Former Assyrian Church Leader and Two Christian Converts Arrested in Iran

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Iranian security agents arrested an Assyrian pastor and two Christian converts who were his guests at his Tehran residence on December 26, 2014, according to Mansour Borji, Spokesperson for the Alliance of Iranian Churches.

Borji told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the full reasons for the arrest of Pastor Victor Beth Tarmez, a former leader of the Tehran Pentecostal Assyrian Church, and his guests remain unknown, but that at the time of the raid on his home, agents stated that they were arresting the individuals because they "participated in an illegal gathering." The "illegal gathering" was a Christmas party Tarmez was holding at his home and his guests were Zoroastrian, Muslim, and Christian citizens.

"There was a Christmas party at Pastor Victor's home. He and his wife and son and 14 guests were there. When agents entered the home, first they searched all the personal belongings of the guests, then they videotaped their faces, and then they searched the premises. Eventually, they arrested Pastor Tarmez along with two Christian converts and confiscated some property from the home," Borji told the Campaign.

"During a short phone call to his family on December 29, Pastor Victor informed them that he is held at Evin Prison. We have no information about the status of the two Christian converts arrested on the same day. All we know is that they have not been released yet," added Mansour Borji.

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Former Assyrian Church Leader and Two Christian Converts Arrested in Iran

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

ISIS Persecution of Iraqi Christians Has Become Genocide, Say Religious Leaders

The following excerpts are from Aina.org:

Isis's persecution of Iraqi Christians, which has already forced tens of thousands of men, women and children to flee for their lives, is fast becoming a genocide, religious leaders have warned.

Archbishop Athanasius Toma Dawod of the Syriac Orthodox church said that Isis's capture of Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian city, had marked a turning point for Christians in the country.

"Now we consider it genocide -- ethnic cleansing," he said. "They are killing our people in the name of Allah and telling people that anyone who kills a Christian will go straight to heaven: that is their message. They have burned churches; they have burned very old books. They have damaged our crosses and statues of the Virgin Mary. They are occupying our churches and converting them into mosques."

The archbishop, who leads the Syriac Orthodox church in the UK, urged the UK government to open the country's doors to those fleeing the violence. "We are dying, 100%," he said. "The British government needs to help people and to give them asylum. If they stay here, they will be killed."

His pleas were echoed by Patriarch Louis Sako, the Iraq-based leader of the Chaldean Catholic church, who said that about 100,000 Christians had abandoned their villages in the Nineveh plains earlier this week after Isis launched mortar attacks. He asked the EU and the UN to help them before it was too late.

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ISIS Persecution of Iraqi Christians Has Become Genocide, Say Religious Leaders

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

Teacher tells student he can't read the Bible in classroom | Fox News

The following excerpts are from Fox News:

• A Florida school teacher humiliated a 12-year-old boy in front of an entire class after she caught him reading the Bible during free reading time.
• The teacher, at Park Lakes Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, ordered Giovanni Rubeo to pick up the telephone on her desk and call his parents. 
• As the other students watched, the teacher left a terse message on the family’s answering machine here.
• “I noticed that he has a book – a religious book – in the classroom,” she said on the recording. “He’s not permitted to read those books in my classroom.”

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Teacher tells student he can't read the Bible in classroom | Fox News

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

More than thirty North Koreans sentenced to death for their faith

The following excerpts are from Live Action News:

• If there was a question about whether Kim Jong-Un had any intention of heeding the U.N. Report on the rampant human rights abuses in North Korea, or complying with any of its demands, none should remain following the recent revelation by the South Korean press that the brutal dictator is preparing to execute approximately 33 Christians for allegedly attempting to overthrow the North Korean government.
• The condemned have received this sentence, in reality, for nothing more than having come into contact with South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook and receiving money to fund underground Christian churches.....

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More than thirty North Koreans sentenced to death for their faith

‘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

Against all the odds, abortion is losing at the UN | LifeSiteNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com (emphases are mine):

• Pro-abortion forces have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man-hours in the past twenty years and they have not advanced their agenda even a single syllable past what they got at the Cairo Conference in 1994.
• Let that sink if for a moment, because it is something that haunts the days and nights of the UN Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. They have dedicated a significant portion of their lives to establish an international right to abortion and all they have achieved is vague language on reproductive health and rights that most countries soundly reject as having anything to do with abortion. They are no nearer to an international right to abortion than they were when they began.
• What’s more, they have even begun to see their slight gains fade. Two years ago the UN hosted the 20-year review of the Rio Conference on the environment. Delegates rejected language related to reproductive rights. Hillary Clinton denounced the outcome document as did many other pro-abortion figures including Nafis Sadik, former head of the UN Population Fund.
• The other hot-button issue at the UN in recent years has been the attempt to make “sexual orientation and gender identity” new categories of non-discrimination in international law. Delegations have opposed this not because they hate gays but because they know that gays are already protected in international law and that these efforts are really about advancing things like gay marriage and gay adoption, things that most of the world rejects.

