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ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 23, 2023 / 16:15 pm A Syrian priest, whose appointment as archbishop was confirmed by Pope Francis on Jan. 7, shared the difficult times he spent being held hostage by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group and the importance of the “spirit of forgiveness.” In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, Father Jacques Mourad, elected archbishop of Homs, Syria, by the Synod of Bishops of the Patriarchal Church of Antioch of the Syrians, Eastern-rite Catholics in communion with Rome, recalled that when he was kidnapped by ISIS along with a postulant from...

Makurdi, Nigeria, Jan 20, 2023 / 18:15 pm At least 11 people, most of them Catholics, were killed Jan. 19 when alleged Fulani herdsmen attacked a village near a refugee camp in Nigeria’s Makurdi Diocese, a diocesan official has reported. In an interview with ACI Africa, CNA’s sister news partner, Father Moses Aondover Iorapuu, the diocese’s vicar general, recounted the “horrifying” persecution that Catholics were subjected to during the attack. “The images of the attack are horrifying, and I keep saying that not even ISIS is capable of such brutality,” he said. “After killing, these guys decapitated some and took...

The art history instructor sued the university in Minnesota district court, alleging religious discrimination and defamation.RNS) — Hamline University retracted its characterization of an adjunct professor as “Islamophobic” on Tuesday (Jan. 18) and has revised a previous statement about academic freedom. The retraction comes in the wake of a firestorm of criticism after the St. Paul, Minnesota, university did not renew the contract of the adjunct, who showed a 14th-century painting of the Prophet Muhammad in her online class last semester. The change in the university’s position came on the same day the adjunct professor sued the university in Minnesota...

Rome Newsroom, Jan 16, 2023 / 03:00 am (CNA). The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing at a Protestant church service on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 10 people were killed and more than three dozen injured in the terrorist attack on a church in the eastern Congolese town of Kasindi on the border with Uganda on Jan. 15, according to The Associated Press. Congolese government officials linked the attack to the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group in eastern Congo that is an affiliate of the Islamic State. “The attackers used an...

Boston, Mass., Jan 13, 2023 / 14:00 pm A team of Israeli archaeologists has discovered a sixth-century Byzantine church with highly decorated mosaic floors. The Civil Administration’s Archaeology Unit, which oversees historical sites in Judea and Samaria, announced Wednesday that the church was found in Jericho, a Palestinian town located in the West Bank, according to The Times of Israel. The agency is part of the government of Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which is part of the Ministry of Defense. The outlet reported that the church is 250 square meters large, which would have made the...

Final preparations are almost complete for the opening of Mor Efrem (St. Ephrem) Syriac Ancient Orthodox Church in Istanbul, the first church built in the history of modern Türkiye. While the church in the Bakırköy district is planned to be opened in two months, comprehensible work is being carried out to eliminate the last deficiencies. Following the allocation of a place at the request of the Syriac community in the country, the foundation of the church was laid in 2019 with a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The church was designed as a five-story building in the empty...

Archbishop Jacques Mourad worked to foster dialogue between Christians and Muslims before the advent of ISIS.A Syrian priest who spent five months in captivity by the Islamic State jihadist group has been elected archbishop of a Syriac Catholic archdiocese. The Synod of Bishops of the Syriac Catholic Church elected Fr. Jacques Mourad as Archbishop of Homs, Syria, it was reported Saturday. Pope Francis has given his assent to the election. One of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with Rome, the Syriac Catholic Church has some 175,000 faithful in the Middle East and in the diaspora. Archbishop Mourad said in...

Israel's new national security minister earlier visited the Jerusalem holy site, drawing condemnation The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency session to discuss the recent visit by Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which sparked international backlash, a report said Tuesday. An unnamed senior diplomat told The Times of Israel that a date has not yet been set, but the meeting could take place as early as Thursday. Earlier on Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates and China asked the UN Security Council to meet shortly after Ben-Gvir's controversial visit, according to diplomats. The Temple...

On Thursday, the Grand Mosque of Paris announced the opening of a criminal case against French writer Michel Houellebecq over his anti-Muslim statements amid a surge of Islamophobia in the country. The decision came after a “long conversation” between Houellebecq and another writer, Michel Onfray, and was published in Front Populaire magazine in November, the statement said. In the article, Houellebecq said that people in France are “arming” and may attack Muslim institutions when “whole territories come under Islamic control.” “People are arming. They buy rifles and take shooting courses … I think that resistance actions will occur when entire...

