SCOTLAND – Eggs and insults hurled at Catholic parishioners   As churchgoers were leaving evening Mass at St John and St Columba’s Church in Rosyth, 14 miles northwest of Edinburgh, a gang of youths threw raw eggs and hurled “anti-Catholic abuse” at Fr. Kevin Dow and his parishioners. Ten children aged about 12 were involved...

GREECE – World’s oldest refugee: Iraqi woman aged 116 escapes from IS   An Iraqi grandmother aged 116 years who escaped from IS is the oldest refugee in Greece – and possibly the world! Zafir, born on 1 July 1910, is older than the Iraqi state itself. At that time the Ottoman Empire still existed and...

Nepal – Holy Cross Sisters’ mission for poor remote villages is thriving   It is almost 10 years now since the sisters of the congregation of the Daughters of the Holy Cross first began their apostolate in East Nepal. They are helping to give schooling to children from the poorest families, and at the same time...

INDIA – Two priests give an account of religious persecution against Christians   Two priests from the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in Orissa spoke about their experiences of religious persecution at a conference on religious persecution organised by Aid to the Church in Need. Fr Mrutyunjaya and Fr Santosh Kumar described the difficult reality of Christians in...

ETHIOPIA – Giving hope to Eritrean refugees in Hitsatse camp   We hear about them in the news, in reports about successive boats that have sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. They come from a country where there is no war, and yet considered one of the worst places in which to be born and to...

SYRIA – Christians caught up in political storm   Syrian Christians are often portrayed as supportive of the Assad regime. This is largely because many church leaders have declared their support for the President and in most Christian areas there were no demonstrations against the regime. Nevertheless, the situation is not so clear-cut. Like other religious...