Human Rights Leaders Plead With Obama to Stop 'Nazi' Campaign Against Christians

A woman mourns with the framed picture of a man said to be among the 30 Ethiopian victims killed by members of the militant Islamic State in Libya, in the capital Addis Ababa, April 21, 2015. Ethiopia said on Monday that the 30 Christians shown being shot and beheaded in Libya on a video purportedly made by Islamic State were its citizens (REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri).

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

WASHINGTON -- After viewing the video that was released April 19, showing the murder of two groups of Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State terrorists, Jewish and Christian human rights groups have issued a joint statement calling on President Obama to intervene with force to stop the ongoing extermination of Christians in the Middle East.

In a gruesome repeat of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in February, masked IS militants marched 15 Ethiopian Christians along Libya’s shore of the Mediterranean Sea and beheaded them. Another group of 15 was shot in another murderous act in an area of Libyan shrub land.

Open Doors USA, a global advocacy group for the persecuted, was joined by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization, in condemning the killings and calling for the United States to intervene.

In a joint statement, the groups claimed to have alerted Western governments for months “that a religious genocide of Christians was taking place” with little response, and took particular aim at President Obama for his lack of action.

“While we welcome the White House acknowledgment that these victims were targeted because of their faith, much more needs to be done,” wrote David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, along with colleague Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, who serves with him as director of interfaith issues.

They chided the president to fully acknowledge the “religious extremism” and “theologically fueled hatred” that is at the heart of Islamic State terrorism. Likewise, they called on him to lead NATO to “forge an action plan” to protect Christians in the Middle East.

“We must not stand idly by and watch as thousands of Christians are murdered for their faith,” they said.

Calling the Islamic persecution of Christians a type of “Nazi ideology” that unabated “will continue to infect the hearts and minds of the ever-growing number of youth around the world,” they said, “The time to act is now.”

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Human Rights Leaders Plead With Obama to Stop 'Nazi' Campaign Against Christians

Elderly nun gang raped trying to stop robbery in India, police say | Fox News

March 14, 2015: Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the gang rape of a nun in her 70s by a group of bandits when she tried to prevent them from robbing the Christian missionary school in Begopara, (AP)

The following excerpts are from FoxNews.com:

KOLKATA, India – A nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of bandits Saturday when she tried to prevent them from robbing a Christian missionary school in eastern India, police said, the latest crime to focus attention on the scourge of sexual violence in the country.

The nun was hospitalized in serious condition after being attacked by seven or eight men at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Nadia district, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the West Bengal state capital of Kolkata, a police officer said.

The men escaped and police are searching for them, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

The robbers tied the school's security guards with ropes early Saturday and entered the nuns' room, where the women were sleeping. They took one of the nuns to another room when she tried to block their way and then raped her, the officer said.

The woman who was attacked is either 71 or 72 and is the oldest nun at the school, he said.

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Elderly nun gang raped trying to stop robbery in India, police say | Fox News

From Exodus to Exodus, Iraqi Christians Seek New Home

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(AFP) -- Threats by jihadists have sent a fresh wave of Christians fleeing their Iraqi homeland, bustling from exodus to exodus in search of a safe haven to rebuild their lives.

Raja Marzina, who has taken refuge in Jordan with her husband and their five children, never imagined she would one day have to leave Iraq for good.

"But we had no choice; we had to flee to save our lives and our religion," she said.

Like dozens of others who fled the orgy of violence unleashed by Islamic State (IS) jihadists this summer, Marzina goes to the Syriac Catholics Virgin Mary church in Amman for prayers and to discuss the latest events back home.

IS militants between June and August seized Mosul, Iraq's second city that was home to a sizeable Christian community, and Qaraqosh, the country's largest Christian town.

Jordan is the transit point for Iraqis waiting to emigrate to North America or Europe, after a stopover in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

"Around 70 percent of the Christians of Iraq have left their country over the past 20 years because of its successive wars and conflicts," said Wael Suleiman, the Jordan director of the Catholic relief organisation Caritas.

It was estimated their were one million Iraqi Christians before the wave of emigration began, with Baghdad once home to 600,000 of them.

The number of Christians in Iraq has been declining ever since the 2003 US-led invasion and the insurgencies that followed.

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From Exodus to Exodus, Iraqi Christians Seek New Home

LIBYA - PHILIPPINES Tripoli priest calls for the repatriation of Filipino workers whose lives are risk - Asia News

The following excerpts are from AsiaNews.it:

Tripoli (AsiaNews/CBCP) - The Catholic Church in Libya "is doing everything possible" to help Filipino workers return home safe and sound, said Fr Amado Baranquel, parish priest at Tripoli's Mary Immaculate Church. Hence, the Filipino government should "rescue them via the sea" since armed clashes between Libyan government forces and the rebel groups have made land travel "too unsafe".

