Congressman Andrews Urged to Apologize for Insult to Christians, Other Religious Americans « Campus Notes

The following excerpts are from The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) Blog "Campus Notes":

• September 25, 2012, leaders of more than 20 religious and other organizations, many of them engaged in the defense of religious freedom, sent a letter urging Congressman Robert Andrews (N.J.-1st) to apologize for making insensitive and insulting remarks at a Congressional hearing on First Amendment concerns two weeks ago.
• At the hearing on September 12th, Congressman Andrews complained that the issues being considered by two House Education and the Workforce subcommittees were not “compelling questions” that deserved a hearing. This included discussion of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) unconstitutional attempts to interfere with teaching faculty at religious colleges.
• Andrews offensively characterized the hearing as a “classic case of Nero fiddling while Rome burns,” prompting today’s letter, which describes the comment as “most unfortunate and a great insult to Christians”:

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Congressman Andrews Urged to Apologize for Insult to Christians, Other Religious Americans « Campus Notes

Pew: Religious Restrictions on the Rise « Campus Notes

The following excerpts are from The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) Blog "Campus Notes":

• The Pew Forum has released its annual report detailing the state of religious freedom in the United States. And the news isn’t good.
• The bad news is that The United States has been moved from Pew’s “low” to “moderate” category of restrictions on religious freedom.
• The worse news is that the report doesn’t even take into account the most recent year of activity from the federal government which includes the infringement of religious liberty that is the HHS Mandate.

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Pew: Religious Restrictions on the Rise « Campus Notes

Syria’s Suffering Christians Flood Neighboring Countries as Civil War Continues | Daily News | NCRegister.com

The following excerpts are from The National Catholic Register:

• Pope Benedict XVI’s mid-September visit to Lebanon reminded Christians in the turbulent Middle East that the Church has not forgotten them or the challenges they face.
• “I am not unaware of the often dramatic situation endured by the populations of this region, which has been torn for too long by incessant conflict,” Benedict said the week before the visit during his weekly Sunday address.
• Nowhere in the region are people suffering more right now than in Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been fighting rebel forces since April 2011, at the cost of thousands of lives.
• While in Lebanon, the Pope referred twice to the strife in Syria, which threatens to spill over into the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Israel, which captured the Golan Heights from Syria, is on high alert as well. “You know all too well the tragedy of the conflicts and the violence which generates so much suffering,” the Pope said Sept. 16 following an open-air Sunday Mass in Beirut attended by more than 350,000 people. He lamented that in Syria “the din of weapons” is now heard alongside “the cry of the widow and the orphan.”
• The war has created an enormous refugee crisis, according to the United Nations, which places the number of those who have left Syria at roughly 250,000 people. Although most have sought shelter in refugee camps or private homes in neighboring countries, some have traveled as far as Switzerland.

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Syria’s Suffering Christians Flood Neighboring Countries as Civil War Continues | Daily News | NCRegister.com

Christians in two Egyptian towns given ultimatum: leave or be killed : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• Christian families in two north Sinai towns found notices attached to their homes and businesses ordering them to leave or be killed.
• Pledging to remain, Father Gabriel Habib said that “even if we die, we are not better than the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their homeland and religion.”

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Christians in two Egyptian towns given ultimatum: leave or be killed : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Indonesia: Catholic school faces threat of closure if it doesn’t offer instruction in Islam : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• Civil authorities in central Java have threatened to close a Catholic school unless it begins to offer Islamic instruction to its Muslim students. Approximately 40 of the 1,400 students enrolled in St. Pius Catholic Schools in Tegal District are Muslims.

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Indonesia: Catholic school faces threat of closure if it doesn’t offer instruction in Islam : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Nigeria: suicide bombing targets Catholic cathedral : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• Three people were killed and 46 injured in a suicide bombing at the Catholic cathedral in Bauchi, a city of 500,000 in north-central Nigeria. Two policemen who had been guarding the cathedral in the largely Muslim city were among the injured.

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Nigeria: suicide bombing targets Catholic cathedral : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

‘Freedom cross’ campaign counters threatened lawsuit against city’s logo : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

‘Freedom cross’ campaign counters threatened lawsuit against city’s logo : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Tennessee diocese, other Catholic institutions file suit against HHS mandate : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• The Diocese of Nashville and seven area Catholic institutions have filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to prevent the implementation of the HHS mandate.
• “We believe that our Constitution and form of government [express] the right to religious freedom,” wrote Bishop David Choby. “Such a right is much deeper and of greater consequence than freedom to worship.”
• “We believe that the application of some provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act attack[s] this right,” he continued. “In seeking to force the Church to act or make provision to act against her moral principles, the government is asserting its interest over those appropriate and proper to the Church; and it is not competent to make such decisions or render judgments relative to moral principles long held and taught by any church, Catholic or otherwise.”

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Tennessee diocese, other Catholic institutions file suit against HHS mandate : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Aggressive secularism threatens Christians, Anglican bishop warns European court : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• A prominent Anglican prelate has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to protect Christians from militant secularists.
• Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said that secularists have advanced their own “human-rights agenda” that now threatens to become “another inhuman ideology” that suppresses religious groups.

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Aggressive secularism threatens Christians, Anglican bishop warns European court : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Church leaders decry vandalism, 'teaching of contempt' for Christians in Israel : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• Catholic leaders in the Holy Land have condemned an attack by vandals on a monastery outside Jerusalem, and protested that a “teaching of contempt” is encouraging hatred for Christians in Israel.
• A fire was set at the door of the abbey of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in Latrun, and anti-Christian slogans spray-painted on the outer walls, in the early hours of September 4. In a joint statement released the same day, Church leaders said that the incident was “only another in a long series of attacks against Christians and their places of worship."

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Church leaders decry vandalism, 'teaching of contempt' for Christians in Israel : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Orissa: 5,000 survivors mark anniversary of anti-Christian pogrom : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• An estimated 5,000 survivors, many with ribbons over their mouths, gathered in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa on August 30 to commemorate the fourth anniversary of attacks on Christians there.
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• The attacks left dozens dead and an estimated 50,000 homeless.

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Orissa: 5,000 survivors mark anniversary of anti-Christian pogrom : News Headlines - Catholic Culture