YAOUNDÈ, Cameroon – A Nigerian nun has described worsening attacks on Christians in Africa’s most populous nation, saying they’re part of an effort to Islamize the country under the hegemony of the largely Muslim Fulani ethnic group. Sister Nkiru Esther Ezedinachi of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Lord Jesus was speaking in exclusive comments to Crux in the wake of a new report which, once again, highlighted Nigeria as one of the worst places on earth to be a Christian. Ezedinachi also blamed the Vatican for seeming to look the other way as the kidnappings and killings continue...

RAQQA, Syria ꟷ Following Monday’s deadly attack by terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) on a building of the Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria in Raqqa, killing 6 six, and given the overall tense security situation in the region, the Syriac Military Council (Mawtbo Fulhoyo Suryoyo, MFS) deployed extra troops around churches in Raqqa. MFS says on its official page that it has put its troops on high alert to confront new possible terrorist attacks. Important sights, including churches and monasteries, will receive additional security during the holidays. The MFS adds to assure the people in general and...

For then I will make the peoples pure of speech, So that they all invoke Hashem by name And serve Him with one accord. ZEPHANIAH 3:9 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE) World leaders, ambassadors, diplomats, entrepreneurs, lawmakers, academics, and clergy from over thirty countries converged on Rome this week for the First Annual Abraham Accords Global Leadership Summit, an exclusive invitation-only event focused on new ways to increase peace and tolerance in the spirit of the Abraham Accords. Attendees included Houda Nonoo, Former Bahraini Ambassador to the United States, Danny Danon, Israel’s former UN Ambassador, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, Vice President of The...

Although somewhat dated, a televised debate from 2019 is instructive of all the "games" certain Muslims play to exonerate their religion while projecting Islam's shortcomings onto the other — in this case, Christian Europeans.Broadcast by the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, the debate was supposed to be an interview, but the show's Muslim host, Imran Garda, immediately launched into a diatribe against Dominik Tarczynski, a member of Poland's parliament, for that nation's refusal to take in Muslim migrants. To his credit, Tarczynski stood his ground, including when Garda introduced the "relativism" card via the 2019 New Zealand mosque massacre of...

(MENAFN) On an island in Bahrain, archaeologists and historians are at work discovering relics that will show the story of Christian homes in the kingdom before the spread of Islam. A group of Bahraini and British specialists prudently examine through sandy stretches between thick stone walls of what may have been a monastery or a bishop’s home referring back to the sixth and eighth century. Archaeologists in November are searching through spaces that would have been used as a kitchen, living areas and a workshop to stress on communities and their way of life before thousands of years. The team...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The former St. Ann property, including the church, school and convent, sold Wednesday to Buffalo Crescent Holdings, Inc. for $250,000. The company plans to convert the 651 Broadway property into a downtown Islamic Center.

The National Association of Muslim Police is calling on the Home Office and police to drop the terms “Islamist” and “Islamism” because of the direct link to Islamophobia. It says that counter terrorism policing uses these terms to to describe extremist ideology among groups such as Daesh or Al Qaeda. But it commissioned a survey showing 85 per cent of Muslim police respondents and 92 per cent of Muslim community respondents believed that these words had a direct link to Islamophobia and many Muslims feel marginalised, vulnerable and at a higher risk of hate crime and discrimination as a result....

Islamists would have you believe their religion unites them. It is false, it only Unites the "Ummah," against the [dhimmi] infidels [kuffars], but not among tnemselves. Though ethnic bigotry existed and exist, Islamizatiom of ethnic frictions perpetuates ever more and "elevates" it as a "holy war," Jihad. Which is why the 2.7 Million Christians: Armenian (1.5), Greek & Assyrians (700,000) were slaughtered [though the Young Turks were Lefty pro secularism, Jihadism was still played.Andrew G. Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, 2010, p.667)]. "On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman...

ROME — Pope Francis told Muslim elders in Bahrain Friday that God is the source of peace and he “never brings about war, never incites hatred, never supports violence.” “I have come among you as a believer in God, as a brother and as a pilgrim of peace,” the pontiff told the Muslim Council of Elders, so that “we can journey together.” In passing, the pope also addressed concerns of alleged human rights abuses in the majority Sunni Muslim nation, especially of the country’s minority Shiite Muslim community. In recent years many Shiite activists have been imprisoned or deported, and...

“The profane conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is not only an insult to historical truth, it constitutes a direct threat to the monument,” believes the General Secretary of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. “Hagia Sophia must be declared a monument in danger,” Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, Member of the Hellenic Parliament, said after a meeting with a representative of the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Center in Paris, reports News Bulletin 24/7. During the meeting, Charakopoulos informed the UNESCO rep about the damages the former cathedral has suffered since being reconverted into mosque. Unfortunately, there have been numerous reports of damage...

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,...