Various media reports suggest that the ongoing crisis in Central African Republic (CAR) is caused by a Muslim-Christian conflict or even Islamist efforts to subdue Christians. That is not the case, said one of the country’s prominent Catholic leaders. The ongoing bloodshed, said Bishop Nestor Nongo-Aziagba of Bossangoa, president of [...]

WHAT REMAINS OF CHRISTIANITY IN IRAQ FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ISIS INVASION? On August 6, 2014, IS units razed and conquered the Christian settlements of the Nineveh Plain, north of Mosul. Some 120,000 Christians had to flee overnight. Many of them found refuge around the Kurdish city of Erbil. For [...]

The Catholic Church in Pakistan is important for the country, says Reinhard Backes. He recently visited Pakistan for the fourth time as permanent section leader of the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), in order to inform himself about the situation of the Christians and the projects [...]

Fr. Frans van der Lugt was killed in Homs five years ago. Since then, every day, Christians and Muslims have visited the garden of the Jesuit residence to pray at his tomb. Fr. Frans – in Arabic Abuna Francis – was a Jesuit priest originally from the Netherlands. He died in Homs, [...]

MARTYRDOM Msgr. George Frendo O.P. DEFINITION OF MARTYRDOM Thomas Aquinas developed a very interesting theological viewpoint on martyrdom in his Summa Theologiae[1]. He considers martyrdom as “the shedding of one’s blood for Christ’s sake”[2] and “the right endurance of sufferings unjustly inflicted”[3]. These affirmations imply that these unjust sufferings are [...]

Pope Francis is “profoundly concerned” for the humanitarian situation in Syria. The Pope stressed this in a letter that was hand-delivered to Syrian President, Basher Hazef Al-Assad, on July 22, by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Cardinal Turkson was in Damascus [...]