Free Republic

Columbus, OH - The Ohio Council of Churches, Rebecca J. Tollefson, executive director, is urging people to demonstrate a caring spirit toward Muslim Ohioans and place a "Blessed Ramadan" sign in their yards, office window, home window, church during the month of Ramadan, as a gesture of witness and welcome. Ramadan is the month ... It is June 6 - July 5. ..... One of the Five Pillars of Islam, .... Signs can be ordered - Telephone: 651-489-0803 or visit www.impactprintingstpaul.com

The morning prayer from the Koran was read at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on the first day of Muslim Ramadan, Monday, June 6, in the presence of Turkey’s general secretary of religious affairs. The former Byzantine church that now serves as a museum, will turn into a mosque for the next 30 days and the Koran will be read daily until July 5, when Ramadan ends. Religious state channel TRT Diyanet will be broadcasting daily at 2:00 pm from Hagia Sophia. The fact that the former Christian Orthodox Church that for the past 80 years has operated as a museum...

On Saturday thousands of Muslim worshippers descended on Istanbul's world famous Hagia Sophia, the towering former Byzantine church that is now a museum, to demand the right to pray there, Turkish media reported. An imam led a prayer in front of the vast building that was once a Greek Orthodox basilica, then a mosque and now a museum before crowds called for it to be restored as a Muslim place of worship. "Let the chains break, open Hagia Sophia," chanted the crowds who gathered on the plaza in front of the museum, according to Turkey's Dogan news agency. "In the...

The Philadelphia School District will add two Muslim holidays to its calendar, placing it among the first in the nation to do so. In what would be an even rarer step, Mayor Kenney said Tuesday he also hopes to adopt the holidays for city workers. He has created a task force to determine how the change can be accomplished. A spokesman from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington said his group is not aware of any cities that have included the holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, in their municipal calendars. "Philadelphia's history is based on being a place...

Baghdad’s Queen of the Rosary Church will host an interfaith prayer against violence and terrorism next Monday. The Chaldean Patriarch launched the initiative, reiterating there are no military options but prayer against conflicts affecting "innocent people". He also urged Muslims to think about renewing their way of thinking and culture.Baghdad (AsiaNews) – Chaldean Patriarch Louis Mar Rapahel Sako has issued a prayer for peace in Iraq, Syria, and the entire Middle East that will be held next Monday (30 May). For the prelate, prayers, not military options can "solve conflicts" in which “innocent people always” pay the highest price. Only...

A German pastor has decided to hold a Muslim funeral for a 17-year-old who died fighting for Islamic State in Syria, leaving many outraged. Pastor Sieghard Wilm of the protestant St. Pauli Church in Hamburg is stirring strong emotions after he made the choice to hold a Muslim funeral in his church for 17-year-old ‘Florent’, who died fighting for the Islamic state in Syria in July. The funeral will take place today.

Following on the latest spate of devastating attacks by the Islamic State in Syria, Pope Francis prayed to God Wednesday to “convert the hearts of those who sow death and destruction.” In his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope addressed the tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists in a special appeal for prayer for the Middle East.

* In the Dutch province of Friesland, 250 of 720 existing churches have been transformed or closed. The Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam once was the Saint Ignatius Church. A synagogue in The Hague was turned into the Al Aqsa Mosque. In Flanders, in place of a famous church, a luxury hotel now stands. Catholic arches, columns and windows still soar between menus and tables for customers.* "The French will not wake up until Notre Dame becomes a mosque." — Emile Cioran, author.*Germany is literally selling its churches. Between 1990 and 2010, the German Evangelical Church closed 340 churches. Recently...

Catholic Cardinal Kurt Koch, who heads the Vatican’s office for ecumenical relations, said that Christians “have a mission to convert all non-Christian religions’ people,” including Muslims, to Christianity, with the exception of those who follow Judaism because of its unique, familial relationship with Christianity: both religions “have the same roots.” For Muslims, he added, the “Islamic tradition” in terms of the Abrahamic religions “is not the same.” […] “It is very clear that we can speak about three Abrahamic religions, but we cannot deny that the view of Abraham in the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition and the Islamic...

Muslims say Allah first revealed Himself to the Children of Israel, but they had the audacity to question Him, so He took away His revelation. And the same with the Christians. Muslims say, Allah asked His angels, "What are the animals' names?" (To know the name of a thing is to have power over it.) They replied, "we don't know because You didn't tell us." Muslims say that Allah's omnipotence is so great, that He can do anything He wants, including things that, to we little humans, seem to violate His, admittedly, infinite rationality. When Catholics pray, "O my God,...