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Against all the odds, abortion is losing at the UN | LifeSiteNews.com

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”.

You can find more information at: www.visnews.org

The news items contained in the Vatican Information Service may be used, in part or in their entirety, by quoting the source:

V.I.S. -Vatican Information Service.

Copyright © Vatican Information Service 00120 Vatican City

Surge in kidnappings of Egypt’s Christians : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Abductions of Christians near Minya, a city in central Egypt, have surged in the months following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
• Nearly 100 area Christians have been kidnapped since the Arab Spring began, with a spike occurring in recent months. Egypt’s Christians have tended to support the ouster of Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader – leading to attacks on dozens of churches and Christian institutions by Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

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Surge in kidnappings of Egypt’s Christians : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Killing Copts for Ransom in Egypt

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

• Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt's Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters--nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.--but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.
• Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by "unknown persons" who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family--1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed--his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth's body bore signs of severe torture.

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Killing Copts for Ransom in Egypt

Video From Egypt Shows Muslim Mob Attacking Christian Church, Taking Down Cross

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

• Newly-surfaced video from Egypt shows a Muslim mob storming a Coptic church, setting cars on fire and then toppling a cross atop the steeple, in a shocking attack that Christians say has been played out dozens of times since the ouster of Mohammad Morsi.
• The video, obtained by MidEast Christian News, was shot Aug. 14 from a nearby building overlooking the diocese in the southern Egyptian city of Sohag. In the six-minute video, a crowd, incensed by the eviction of pro-Morsi supporters from camps in Cairo, masses outside the church. Several members of the group scale a wall and attack vehicles in a courtyard, setting several ablaze. The video culminates in the crown exhorting a man high up on the steeple to take down a cross, which he does.
• Dozens of Coptic churches were attacked by members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the military's move against Morsi, who critics say was turning Egypt into an Islamist state. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million, but Morsi supporters blamed them for his ouster, according to Coptic leaders.
• Bishop Makarious, a Coptic leader from Minya, accused Muslim Brotherhood leaders of planning attacks on Christian churches, homes and businesses in an effort to divide the embattled nation.

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Video From Egypt Shows Muslim Mob Attacking Christian Church, Taking Down Cross

Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

The following excerpts are from AINA:

• Egypt's new interim government is doing nothing to prevent hate speech, which is inciting violence against Christians, a prominent Egyptian Catholic leader has said.
• "The state is paying no attention to sermons coming out of the mosques, which are inciting Muslims against Christians," said Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak.
• In a statement he said perpetrators involved in a wave of attacks on Christian institutions across the country since early July were not being apprehended, and those involved in the burning and destruction of churches should have been forced to repair them at their own expense and not at the cost of the state.
• He said southern parts of the Minya governorate had seen some of the most severe anti-Christian violence so far, and that "people there are so extreme that they are threatening the Copts with expulsion from their homes".

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Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most

The following excerpts are from AINA:

• Minority religious groups face the reality of targeted violence against them in the region
• The leader of the Maronite Catholic Church has said that Christians are suffering the most from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
• Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï said that the situation in the Middle East is worsening, and that 'whenever a conflict breaks out in the Middle East, whenever chaos ensues, Muslim groups attack the minority Christian community, as if they were always the scapegoat.'
• The patriarch, whose church is in full communion with the Vatican, said Christians were 'paying the price' of outside interference in both Egypt and Syria.
• "I have written to the Holy Father twice to describe what is happening. I appeal again to the Holy Father, who only talks about peace and reconciliation," said the Maronite leader, who was made a cardinal in 2012.
• He also accused the international community of 'total silence' over Iraq, where he said 1.5 million Christians had fled in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall.

