Free Republic

In Glasgow Francis Will Be a No-Show. In His Place Will Be GretaIn Glasgow, at the United Nations conference on climate change to be held from October 31 to November 12, Francis will not be there. He has removed the trip from his schedule. But if he is not going - Father Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit weekly “America,” proposed to his confrere Pope - why not include Greta Thunberg in the Vatican delegation? Why not give none other than her the pope’s seat? Not outside the conference, to demonstrate with the people oppressed by the politicians’ vacuous...

Egypt's top Muslim cleric on Saturday called for an international ban on all forms of attacks against Islam, after a controversial film allegedly triggered the recent wave of violent protests that have erupted in the Middle East and North Africa. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Muslim learning, stressed "the need for an international resolution (banning) any attack on Muslim religious symbols," in a statement addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and published by official MENA news agency. The resolution should "criminalize attacks on Islamic symbols and on those of other religions,...