The young daughter of an Iraqi Christian family burned alive by ISIS used her final moments in her mother's arms to beg forgiveness for her killers. Jihadists reportedly arrived at the family's home in Mosul seeking to collect a fine that the Muslims charge Christians called "Jaziya." They told the mother that the family must pay instantly or evacuate the home. The mother simply begged for a few moments as her 12 year old daughter was in the shower. They did not wait. Instead, they immediately set the house ablaze. The girl was severely burned in the fire. Her mother...

Cardinal Kurt Koch, who leads ecumenical relations for the Vatican, made the comments at an interfaith meeting in CambridgeChristians have a mission to convert all Muslims, according to one of Pope Francis’s senior aides. Cardinal Kurt Koch, who leads ecumenical relations for the Vatican, made the comments at an interfaith meeting held by Cambridge University’s Woolf Institute. Cardinal Koch also said that Christians should not try and convert Jews and should view Judaism as a “mother”. “We have a mission to convert all non-Christian religions’ people [except] Judaism,” he said, before reportedly adding that this extended to jihadis responsible for...

An interfaith group is laying the groundwork for what will likely be the world’s first ever joint house of prayer. The center of worship, which will be called the "House of One," will combine simultaneous Jewish, Muslim, and Christian prayer services. The House of One is planned to be built on the site of Berlin’s first church, the Petrikirche. One of the organizers of the interfaith group behind the planned church/mosque/synagogue, Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin, said that the House of One is a reminder that despite the dark history of Berlin in the 20th century it is now a center...

The Pope will receive the highest authority in Sunni Islam at the Vatican on MondayPope Francis will receive the highest authority in Sunni Islam in an unprecedented meeting at the Vatican on Monday. The meeting between Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar, Cairo, and Pope Francis was revealed by Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi. Fr Lombardi said: “This audience is being prepared and has been scheduled for Monday. It will be a first.” Al-Tayeb suspended dialogue with the Holy See on behalf of Al-Azhar University in 2011. Benedict XVI had called for the protection of Christian minorities following a...

Pope Francis continues to astonish. He has just said, in an interview with the French Catholic paper La Croix, that “the idea of conquest is inherent to the soul of Islam.” As far as his understanding of Islam goes, this is a marked improvement over his disturbing statement, back in November 2013, that the “Koran is a book of peace” and “Islam is a peaceful religion.” Now he at last recognizes – how could he not, after yet another year of Muslim bombs and bloodletting all over the place? – that Islam has something to do with “conquest,” that is,...

In a shocking interview, Pope Francis compared Jesus Christ to ISIS and said Muslim migrants must breed with Christians to counter “declining birth rates.”

The election of a Muslim as London mayor 'illustrates the need for Europe to rediscover its capacity to integrate', the Pope told La CroixPope Francis has hailed the election of London’s first Muslim mayor in a wide-ranging interview with a French newspaper. Discussing the migrant crisis with French daily La Croix, Pope Francis said “the worst form of welcome” for migrants is “to ‘ghettoise’ them”. “On the contrary, it’s necessary to integrate them,” the Pope said. “In Brussels, the terrorists were Belgians, children of migrants, but they grew up in a ghetto. In London, the new mayor (Sadiq Khan) took...

The New York Times recently published a “guide“ to Muslim headscarves. The article intended to illuminate an Islamic concept that promotes modesty, but the associated images showed styles specific to a few countries and all of the silhouettes were faceless. These types of portrayals can contribute to a misperception among some that Muslim women who don the headscarf may lack agency. In today’s political climate, the headscarf has become more than just a spiritual symbol of modesty. At one point, women working in government positions were not allowed to wear it in Turkey. In France, the niqab — a version...

New Haven, Conn., May 7, 2016 / 05:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The future of Christianity in the Middle East remains uncertain, and it is critical that the international community remain engaged, said a Melkite Catholic archbishop from Syria. Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart of Aleppo delivered these comments during a two-day visit to Connecticut that culminated with meetings at the international headquarters of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven. The visit began Sunday night with a talk by the archbishop at St. Mary’s Church, where he recounted Syria’s deep Christian history, including as the place where St. Paul was transformed from...

(Editor's note: This article includes explicit descriptions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.)In a Christian neighborhood inside war-torn Syria, a young boy was waiting to be discharged from a hospital after undergoing surgery. Suddenly the building shook from a bombing. His mother, who was with him, ran out of the hospital to look for help. After she left, a bomb directly hit the building and her son was killed. “She told me ‘My son was already prepared to be in heaven’,” Sister Maria de Guadalupe, a missionary in Syria with the Institute of the Incarnate Word, said of the mother....