made buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into the narrow streets of this village perched on a hill in front of snow-covered mountains, with some people climbing out of windows to escape.

Read full article here.

A Turkish teenager found dead in a hole next to her house was probably buried alive, a post-mortem examination has revealed.

Medine Memi, 16, was found in the hole in December. Large amounts of soil were in her lungs and stomach, according to a source who has seen the report.

Her father and grandfather have been arrested, but not charged.

So-called “honour killings” take place every year in Turkey despite government moves to stamp out the practice.

Two months after police found Medine’s body buried in the garden of her family home, a team of doctors at a university in Malatya has completed the post-mortem examination.

According to a source who has seen their report, there was only minor bruising on her body, and no evidence of her being drugged.

Concrete covered

Her hands had been tied behind her back, and they discovered large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach.

The autopsy has concluded that she was almost certainly buried alive.

The police went to her home after a neighbour reported that Medine had not been seen for a month.

They found her body in a hole, newly covered with concrete, next to the hen-house.

A local organisation that campaigns against honour killings said the victim, one of 10 children, had gone three times to the police to complain that she was being beaten, but she was sent back to her family each time.

A member of the organisation visited Medine’s mother a few days after her body was found, but she was too distraught to give them much information.

Conservative community

Medine, who had never been to school, lived in Kahta, a town in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey, where most honour killings have taken place.

The town is known for being very conservative and religious; it is a stronghold of the once powerful Naksibendi Islamic sect, which was banned by modern Turkey’s founding father Ataturk in 1925 but has revived in recent years.

But while it is true that most such killings are carried out in conservative Muslim communities, the practice is linked more to the customs of this region of Turkey, than to religious belief.

When girls or women are deemed to have stained the family honour, by behaviour as innocent as simply talking to boys, there is strong peer pressure from the community on the male members of the family to restore their honour, say groups working on the issue in the south-east.

The only way allowed by their code is to kill the girl or woman – usually a young man is given the task after a family council meeting, and the method and location of the killing are discussed in detail.

Emotional state

Afterwards, the family will try to pretend she never existed.

The government has tried to curb the practice by changing the guidance given to judges.

In the case of honour killings they are no longer allowed to use mitigating factors like the accused’s emotional state to reduce sentences.

But this has so far had a limited impact.

According the statistics from the prime minister’s office, there were 16 honour killings in Medine’s province of Adiyaman between 2003 and 2007.

NGOs say the official figures are almost certainly too low.

Last year a Turkish man was sentenced to life imprisonment in London for the murder of his 15-year-old daughter a decade earlier. Her body has never been found.

Full article can be found here.

Watch the Twitter feed as we will be posting pics and prayer requests in real time while we are out on the road starting this Wednesday.

- 1/2 page bulletin insert with some in-depth information about the Zazas

- Full page prayer calendar with 31 days of strategic prayer requests

- Children’s bookmark with seven days of prayer requests

- Adult bookmark with seven days of prayer requests