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Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most

Egypt's Coptic Christians face unprecedented reprisals from the Muslim Brotherhood - Washington Times

The following excerpts are from The Washington Times:

• Islamist mobs have torched schools and businesses owned by Christians, looted churches and even paraded captive nuns through the streets of a city south of Cairo in a display of rage unseen in Egypt’s recent history.
• The campaign of killing and arson is retaliation for the tiny Christian community’s support of the military coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government.
• “The Muslim Brotherhood were the ones who called for aggression [against Christians]. They are responsible,” said the Rev. Khalil Fawzi, a pastor at Kasr El Dubarrah Evangelical Church, the largest evangelical congregation in the Middle East. “Either they are in control or they burn Egypt.”

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Egypt's Coptic Christians face unprecedented reprisals from the Muslim Brotherhood - Washington Times

Egypt: 2nd day of attacks on churches : News Headlines

The following excerpts are from CWN:

Photo: Nervana Mahmoud

• By the end of a second day of attacks on Christian institutions, homes, and businesses in Egypt, Islamists had burned down over 50 churches, a Coptic Orthodox bishop told CNN.
• The Muslim Brotherhood had declared a "Friday of Anger" to protest the actions, and Islamic militants took to the streets after gathering in mosques for Friday prayers. Their attacks on Christian targets followed police and military action against Muslim Brotherhood protestors who support ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

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Egypt: 2nd day of attacks on churches : News Headlines

AFRICA/EGYPT - The Bishop of Minya: with the lie of the "Coptic plot" Islamists will justify other terror against Christians - Fides News Agency

The following excerpts are from Fides News Agency:

• Western chanceries "have overestimated the real roots of political Islam in the Egyptian people" and now "remain floored and ambiguous before the scenarios opened by the revolution of 30 June", while the Islamists " emphasize the role of Christians in that uprising also to justify the terrorist attacks being prepared against them". This is what the Egyptian bishop Botros Fahim Awad Hanna reports to Fides Agency with regards to two dynamics he understood during the serious moment experienced by the North African country. In past days, blogs close to the Muslim Brotherhood have labeled the new structure found by the country after the overthrow of President Morsi as the "Military Republic of Tawadros", indicating Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II and his Church as the true architects of the popular uprising which led to the end of the Islamist government. "It is obvious" Anba Botros explains to Fides "that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to explain their political failure by resorting to the theory of 'Christian conspiracy'.
• To emphasize the role Christians had in the collapse of the Islamist regime will also serve to justify future terrorism against them. 

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AFRICA/EGYPT - The Bishop of Minya: with the lie of the "Coptic plot" Islamists will justify other terror against Christians - Fides News Agency

Sen. Ted Cruz: Gay ‘marriage’ could lead to Christian beliefs being punished as ‘hate speech’ | LifeSiteNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com:

• In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he believes the legalization of same-sex “marriage” may lead to those who express religious objections to homosexuality being prosecuted for hate speech.
• “If you look at other nations that have gone down the road towards gay marriage, that’s the next step of where it gets enforced,” Cruz told CBN host David Brody. “It gets enforced against Christian pastors who decline to perform gay marriages, who speak out and preach biblical truths on marriage, that has been defined elsewhere as hate speech, as inconsistent with the enlightened view of government.”
• In Canada, where gay ‘marriage’ was legalized in 2005, Christian pastors, public officials, educators and business owners have all faced heavy fines and lengthy court battles after speaking critically of the homosexual lifestyle. In one case a pastor was fined $7000 and ordered never again to speak publicly about the issue of homosexuality after he wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper criticizing the homosexual agenda in schools.

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Sen. Ted Cruz: Gay ‘marriage’ could lead to Christian beliefs being punished as ‘hate speech’ | LifeSiteNews.com

Cardinal decries rape of Orissa nun, low status of women in India : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai (Bombay), the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, has condemned the recent rape of a nun in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.
• “I condemn this gang rape of this young nun in the strongest possible terms,” he said. “This gang rape is physical and emotional terrorism.”

