Free Republic

The largest Bible printing factory in the world has printed its 125th million copy, the Financial Times reports. Based in Nanjing, China, the factory is run by the government-sanctioned Amity Foundation in conjunction with the Bible Society. It has produced over 65 million Bibles in ten different Chinese languages since 1987, in addition to more than 59 million in 90 other languages for exportation. Officially an atheist state, the right to freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution but protections are limited to those who worship within state-sanctioned bodies. Chinese Christians often suffer at...

The most persecuted and victimized people in the world today are Christians in the Middle East. The perpetrators of the widespread destruction of that region's Christian community? Islamists. Middle East expert Raymond Ibrahim lays out the grim details.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis condemned the "absurd violence" being used against Christians in several countries and called on people of good will everywhere to take up the cause of religious freedom. At the end of his general audience Nov. 12, Pope Francis asked the estimated 15,000 people in St. Peter's Square to join him in reciting the Lord's Prayer for Christians facing persecution. Students from the Gaming, Austria, campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, cheer as Pope Francis greets the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Nov. 12. (CNS/Paul Haring) "With...

In particular, there is a disconcerting statistic: "80 percent of the acts of religious persecution in the world are directed against Christians." How many victims? The Center for the Study of Global Christianity brings the average of one hundred thousand Christians killed each year for their faith throughout the last decade. An average of five Christians every minute. Five hundred thousand Christians have already left Syria.

Coming Wednesday Cardinal Raymond Burke was supposed to celebrate an old-rite Mass in the Vienna parish church of St. Leopold which belongs to the very rich monastery of Klosterneuburg. But the Mass was cancelled. The provost of Klosterneuburg, Father Bernhard Backovsky has personally forbidden the local pastor to allow the Cardinal to celebrate.

More and more companies are going “gay” while at the same time denigrating anybody who has an issue with same-sex, alternate sex, slice and dice sex (transgenderism), and take-your-pick sex. When it was found out that Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich opposed same-sex marriage, so much pressure was put on him because of his anti-same sex marriage views (he donated to Proposition 8) that he believed that he couldn’t do anything but resign. The Gaystapo would have made it unbearable for him and the company for Eich if he had remain as CEO. There is a long trail of persecution from...

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: The History of Anti-Catholic Violence in the U.S. We do not recall these instances of anti-Catholicism to foster more animosity or violence, but recall them as part of our history, a history that, like so many others, included the targeting of ethnic and religious groups for persecution. From left to right—Bishop John Hughes, New York, 1844; cartoon from Anti-Catholic book published by the Ku Klux Klan, 1926; Burning of St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia, 1844; Fr. James Coyle, Birmingham Alabama, murdered, 1921. You have, no doubt, heard the children’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones...

When Christian villagers from the Iraqi town of Caramles fled advancing IS forces, 80-year-old Victoria was among a dozen or so unable to leave. The widow, a Chaldean Catholic, knew nothing about the sudden evacuation that had suddenly emptied this ancient village she had known for so long. Next morning she went to church – St Addai’s – as she did every day. She found the place locked; the streets deserted. She knew IS had come. We met Victoria on our first evening in Erbil at the start of a fact-finding and project assessment trip for Catholic charity aid to...

THE CARPENTER'S SHOP: Persecution of Christians affects millions worldwide By Dr. Barry K. Carpenter Published: Friday, September 19, 2014 at 11:03 AM. Christians around the world are experiencing unprecedented persecution. Reporter and news analyst Kirsten Powers, interviewed in the Daily Beast, said, “Christians in the Middle East and Africa are being slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, beheaded, and forced to flee the birthplace of Christianity. The silence has been nearly deafening.” It seems open season on Christians. It is more pronounced, more bold, more contagious, and in more numbers than at any other time in history. It may appear to...

The situation for Christians in the Middle East continues to get worse, but this time, it isn’t at the hands of a terrorist group or band of rebels. It’s from one of our supposed allies in the region: Saudi Arabia. As Fox News reports, this past Friday (September 12th), agents from the country’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice rounded up 28 Christians at the home of an Indian national in the city of Khafji, and several Bibles were confiscated as well.. Their condition and whereabouts are currently unknown. As Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute...

