Hostility towards religion has grown to unprecedented levels in the United States, according to a national survey that describes more than 600 examples in the last decade. Examples include local government zoning laws discriminating against churches and city officials telling senior citizens that praying over government-funded food violated the “separation of church and state” and Read more
A total of 120 Christian churches in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus have been desecrated and transformed into storage facilities, museums or even mosques. The Archbishop of Cyprus, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, says artworks in the Christian churches attacked have been confiscated and sold, and Cyprian Christians have also been assaulted. He said Turkey is trying Read more
Catholics in the Philippines and the United States are preparing to celebrate the October 21 canonisation of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, a teenage catechist killed in the 17th century. Witness accounts in the records of Jesuit missionaries show the teenage catechist from Guam died trying to protect his mentor, Jesuit Father Diego Jose Luis San Vitores, Read more
Manus Island is one of the poorest and most remote areas of Papua New Guinea. Ambrose Kiapseni is the region’s Catholic Bishop and his diocese includes Manus. He criticised the establishment of the first asylum seeker centre there and he told Alison Carabine that he hasn’t changed his mind. Listen to interview on Radio Australia
Communist officials in the Central Highlands of Vietnam have compelled ethnic villagers to remove the cross, altar, tabernacle and pictures from their chapel, replacing them with two images of Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary leader who died in 1969. Authorities told parishioners that the building was to be used “for village activities, not for worship”. Read more
South Africa’s Catholic bishops have condemned killings of striking miners at a platinum mine in Marikana. They called for a judicial inquiry into the circumstances that led to the violence. Thirty-four people died and 78 were injured when police opened fire on striking miners gathered on a rocky outcrop at the mine, 60 miles northwest Read more
St Joseph’s Church will look to silence the jackhammers during funerals and Sunday services should the proposed Basin Reserve flyover go ahead. Father Gerard Burns said the parish was still not “completely comfortable” with how the NZ Transport Agency’s $90 million project would affect the church on the corner of Brougham and Ellice streets. The Read more
Fiji will be a secular state,” says Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama. This was the Prime Minister’s response to the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party submission summary handed to the Constitution Committee by the party constituent leaders. The SDL said Fiji should be a Christian State and Christianity is the state religion. “This will Read more
A Carmelite nun says the armed insurrection in Syria is “producing a totalitarianism that is worse” than that of President Bashar Assad’s regime. Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, a religious superior in Syria, also appealed to the international community to stop supporting violent militias linked to al-Qaida and other extremist groups guilty of atrocities Read more