Jesuit priest calls for reconciliation in Aleppo On Wednesday last week a cease-fire agreement came into effect for the hard-fought Syrian city of Aleppo. But fighting resumed and sporadic acts of violence are still being carried out by the pro-Syrian forces against the civilian population.Jesuit Father Ziad Hilal, a Jesuit who [...]
IRAQ - Painful memories as displaced Christians revisit Qaraqosh In the weeks after Iraqi forces recaptured Qaraqosh, near Mosul, some displaced Iraqi Christians have returned to their former villages to see what is left of their homes and churches. Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to the first century AD. The minority [...]
Pope meets with President of Malta The president of the Republic of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, had an audience with Pope Francis last Saturday.According to a statement released by the Holy See Press Office, the discussions were cordial, evoking the good relations between the Holy See and Malta, and “focusing in [...]
AUSTRIA - Mgr Camilleri speaks at conference on discrimination against Christians Maltese cleric Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, Vatican Undersecretary for Relations With States, spoke at the OSCE/ODIHR Conference on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, held recently in Vienna. Mgr Camilleri was born in Sliema, Malta in 1965. He attended St. Joseph's School, Sliema, [...]
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PHILIPPINES Manila churches could cancel services over terrorism threatFilipino cardinal Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato has condemned as an act of “terrorism” a bomb explosion outside a Catholic church in the southern Philippines which injured three people. The attack took place as Mass-goers were leaving Our Lady of Hope Church [...]
Aleppo update – eye witness account of shelling of Jesuit centre in Aleppo "What more can I say? Sometimes, in the face of disaster, people think that God should not have allowed it to happen. But we who live with death – avoidably, for we could avoid it by moving out [...]
MEXICOReligious Right begins to assert itself in secular society The religious right is rising as a political force in Mexico, where the church has been relegated to the sidelines of public life for decades. Conservative Catholics and other Christian groups now attempting to influence the National Congress and mobilize the masses.The [...]
IRAQ“We are still afraid” During a visit to the international headquarters of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the Syrian Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Yohanna Petros Mouche, deplored the fact that Christians were still afraid of returning to their villages, despite the liberation of the Nineveh plains. [...]
INDONESIAChristians in Aceh have to pray in the forest A year ago six churches in Aceh province of Indonesia were destroyed by mobs at the behest of Islamic extremists. Mobs incited by hardline preachers demanded all unregistered churches be destroyed and attacked several, burning them to the ground. Eleven churches in [...]