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Cardinal decries rape of Orissa nun, low status of women in India : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Homosexuality an area of ‘special protection’ to UK govt’, police: UK barrister | LifeSiteNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com:

• For hundreds of years, Evangelical street preachers have been a normal part of the English cultural scene, but in recent years, a new feature of the political and legal scene has been their frequent arrests whenever they have dared to contradict the sexual zeitgeist and reiterate the Biblical and moral injunctions against homosexuality. British barrister and chairman of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, James Bogle spoke with LifeSiteNews.com this week, saying that the phenomenon is a sign of a deeper problem with British authorities undermining the rule of law and civil liberties.
• Bogle said that it is more a matter of policy “at all levels of government” that homosexuality is “a special area” deserving of special protections and treatment. 
• “But why this particular area, and not other areas?” he said. “Why don’t pro-lifers rate this special protection? Why don’t Evangelical Christians get the same protection?” 
• In response to the large number of arrests in recent years of Christians under the notorious Section 5 of the Public Order Act, Bogle said, “Particularly in relation to homosexuality, where anybody who criticises homosexual acts or homosexual ‘marriage’ or relationships, there appears to be a police policy to treat this as what is called a ‘hate crime,’ but there isn’t such a thing in English law as a hate crime. There are crimes that might come under a very broad umbrella, but it’s the use of that very broad umbrella that is causing people to have fears about civil liberties.” 

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Homosexuality an area of ‘special protection’ to UK govt’, police: UK barrister | LifeSiteNews.com

Nearly 80% of Italian doctors refuse abortion; MPs attack conscience rights | LifeSiteNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com:

• A report by the Italian government has found that more than 80 per cent of gynecologists – in some areas it is believed to be as much as 91 per cent – and over 50 per cent of anesthesiologists and nurses refuse to participate in abortions, and the number is growing.
• In response, a group of parliamentarians on the left from various parties have attacked the right to conscientious objection, saying that the government must put quotas into place for recruiting doctors willing to abort babies. One deputy alleged that the refusal of so many doctors and other staff to participate has resulted in an increase in the number of “clandestine” illegal abortions and in the number of Italian women going overseas to abort their children. 
• Monsignore Igancio Barreiro, head of the Rome office of Human Life International said pro-life activists “have to be ready to defend the rights of conscience and we know that the proponents of the Culture of Death are ready to attack the right to refuse to do abortions.” 
• “We must be vigilant and concerned because this is not something new,” he added. “We have to reaffirm it. It’s a basic human right.” 

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Nearly 80% of Italian doctors refuse abortion; MPs attack conscience rights | LifeSiteNews.com

Nigerian churches burned; Boko Haram suspected : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News:

• Four Christian churches in northern Nigeria were bombed and burned over the weekend, in attacks attributed to the terrorist group Boko Haram.

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Nigerian churches burned; Boko Haram suspected : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Syria: Aleppo priest advises Christians to leave : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Following the kidnapping and (reported) release of two Orthodox prelates, a parish priest in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, discussed his ministry there.
• “Car bombs have been found near churches,” said the anonymous priest. “Divine Providence has permitted our fellow citizens to notice the danger and so the bombs were disabled before their explosion.”
• “I think that all agree on this point: should we leave the country or stay and keep the Christian presence in the Levant?” he continued. “I, and I say it with sincerity, advise those who can, to go away even if momentarily.”

[As shared earlier here the Syrian Orthodox bishops were erroneously reported as released. They are still being held captive. Please pray for their safety and release.]

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Syria: Aleppo priest advises Christians to leave : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Feminist protest disrupts archbishop's talk in Brussels : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Four bare-breasted feminist demonstrators interrupted a lecture by Archbishop André-Marie Leonard of Brussels on April 23, and soaked the prelate with water.
• The topless protesters, members of the radical group Femen, wore jeans and boots, and had slogans painted across their chests. They carried water bottles, with which they soaked the archbishop before being removed.
• Ironically, Archbishop Leonard was speaking at a conference on blasphemy and the limits of religious freedom.

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Feminist protest disrupts archbishop's talk in Brussels : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Violence against Christians in India following allegations of proselytizing children : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Armed with stones and sticks, a group of men in Srinagar, a largely Muslim city of 1.3 million in northern India, attacked and attempted to set fire to a Christian children’s home. The men beat residents of the home before police arrived.

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Violence against Christians in India following allegations of proselytizing children : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Coptic leader raps Egyptian president for failure to contain anti-Christian violence : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II has berated Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi for his government’s failure to protect the country’s Christian minority.
• The Coptic leader said that Morsi had promised to protect St. Mark’s cathedral in Cairo, “but in reality he did not.” The cathedral was attacked by Islamic radicals, in which 80 people were injured, during the past weekend.

[Meanwhile, the Obama administration keeps sending money to a government that allows attacks on Christians. But it's OK. They are attacked by adherents to the "religion of peace".]