A new policy put in place by Cal State University could cost InterVarsity and other Christian groups up to $460,000 to meet on campus because they cannot change their leadership requirements to include any student. "No campus shall recognize any fraternity, sorority, living group, honor society, or other student organization unless its membership and leadership are open to all currently enrolled students at that campus," the policy states. The rule requires leadership positions to be open to any student, regardless of whether they hold the same beliefs as the Club. The policy went into effect in 2012 but up until...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has sought to encourage Iraq's beleaguered Christians under threat from Islamic militants, saying they are the "heart" of the church and that the church is proud of them. In comments translated into Arabic during his weekly Wednesday general audience, Francis said the Catholic Church is like a mother, and like any mother will "defend her defenseless and persecuted children." Francis has said it was legitimate to use force to stop the militants..."The church suffers with you and is proud of you."

Reciting a list of assaults on Christians around the world, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder told a large-scale gathering of Israel’s Christian allies that he would continue to speak out against the violence and oppression that is engulfing Christians, especially in the Middle East. Speaking in Budapest on June 15, Lauder said “I will speak out across the globe with world leaders and with ordinary citizens, and I will tell them that we will never tolerate any kind of anti-Christian threats, just as we will not tolerate anti-Semitism.” He was speaking at the Jerusalem Day Convention at the...

How many times have we heard: “Never again”? (Or taken selfies at a concentration camp or Holocaust museum with those words?) How often have we quoted: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”? And yet: Do we do nothing? What do we actually say in the face of evil? “I don’t want to have on my conscience that I was complicit in something as horrendous as this simply by being quiet,” is how Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., reflected on the persecution being conducted against Christians and other...

A federal appeals court ruled against a group of Christian evangelists who were forced to leave an Arab-American street festival in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2012. Festival-goers threw rocks and water bottles at members of the Bible Believers group when they denounced Islam and called Mohammed a false prophet. In response, Wayne County authorities threatened to ticket the Christian group if they did not leave. On Wednesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed county authorities, ruling 2-1 that police were only trying to keep public order. "The video from the 2012 festival demonstrates that (evangelists') speech and conduct intended...

Christians persecuted by Muslims in Islamic countries who think they are escaping their fate by fleeing discover that the same treatment awaits them in Europe, which after all has simply imported Islam's barbarism by opening its doors to large numbers of Muslims. The German daily newspaper Die Welt reports on the terrible exclusion and violence suffered by Christian refugees at the hands of Muslims in Germany's asylum centres. Germany is the second country in the world, after the US, for number of asylum applications received, with 13% of them last year, and the first in Europe, with 23.2% last...

The Vatican has found its voice. Pope Francis wrote a letter to Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, asking him to "do everything you can to stop the violence against Christians in Iraq". The letter, received by Ban Ki-Moon on 13 August, is the latest of the PopeÂ’s interventions to stop the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. He writes: It is with a heavy and anguished heart that I have been following the dramatic events of these past few days in Northern Iraq where Christians and other religious minorities have been forced to flee from their...

Beheadings. Crucifixions. Thousands of refugees.It can seem hopeless reading these news reports of violence and persecution of Christians in the Middle East from afar. Is there anything we can do?Yes, and fortunately it’s one of the most powerful: prayer.There are obviously many ways to pray, and any prayer made in the name of Jesus is powerful. This is just a list of prayers that may be particularly effective or relevant to this situation.Some of the things listed here may make more sense for Christians who are part of older, more liturgical traditions (Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, etc.). But even if these...

I was curious so I went to FaceBook.com and did a search for "people who live in Mosul Iraq" Hundreds of people who have their FaceBook accounts came up. This brought a whole new dimension of their suffering. They were no longer just bloody corpses that you see lying in the dust. They were no longer just some statistic that I'd hear about. Rather, you'd see they were just normal human beings living their lives, so similar to us. Here: lots of pictures of this brother and sister until 2014. Wonder if they are alive? https://www.facebook.com/sarmid.alshmani?fref=browse_search This one posts lots...

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered,...