About 13,000 Filipinos live in Libya. Although they are welcome in the country, they have also been affected by the Islamist advance. A 50-year-old man who worked for a construction company was kidnapped and beheaded in Benghazi on 23 July because he was not Muslim.

"Violence and rapes against foreigners are happening every day," Fr Baranquel explained.In fact, two orders of nuns have repatriated their members to Italy, he said. "It is too risky for them to stay here."

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LIBYA - PHILIPPINES Tripoli priest calls for the repatriation of Filipino workers whose lives are risk - Asia News

Christian Groups to Rally for Protection in Iraq

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Across the ancient cities and villages of Iraq, an "N" word also is used out of hate.

Members of the extremist group known as ISIS spray paint the letter "N" in blazing red on the homes of those they deem different. Scrawled in Arabic and pronounced "noon," the N stands for Nazarene, or follower of Christ, and to an outsider, it may look like a happy face.

But ISIS uses it as a mark of death. It warns Christian families who live in those homes to convert to Islam, pay a hefty tax, or prepare to die.

"There is a Christian genocide happening in Northern Iraq and no one is doing anything about it" said Delilah George, a 31-year-old Assyrian woman and Valley Village resident. "My people are experiencing unspeakable horror and grief at the hands of these radicals."

Since the takeover in June of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS has targeted the Christian population, whose faith has been present for almost 2,000 years. In the last two weeks, Assyrians were forced to leave their ancestral homeland under the threat of death. Many have been beaten, robbed and brutalized, or killed along the way as they search for a safe haven.

The sadness, frustration with the lack of public awareness and even anger has prompted George and countless Assyrians to hold a rally Saturday at the Federal Building in Los Angeles. Dubbed "Demand for Action," the Los Angeles event is one of nearly 40 worldwide to be held also on Saturday across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

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Christian Groups to Rally for Protection in Iraq

Five Killed in Bombing of Catholic Church in Nigeria

The following excerpts are from ChristianPost.com:

At least five people were killed and eight others injured in a bomb attack on a Catholic church in Nigeria's northern city of Kano on Sunday. The bombing was blamed on the Islamist terror group Boko Haram.

The Saint Charles Catholic church, which is situated in Kano's Sabon Gari (foreign quarter) area, a mainly Christian area, was attacked shortly after the end of Sunday mass, police spokesman Frank Mba told Agence France Presse.

"We suspect an IED (improvised explosive device) that was thrown from across the road," the spokesman said.

In a separate incident in Kano city on Sunday, police prevented a woman from carrying out an attack outside a university, following which she blew herself up. Five police officials were injured while isolating her.

Following the two incidents on Sunday, Kano's emir cancelled the celebration of the Eid festival, which marks the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan.

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Five Killed in Bombing of Catholic Church in Nigeria

PHILIPPINES - LIBYA Filipino priest warns that the lives of 13,000 Filipinos in Libya are in danger - Asia News

The following excerpts are from AsiaNews.it:

Manila (AsiaNews/CBCP) - As Libya's political crisis plunges the country into ever greater chaos, a Filipino priest in Tripoli urges his government to ensure the safety of some 13,000 Filipinos trapped in the country.

Fr Amado Baranquel, pastor of the Church of Mary Immaculate in the Libyan capital, issued his appeal after radical Islamists killed a Filipino in Benghazi "for not being a Muslim."

The victim was a 50-year-old construction worker who was abducted and killed on Wednesday.

This has caused panic among Filipinos in Libya who are unable to leave because ports and airports have been destroyed.

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PHILIPPINES - LIBYA Filipino priest warns that the lives of 13,000 Filipinos in Libya are in danger - Asia News

Christian Holocaust Underway in Iraq, USA and World Look on

The following excerpts are from Aina.org:

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, there were at least 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Over the last ten years, significantly in the last few months with the emergence of ISIS, that figure has dropped to about 400,000.

In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching.

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Christian Holocaust Underway in Iraq, USA and World Look on

Christians Disappearing From Iraq, Bishops Lament

Chaldean Archbishops of Erbil and Kirkuk, Bashar Warda and Yousif Mirkis (photo: Aid to the Church in Need).

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Two Iraqi archbishops are seeking "faith and hope" in Iraq, while bewailing the continuing exodus of Christians from the country amid continued violence.

