Free Republic

At least 71 residents of Gbjeji — virtually all of whom were worshippers at a parish branch of St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church — were killed in the attack.Details are still emerging after a violent raid by Fulani herdsmen Oct. 19 in Benue State, Central Nigeria, reportedly left dozens of Catholic villagers killed. Police and clergy agree that the raid was in reprisal for the killing of four Fulani herdsmen earlier in the week in a clash between herdsmen and farmers defending their crops. Accounts differ as to the exact number killed in the Oct. 19 raid. A county chairman,...

Around 2,500 more people left than in the previous record-setting year of 2019.A record number of Swiss Catholics formally left the Church in 2021, according to new statistics. The Swiss Institute of Pastoral Sociology (SPI) in St. Gallen said that 34,182 people left the Church last year, around 2,500 more than in the previous record-setting year of 2019. Around 2.96 million people remained members of the Church at the end of 2021, out of a total Swiss population of roughly 8.7 million. The Protestant Church in Switzerland also reported a record number of departures in 2021, with 28,540 exits. Switzerland...

Sources say Rome and the local archdiocese did all they could to discourage a revival of the monastery – and that they are the ones who will receive the monastery's estimated assets of approximately $10 million.(LifeSiteNews) – Troubling news is coming to us from Philadelphia. Already in February, unbeknown to the general public, the Congregation for Religious Institutes under Cardinal João Braz de Aviz suppressed the historic 120-year-old Carmel in Philadelphia that was the cradle of the devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux in this country. Sources told LifeSiteNews that it appears Rome and the local archdiocese did all they...

“Fifteen centuries after its foundation, the magnificent Byzantine Church of Hagia Sophia still hides secrets whose discovery causes surprise and admiration.” Now, the oldest structure of the entire Hagia Sophia complex in Istanbul has been opened. The existence of the structure, a three-room catacomb dating to the 4th century, has been known since 1946, but only recently was the work of removing the tons of mud and sediment that engulfed the site completed, reports CNN Greece.