Pupils at Cardinal Newman High School have created Scotland's biggest and most colourful Rosary to help Mission Matters Scotland launch its Year of Faith Mission Rosary campaign.

The colourful, giant, five-decade Rosary, around four feet in diameter, has beads the size of tennis balls and a crucifix two feet high. It was made by staff and pupils at the North Lanarkshire secondary school as a large-scale copy of over 100,000, normal- size Mission Rosaries being sent out by Mission Matters Scotland to parishes and Catholic schools, to reintroduce the rosary as a form of daily prayer across the country. The Rosaries are accompanied with easy-to -follow instruction cards for both adults and school pupils and represent Scotland's contribution to a world-wide campaign of prayer organised by Pontifical Mission Societies and centred on the Mission Rosary.

Father Tom Welsh, director of Coatbridge-based Mission Matters Scotland, which sends money collected in this country to Rome for distribution to missions across the world, said: "The Mission Rosary, which has different coloured decades, representing each of the five continents of the world, is an ideal way to raise the prayer life of Scotland and to remind people of the importance of the missions. In this Year of Faith, when the Catholic Church is reaching out through its new evangelisation, it's a simple and ideal way of re-introducing the Rosary to Scotland at a time when the country and the world need prayer, and the benefits it brings, both at home and on the missions, as never before."

The campaign has the backing of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia President of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland. He said: "This new Rosary Campaign encourages families and schools to rediscover the great prayer of the Rosary, and opens minds and hearts to the work of missionaries overseas. The Bishops are delighted to support it as a real fruit of the Year of Faith."

More than 100 representatives from 16 Asian countries attended the 4th Conference of Muslim-Christian Religious Leaders of Asia in Jakarta with "Bringing Common Word to Common Action" as the theme. In order to bring common word to common action, we must overcome and solve many problems -- religious, political and social," said Hasyim Muzadi, secretary-general of the International Conference of Islamic Scholars (ICIS).

The ICIS, the Indonesian Bishops' Conference and the Communion of Churches in Indonesia organized the program, with the support of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) and Christian Conference of Asia. Archbishop Fernando R. Capalla said injustice, disharmony and disorder in the region can be traced back to the absence of love in neighborhoods and communities. "From the side of FABC, we believe that such situation can be restored if we follow the teaching of the Holy Bible and the Holy Qu'ran, which is to love God and to love thy neighbor. Justice is an expression of the love of God and the love of neighbor," he said. Read more. 

AFJN 30th Anniversary