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From CNS: The Vatican called on Muslim leaders to condemn the “barbarity” and “unspeakable criminal acts” of Islamic State militants in Iraq, saying a failure to do so would jeopardize the future of interreligious dialogue. “The plight of Christians, Yezidis and other religious and ethnic communities that are numeric minorities in Iraq demands a clear and courageous stance on the part of religious leaders, especially Muslims, those engaged in interfaith dialogue and everyone of goodwill,” said a statement from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released by the Vatican Aug. 12. The full statement, from the Vatican: The whole world...

Pope Francis has “dared to do what none of his predecessors had ever done,” Le Figero’s Jean-Marie Guénois rejoiced, “to pray openly, side-by-side with a Muslim dignitary”. The event took place at the Blue Mosque on November 29, the second day of Francis’ visit to Istanbul. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI – the ever-zealous advocate of Conciliar ecumenism – visited the Mosque but supposedly remained in contemplation. This gave rise to speculation as to whether or not the Pontiff actually prayed in the Mosque, and also gave rise to scandal. Francis, according to Guénois, removed any hint of ambiguity. The...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Mormon, says he's an unabashed fan of Roman Catholic Pope Francis. "We sure do like this new pope," Reid gushed to the The New York Times. The veteran Democrat acknowledges that he can profess his admiration even though he's "had dealings" with Cardinal Raymond Burke, a powerful Roman Catholic leader who's been demoted twice from key positions by the pope.

Alleviating hunger and poverty won’t end jihad terrorism. The Pope here is repeating the oft-refuted notion that poverty causes terrorism. CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Sunday that equating Islam with violence was wrong and called on Muslim leaders to issue a global condemnation of terrorism to help dispel the stereotype. Francis, the leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, told reporters aboard his plane returning from a visit to Turkey that he understood why Muslims were offended by many in the West who automatically equated their religion with terrorism. Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI, caused storms of protest throughout the Islamic world in 2006, when he made a speech that suggested to many Muslims that he believed...

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM ISTANBUL (CNS) -- Pope Francis called on political and religious leaders across the Muslim world to condemn violence done in the name of Islam. The pope said he told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Nov. 28 that "it would be beautiful if all Islamic leaders -- whether they be political leaders, religious leaders, academic leaders -- would say clearly that they condemn (terrorism), because that will help the majority of Islamic people to say, 'that's true,'" and show non-Muslims that Islam is a religion of peace. Pope Francis answers questions from journalists on his flight...

A day after calling for inter-religious dialogue to end Islamist extremism, Pope Francis on Saturday visited a 17th-century mosque in Istanbul and spent several minutes in a silent prayer with his head bowed in the direction of Mecca. The pope made the gesture to promote Christian-Muslim relations at the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, on Saturday, the second day of his three-day Turkey visit, according to the Vatican Radio. He removed his shoes before entering the mosque with blue tiles on its walls. Standing next to him was the Grand Mufti, who explained about the Koranic verses...

Pope Francis exits Istanbul's Holy Spirit Cathedral Nov 29. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA. Istanbul, Turkey, Nov 30, 2014 / 01:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey may change the traction Christians have in a country that is almost entirely Muslim, said two Turkish young women who had the occasion to greet the Pope on his recent trip. Baram, a nearly 30-year-old woman with a degree in French Literature, told CNA that “there is a group of people here in Turkey that does not understand Christianity, or simply they are not interested in Christianity.” However, she said, “the fact that...

The Turkish Science Minister has become the latest public figure to make outrageous claims over Islam's hand in science and technology, the Hurriyet Daily News reported Friday - this time, claiming that Muslims discovered that the world is round. "Some 700-800 years before Galileo, 71 Muslim scientists led by al-Khwarizmi convened by the order of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun and revealed that the Earth is a sphere," Minister Fikri stated on Thursday. Fikri further claimed that a copy of the original document proving Islam's role in astronomy is currently in the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology in Istanbul. The Earth...

OPEC just declared war on everyone-including itself. The oil cartel’s hotly-anticipated meeting on Thursday ended with a whimper: No change to an output target that already wasn’t being observed. Oil prices, though, went bang: Brent crude fell 5% to around $72.40 a barrel after the decision was made. It will likely be years before we see triple-digit oil again. Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has a beef with a number of oil-market participants. It also appears to have woken up to the fact that OPEC has once again lost its grip...

