MALI When God touched the heart of a persecutor of Christians The Brazilian national office of ACN invited Moussa Diabate from Mali in Africa to tell his story during a Day of Prayer for Persecuted Christians. Standing at the foot of the great statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio, he spoke about the...
GERMANY First church centre for Middle East Christians inaugurated On Sunday, October 22, 2017, the Chaldean-Catholic community of Mar Shimon Bar Sabbai in Stuttgart celebrated the opening of the first centre of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Europe. The Stuttgart municipality is named after the 4th-century martyr bishop and church chief Shimon Bar Sabbai....
FRANCE Court orders removal of cross from St John Paul II statue The Conseil d’Etat, France’s top administrative court, has ordered the removal of a cross from a statue of Pope Saint John Paul II in Ploërmel, a small city in Brittany. The court stated that the cross’ “presence in a public location is...
“Christians in the Middle East feel abandoned and betrayed” – Patriarch Younan Christians in the Middle East feel abandoned by the international community. The West has so far failed to help them in an extremely difficult situation – and Islamic society makes them second-class citizens in their own homeland, says the Syriac Catholic Patriarch...
Pope Francis says “To fight hunger and forced migration, end war and arms trade.” “Ensuring everyone’s right to food and nourishment is an imperative we cannot ignore. It is a right to which there are no exceptions!” tweeted Pope Francis @Pontifex Pope Francis issued a lengthy appeal to world leaders at the United Nations’ Food...
BRAZIL “Now and at the hour of our death” The month of November is devoted in particular to prayers for the deceased. What was supposed to be a work of mercy in the Amazonas region of Brazil became nothing more than a means of exploitation before the church took the initiative? The pontifical foundation...
RUSSIA Centenary of the October Revolution: Persecuted Christians then and now 7 November 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. The revolution developed into a brutal civil war that ended with the establishment of the communist Soviet Union: a violent dictatorship ideologically rooted in Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism. This began...
MYANMAR “The Pope will come to heal the wounds of the country” Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, the first Burmese cardinal in the history of the Church, spoke about the upcoming papal trip to the country. He stressed that the “Vatican and others need to work toward healing the wounds of our nation,...
Remembering our departed loved ones in November “From the earliest times, the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered suffrage for them, particularly the Eucharistic sacrifice so that purified from their sins, they will attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also recommends charity, indulgences and penance as suffrage for...
IRAQ US adviser warns Iraqi-Kurdish war could be the end for Christians Two weeks ago, Stephen Rasche, a Catholic lawyer from Boston who acts as the adviser to the Chaldean Catholic Church, warned that two millennia of Christianity in Iraq could be wiped out completely if war breaks out between Iraqi forces and Kurdish...
