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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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