Never before seen - Francis bows his head and asks Separated Patriarch: "Bless me and the Church of Rome" Istanbul, November 29, 2014. ... Filled of "gratitude and eagerly waiting", [the Pope] concludes [his address] by wishing Bartholomew and the Church of Constantinople the "fraternal" wishes for the feast of the patron saint to be celebrated tomorrow. In return he asked - unexpectedly - for a favor: "Bless me and the Catholic Church", bowing his head, waiting for the 'brother' to lay hands on him. And Bartholomew, without hesitation, gives him a kiss on the head affectionately. [Italian] Listening to...

Calling Pope Francis his “beloved brother in Christ,” the head of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on Sunday recalled their gathering last May at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on the fiftieth anniversary of the historic ecumenical meeting of their predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras. Welcoming the Pope after a celebration of the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul, Patriarch Bartholomew said “the path toward unity is more urgent than ever for those who invoke the name of the great Peacemaker.” Citing the “diverse divisions, conflicts and animosities,...

Vatican's chief ecumenical officer speaks about implications of this weekend's papal visitPope Francis and Ecumencial Patriarch Bartholomew will sign a joint declaration Sunday, confirming the growing relationship between the long-separated Churches of Rome and Constantinople. The Pope's visit comes just six months after he and Bartholomew met in Jerusalem and singed a Joint Declaration about their commitment to the search for Christian unity. Accompanying Pope Francis on the journey to Turkey is the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, who said in a Vatican Radio interview this week that first of all ithe papal...

Inside the Islamic State’s Capital: Red Bull-Drinking Jihadists, Hungry Civilians, Crucifixions And Air Strikes Mark Townsend Sunday 30 November 2014 The beleaguered inhabitants of Raqqa, self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State (Isis), are suffering widespread hunger, crippling inflation, chronic power shortages and poverty so acute that emergency soup kitchens have been set up. With no journalists, local or foreign, able to operate inside Syria’s sixth-largest city, courageous local activists have given the Observer a detailed account of life under the jihadists’ totalitarian regime, a rare glimpse of everyday life in the city. Their testimony reveals the evolution of a community...

The U.S. military will subject Syrian rebels taking part in a new training program to psychological evaluations, biometrics checks and stress tests under a screening plan that goes well beyond the steps the United States normally takes to vet foreign soldiers, a sign of the risks the Obama administration faces as it expands support for armed groups in Syria. Officials said the screening program, developed chiefly by the U.S. Central Command, will rely on what was described as a “common core” of screening protocols, including running trainees’ names through U.S. and foreign intelligence databases, collecting biometric data and, when possible,...

Pope asks Patriarch to 'bless me and the Church of Rome'The full text of the Pope’s address to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, at a prayer service in Istanbul, courtesy of Vatican Radio: Your Holiness, my dear Brother, Each evening brings a mixed feeling of gratitude for the day which is ending and of hope-filled trust as night falls. This evening my heart is full of gratitude to God who allows me to be here in prayer with Your Holiness and with this sister Church after an eventful day during my Apostolic Visit. At the same time my...

Pope Francis this afternoon celebrated Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul. Present at the Eucharistic celebration was the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, along with several Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs from the region. During his homily, Francis said: "Only the Holy Spirit is able to kindle diversity, multiplicity and, at the same time, bring about unity. When we try to create diversity, but are closed within our own particular and exclusive ways of seeing things, we create division. He added: "When we try to create unity through our own human designs, we end up with uniformity...

Our guest writer Cassandra has written another article for this blog. ~~~~~~~~ The BBC reported that the Pope visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul as part of a three-day visit to Turkey. According to the BBC reporter, the Pope offered a moment of “silent prayer...next to the Grand Mufti.” The BBC man said that it was, “a moment of rich symbolism in terms of the inter-faith dialogue” that the Pope is trying to promote. And it certainly was! For some reason the BBC didn't see fit to report on the Pope's visit to the Orthodox Christian basilica of Hagia...

The cleaning worker who saved the girl's life said he received many phone calls from people who declared him a hero. A Turkish man has caught a four-year-old girl who fell from a seventh floor window in a central Anatolian city. Şükrü Deniz, a cleaning worker in the Eskişehir province, was passing by a building in the Cumhuriyet neighborhood on Nov. 28, when a pair of shoes fell on the street. "I looked up to complain about the people who throw shoes from their windows, but I saw a kid on the top floor playing on the window ledge," Deniz...

The Islamic State group launched an attack Saturday on the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey, a Kurdish official and activists said, although Turkey denied that the fighters had used its territory for the raid.