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Coptic leader raps Egyptian president for failure to contain anti-Christian violence : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Pakistan: mob burns shops, cars in Christian neighborhood : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• A Muslim mob burned shops and cars and threw stones at a church in a Christian neighborhood in Gujranwala, a city of 2.7 million in northeastern Pakistan that was the site of anti-Christian violence in 2011. Six were wounded in the latest incident; calm was restored following police intervention.
• “The spark that ignited the violence was a dispute between young Muslims and Christians which degenerated into a fight,” said Samson Salamat, director of the Centre for Human Rights Education, who told the Fides news agency that “an imam of the mosque instigated the Muslims to attack Christians.”

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Pakistan: mob burns shops, cars in Christian neighborhood : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Students try to banish Catholic chaplain from campus for anti-gay stance | The Daily Caller

The following excerpts are from The Daily Caller:

• Two gay seniors at George Washington University say they feel alienated because the chaplain at George Washington’s Newman Center rejects homosexuality, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.
• The seniors, Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, have announced a coordinated campaign to rid the campus of the Roman Catholic priest, reports The GW Hatchet, the school’s independent student newspaper.
• They also assert that 12 or more students have quit the Newman Center in recent years because they can’t tolerate Father Greg Shaffer’s ardent anti-gay – and, for the record, anti-abortion — beliefs.
• Shaffer has worked for five years at George Washington’s Newman Center. He told the Hatchet that religion and unrestricted speech “play a vital role at a diverse university like GW.”
• Legacy and Bergen say they are primarily upset about the counseling Shaffer offers. They say he urges students who have homosexual feelings to lead a life of celibacy.

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Students try to banish Catholic chaplain from campus for anti-gay stance | The Daily Caller

Boko Haram has destroyed 50 Catholic churches in one Nigerian state, priest reports : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• The Boko Haram terrorist group has destroyed 50 of the 52 Catholic churches in Nigeria’s Borno state, according to a priest there.

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Boko Haram has destroyed 50 Catholic churches in one Nigerian state, priest reports : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Archbishop Chaput: new 'compromise' on HHS mandate still 'gravely flawed' : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• A new proposal by the Obama administration to apply the HHS contraceptive mandate to religious institutions “remains unnecessary, coercive, and gravely flawed,” according to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.
• The latest “compromise” offered by the White House “may actually make things worse,” the archbishop said.

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Archbishop Chaput: new 'compromise' on HHS mandate still 'gravely flawed' : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

String of attacks against Armenian Christians in Istanbul : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Cultures "Catholic World News":

• Five Armenian Christians have been attacked recently in an Istanbul neighborhood. One 85-year-old murder victim was stabbed repeatedly and had a cross carved on her corpse.

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String of attacks against Armenian Christians in Istanbul : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Italian bishop confined to home by homosexual demonstration : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• An Italian archbishop has revealed that he was confined to his home, forced to remain inside his “besieged” residence, when homosexual activists staged a protest there earlier this month, and warned that gay-rights campaigners aim to prosecute all who oppose their agenda.
• Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi of Trieste was the target of a demonstration organized by ArciGay on January 12. Italian media outlets ignored the incident, and city officials in Trieste showed their support for the protest. Two members of the local city council reportedly participated in the demonstration.

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Italian bishop confined to home by homosexual demonstration : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Christians will not leave Egypt, Coptic leader vows : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Pope Tawadros II, the Coptic Orthodox leader, has dismissed as “irrational” a proposal to divide Egypt’s territory to create a Coptic state.
• The Coptic Church is “an integral part of that Egypt that will not be divided,” the Orthodox prelate said. He said that Copts are loyal Egyptian citizens, and the concerns that many Copts have expressed about the language of a new constitution do not reflect sectarian concerns but understandable worries about the fundamental principles of equal justice under law.

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Christians will not leave Egypt, Coptic leader vows : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

French government calls for no discussion of same-sex marriage in Catholic schools : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• French President Francois Hollande and Education Minister Vincent Peillon are urging Catholic schools not to hold discussions with students about impending legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage. Hollande’s administration supports the legislation.

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French government calls for no discussion of same-sex marriage in Catholic schools : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

New restrictions on religious freedom in Vietnam : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

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

• Decree 92, issued by Vietnam’s Communist government in November, went into effect on January 1 and is raising concerns among the nation’s Christians and Buddhists – particularly after the vice president of the nation’s parliament said that “Vietnam will increasingly model itself on China in matters of religious policies.”

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New restrictions on religious freedom in Vietnam : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

2 dead following church bombing in Libya : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

2 dead following church bombing in Libya : News Headlines - Catholic Culture