Archbishop Yousif Mirkis heads the Chaldean Archdiocese of Kirkuk, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

He said that he "quite definitely" fears the end of Christianity in Iraq.

"We are in the process of disappearing, just as the Christians in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and North Africa have disappeared. And even in Lebanon they now constitute only a minority," he told the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need July 8.

Archbishop Mirkis said he is not resigned to defeat, but "trying to be realistic."

"There is still the hope that faith brings," he said. While he himself will not leave Iraq, he said he understands why young Christians are leaving in the wake of so many violent deaths.

"In the past ten years we have lost a bishop and six priests. In addition there are about a thousand of the faithful who have died in attacks."

"Not everybody shares the faith and the hope."

The Christian population in Iraq has plummeted to 400,000, down from about 1.5 million before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

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Christians Disappearing From Iraq, Bishops Lament

Nicaragua’s bishops to meet with Ortega, declare days of prayer : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from CWN:

• On May 21, Nicaragua’s bishops, along with the apostolic nuncio, will meet with President Daniel Ortega, whom a bishop recently said has undertaken a “devious persecution” of the Church.
• Ortega, a leader of the Marxist Sandinistas who overthrew the authoritarian regime of Gen. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled Nicaragua from the 1979 Sandinista takeover until his loss in the 1990 presidential election. Ortega won the presidential elections of 2006 and 2011.

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Nicaragua’s bishops to meet with Ortega, declare days of prayer : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Christians 'Crucified Again' for Refusing Islam

The following excerpts are from AINA:

• To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail article reports that the “jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL],” which is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, “publicly crucified two Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack on members of their group.”
• While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric acts—along with posting photos of the crucified—it nonetheless minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly saying things like “even al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL,” and so implying that the act of crucifixion is some wild aberration that even the poster-child of jihadi terror, al-Qaeda, wants nothing to do with it; and 2) ignoring the much “sexier” story that Christians in Syria are also being crucified simply for refusing to embrace Islam (as opposed to the rather mundane but politically more correct story of Islamic jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta killings).
• Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma'loula, Syria, an ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic, the language of Christ.
• According to recent Arabic news media, "a Syrian nun testified to the Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma'loula were crucified for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya" (tribute subjugated Christians are required to pay to their Islamic conquerors in order to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).
• Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front (so much for Daily Mail's portrayal of al-Qaeda "distancing" itself from the apparently "extra-extremist" ISIL for crucifying its victims).

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Christians 'Crucified Again' for Refusing Islam

Continued violence against Christians in Orissa : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News:

• Six years after an anti-Christian pogrom in the eastern Indian state of Orissa left several dozen dead and drove 50,000 from their homes, Hindu radicals destroyed a Catholic survivor’s rebuilt home, according to the India Christian Activist Network.
• The state is now officially known as Odisha.

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Continued violence against Christians in Orissa : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Egypt: 2 Christians dead in sectarian clashes : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News:

• Sectarian clashes between Muslims and Chrstians have broken out in towns around Assiut, a city of 400,000 in central Egypt.
• A Muslim driver destroyed the front of a store owned by a Coptic Christian in Paisari, according to the Egyptian news site Copts United. During a reconciliation meeting between the Christian and Muslim communities, violence broke out, leaving 10 injured.

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Egypt: 2 Christians dead in sectarian clashes : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Chaldean patriarch rips Western actions in Iraq: ‘we are a ruined church’ : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News:

• Eleven years after the US invasion of Iraq, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church declared that “we are a ruined church” and said that “1,400 years of Islam could not uproot us from our land and our churches, while the policies of the West [have] scattered us and distributed us all around the world.”
• “Democracy and change come through upbringing and education rather than through conflict,” said Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, who has governed the Eastern Catholic church since February 2013. “Intervention by the West in the region did not solve the problems … but on the contrary, produced more chaos and conflict.”
• Referring to the regime of Saddam Hussein, he said that “in the Church of the Ascension, Al-Mashtal, for example, there were about 5,000 families and over 240 students preparing for their First Holy Communion before the regime’s fall.” On “25 April 2014, I celebrated in this church the Holy Mass for First Holy Communion of 13 students only.”

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Chaldean patriarch rips Western actions in Iraq: ‘we are a ruined church’ : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Gunmen attack Kenyan church, kill 6 : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Gunmen entered a Protestant church in Likoni, a municipality in southeastern Kenya, and killed six worshippers.
• Some news agencies reported that the Somali Islamist terrorist organization Al-Shabaab is suspected in the attack. The local Catholic bishop offered his own hypothesis.

