Free Republic

When the extremist group known as the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) was expelled from the northern city of Mosul, locals there were happy. But now, not so much, says Qassim Badran, a former employee of the local power department. The government stopped paying his salary back in 2014 when the Islamic State, or IS, group, took over the city. Even though the federal government said they would start paying civil servants again—and there are many of these because the Iraqi government is the country’s major employer—no money has arrived for Badran and he’s been busy setting up a small...

"Islamic State" militants reportedly carried out the execution-style killings in early 2015. A detained IS militant who witnessed the mass murder clued in authorities to the site.Libyan authorities have recovered the remains of 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by so-called "Islamic State" (IS) militants more than two years ago, the anti-IS organization al-Bonyan al-Marsous announced Saturday. The gruesome discovery was made in the seaside city of Sirte — the home town of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was toppled in 2011. A statement said officials were led to the site by an IS militant who had witnessed the attack...

What is missing from the USCCB’s campaign materials is any larger context in which to place the issue of Muslim migration. Catholics who are contemplating the issue should also know something about the fact that Muslims have historically used migration as a form of conquest.As part of a two-year campaign to promote the acceptance of migrants, the USCCB is issuing a brochure titled “Our Faith Teaches: Welcoming the Refugee and Migrant.”Among other things, the brochure reminds us that Jesus was a migrant and refugee. The implication is that in welcoming the migrant we are welcoming Jesus. But it’s useful to...

Polish Catholics held rosaries and prayed together Saturday along the country's 3,500-kilometer (2,000-mile) border, appealing to the Virgin Mary and God for salvation for Poland and the world in a national event that some felt had anti-Muslim overtones. The unusual "Rosary to the Borders" event was organized by lay Catholics but was also endorsed by Polish church authorities, with 320 churches from 22 dioceses taking part. The prayers took place from the Baltic Sea coast in the north to the mountains along Poland's southern borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and all along the border of this country of...

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said on Saturday that the situation in Lebanon has become “unbearable” with the presence of more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees and that the country “must not wait for the international community” but should exert strenuous efforts to return the displaced. “Lebanon can not wait for the international community to return displaced Syrians back to their country because it has its own considerations,” said Rahi. “We have to work to return them back to their homeland because there are plenty of safe regions in Syria,” he added. The Patriarch noted that Lebanon is witnessing a “political-security...

According to a report from Aid to the Church in Need, a Christian charity, Cardinal Pietro Parolin -- the Vatican's secretary of state -- has warned that the millenial Christian community of Iraq is struggling to merely survive. He called on the world to respect the rights of minorities such as the Christian community in the conflictive country. In a stark warning, Parolin said at a conference in Rome on Thursday, "We are all aware that the conflicts and tensions of recent years represent a risk, not only for the survival of Christians – but also for the very possibility...

Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2017 / 03:11 am (ACI Prensa).- Three years ago, there were 73 nuns with the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena living in Kurdistan. Since the Islamic State captured the Plain of Nineveh in 2014, one-third of them have died. Sister Silvia is one of the survivors. Surrounded by devastation, she said that she is praying for those who persecute her community, and learning how to forgive them. “We pray for them every day as sisters. We pray for them, for those bringing peace, for our soldiers, for those who help people have a better...

* Evicted five centuries ago by crusading Christians, the Arabs are back in Spain, using their oil dollars to buy land that was seized from their ancestors by the sword". — James M. Markham, The New York Times, 1981. * The Madrid daily ABC wrote that 800 mosques in Spain are out of control. The Spanish daily La Razon charged that Gulf donors, such as Qatar, were a source of Spain's Islamization. The Saudis also launched a new Spanish television channel, Córdoba TV, as did Iran.* They dream of, and work to, regain the "lost Caliphate" of Spain. Some Islamists...

Cardinal Reinhard Marx has asked the Muslims to adapt their faith to the world today. And they must renounce terror. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the chairman of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Germany, has called on the Muslims to "reinterpret their sacred traditions in the light of contemporary life". In this way, Islam would "be further developed and opened up to the principle of civic justice and modern democracy", says Marx on the conclusion of the General Assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference on Thursday in Fulda. Marx spoke of a "return of many Muslims, which can also be felt with...

OSHAWA — A judge has sentenced a man who scrawled anti-Muslim graffiti at bus stops in Durham Region to five months in jail. Joseph Porco shows little insight into the harmful nature of his conduct, Ontario Court Justice Ferhan Javed said in handing down the sentence Thursday, Sept. 21. “Mr. Porco’s message left black marks on a public bench but even after the words are scrubbed away with a guilty plea, it leaves stains that may be more permanent,” the judge said. “Mr. Porco’s message was both hateful and hurtful to the community and needs to be deterred.” Porco, 56,...