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Gunmen attack Kenyan church, kill 6 : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Indonesian court bows to Islamic militants, revokes permit for Catholic church : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• In the West Java region of Indonesia, Islamic militants have pressured a court to revoke the building permit for a Catholic church, the AsiaNews service reports.

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Indonesian court bows to Islamic militants, revokes permit for Catholic church : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

‘Faithful dissent’? Catholic school board sponsors lecture on how to oppose Church moral teachings | LifeSiteNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com:

• An Ontario Catholic school board sponsored a lecture last week focused on how Catholic schools can “value … faithful dissent” as a way of opposing Catholic teaching on “ordination, homosexuality, and contraception.”
• The Waterloo Catholic District School Board sponsored Graham McDonough, PhD, to speak at St. Jerome’s University (SJU) Friday night as part of the University’s lecture series on “Catholic Experience.”
• “Catholic schools often find themselves dealing with disagreements with Church teaching on topics such as ordination, homosexuality, and contraception as well as with complaints that schools are not properly teaching doctrine,” reads a description of the lecture, titled “Faithful Disagreement: an opportunity for rediscovery in Catholic education.”
• "This lecture proposes that Catholic schools can do more to include and nurture internal disagreement as a powerful opportunity to embrace intellectual diversity, learn the value of faithful dissent and enable greater participation in the Church and the world.”
• Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Catholics called it “diabolical” to have a Catholic school board sponsor a lecture on dissent.
• “This is all a charade,” he said. “The description of the lecture seems to call for outright revolt against teachings that constitute unchangeable Catholic doctrine.”

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‘Faithful dissent’? Catholic school board sponsors lecture on how to oppose Church moral teachings | LifeSiteNews.com

4,000 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India last year : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News Headlines:

• More than 4,000 cases of anti-Christian violence occurred in India last year, according to a report received by the Fides news agency.
• The “report on persecution in 2013,” prepared cooperatively by several Christian groups in India, documented 7 murders along with hundreds of beatings, attacks on churches, and other forms of abuse. 

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4,000 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India last year : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Syrian Christian beheaded by jihadists : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from CWN (Catholic World News):

• Five armed jihadists beheaded a Syrian Christian after they observed that he was wearing a cross around his neck, according to the Fides news agency.
• Fides, the news service of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, reported:
• The incident, which occurred on 8 January, was reported to Fides only now by a priest in the diocese of Homs. The two, Firas Nader (29), and Fadi Matanius Mattah (34), were traveling by car from Homs to the Christian village of Marmarita. A group of five armed jihadists intercepted the vehicle and opened fire on the car.

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Syrian Christian beheaded by jihadists : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Pope Francis: More Christians Persecuted Than In The First Centuries

Vatican City, 17 November 2013 (VIS) – At midday today the Holy Father appeared at the window of his study to pray the Angelus with the faithful gathered below in St. Peter's Square. Before the Marian prayer, the Pope commented on Jesus' discourse in Jerusalem about the end of time. Jesus exhorted the apostles not to be deceived by false messiahs and not to be paralysed by fear, but rather to live this moment of waiting in hope, as a time of witness and perseverance.

The Holy Father emphasised the relevance of these words even to us now in the twenty-first century. “It is a call to discernment”, he said. “Even nowadays, in fact, there are false 'saviours' who seek to take Jesus' place: leaders of this world, gurus, holy men, people who want to attract hearts and minds, especially of young people. Jesus warns us: 'do not follow them'. And the Lord also helps us not to be afraid when faced with wars and revolutions, natural disasters and epidemics: Jesus liberates us from fatalism and false apocalyptic visions. … He reminds us that we are entirely in God's hands! The adversity we encounter on account of our faith and our adhesion to the Gospel are opportunities for witness; they should not turn us away from the Lord but rather encourage us to abandon ourselves more fully to Him, to the strength of His Spirit and His grace”.

“In this moment”, he continued, unscripted, “let us think of the many Christian brothers and sisters who suffer persecution for their faith. There are many of them. Perhaps more than in the first centuries. Jesus is with them. Let us also be united with them by our prayer and our affection. Let us admire their courage and their witness. They are our brothers and sisters, who in many parts of the world suffer for being faithful to Jesus Christ. Let us extend our heartfelt and affectionate greetings to them”.

Francis highlighted Jesus' promise to us as a guarantee of victory: “'Stand firm, and you will win life'. … This is a call to hope and patience, to know how to await the certain fruits of salvation, trusting in the deep meaning of life and history; the trials and difficulties form part of a greater design, and the Lord, the master of history, guides all to its fulfilment. Despite the disorder and catastrophes that afflict the world, God's plan of goodness and mercy will prevail”.

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