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - More than 1400 Christian families have already returned to their homes and villages scattered in the Nineveh Plain, which they abandoned in the summer of 2014, due to the advance of the jihadist militia of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (Daesh). This is what Nawfal al Akoub, current governor of the Nineveh Province declared, who in some statements relauched by the local press announced a further, significant increase of families in the coming weeks. Most of the families involved in this counter-exodus - the governor explained - had found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, and their return proceeds...

I have said it before and I will say it over and over --if we are not living in the days which Christ promised to shorten for the sake of the elect, then I fear what is to come. Confusion is rampant, truth has all but disappeared, apostasy is manifest, and even those who are allegedly Christ's shepherds betray him on a daily basis. In the words of a wise and holy priest --"Today if a person doesn't have extensive theological training or at least access to a holy priest they are toast". FROM THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL— "Rhode Island’s Islamic...

The battle for "Islamic State" stronghold Raqqa has reached its final stages, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed multi-ethnic alliance fighting IS. Karlos Zurutuza reports from Raqqa.Getting to the headquarters of Syriac fighters in Raqqa involves driving mostly across a desert. The route is exhausting and not entirely safe but, for the time being, it's the only chance to avoid the area still under the control of the Islamic State (IS). Once in the south western outskirts of the city, you just have to follow your ear: the base of the Syriac Military Council (MFS) is right next...

In the Syrian city of Maaloula (Ma'loula) The Christian Church began to commence services in the Christian monastery of St. Thecla.The pilgrims from all around the world traveled to religious shrines before the war. It was almost completely destroyed and looted by ISIS and Al-Nusra Front. When under pressure from the Syrian Arab army the Retreating Islamists took everything valuable from the temples, including ancient icons, historical manuscripts, icon lamps and altar-cross, church furnishings, tombstones and other valuable items. The militants destroyed everything they could not hastily take along; some of the buildings were burned. After the liberation under the...

Online jihadist propaganda attracts more clicks in the UK than any other country in Europe, a report has found. Britain is the fifth-biggest audience in the world for extremist content after Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Policy Exchange's study said. The think tank suggested the UK public would support new laws criminalising reading content that glorifies terror. The government has told internet companies like Facebook and Google to do more to to remove jihadist material. Former US military chief General David Petraeus, who wrote a foreword to the report, said efforts to combat online extremism were "inadequate". He...

How does a man facing his own premature death exude an uplifting combination of grace, love, and truth? My friend Nabeel Qureshi, who has done that for more than a year, died at age 34 on Saturday. In case you don’t know, Nabeel was a former devout Muslim who became a powerful defender of Christianity after a seven-year process of evaluating the evidence for Christianity with his friend David Wood. His first book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is an international bestseller.  Since being diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer last year, Nabeel has shared his thoughts, concerns, and prayers through...

Apologist and author Nabeel Qureshi, who said last week that doctors believed his body had entered the "final stages of life," died Saturday at the age of 34. He was a Christian convert from Islam and served with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries until he was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer last August."Nabeel Qureshi, your eyes will now see and your hands will now touch that which is the only Real estate," Ravi Zacharias tweeted Saturday.Qureshi, a U.S. citizen who was born to Pakistani immigrants in California, is survived by his wife, Michelle, and a daughter, Ayah."Our dear brother in Christ Nabeel...

The Ma’loula church complex, looted by Islamic militants, is being restored at an accelerated speed. One of the churches is expected to be ready for parishioners in the near future, RIA-Novosti reports. “The most difficult was restoring the cave of St. Thekla. It suffered greatly, as did the Church of St. Elias. The specialists faced the difficult task of preserving the historical artifacts. However, some of the architectural monuments had to be built anew, because they were lost,” engineer Elias Hilal told reporters. Ma’loula was seized by Al-Nusra Front militants four years ago. “They destroyed everything they could. They gouged...

Full Title: Erdogan Of Turkey Literally Resurrects The Image Of The Ottoman Beast And Vows That All Who Defy Him Will Be Beheaded When we say that the Ottomans will rise again, including its image “the image of the beast,” Shariah and Islamic Beheading’ we concluded all this decades ago just by reading the Bible. And now, as we monitor the news in Turkey, just in the last few days, we find two news pieces which further confirm our proclamations. Firstly, Hayrettin Karaman, Turkey’s main Fatwa giver, wrote an article for Yeni Safak headlined with “Shariah Will Rise Again”. This...

With towns and cities such as Qaraqosh and Bashiqa in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains now liberated from Islamic State (IS) forces and their original inhabitants beginning to return, there is confidence among some local Christian leaders that life is slowly beginning to get back to normal. “I am optimistic, yes, very optimistic,” says Qaraqosh’s Syriac Catholic Archbishop Yohanna Petros Mouche. “When you look around the villages you see that life is back again.” A drive through Qaraqosh proves his point. A young boy cycles by, carrying a plastic bag full of bread, while Arabic graffiti on the wall of a house...