Pope Francis will meet the Shia leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during the first-ever Papal visit to Iraq. The meeting between Francis, the global leader of the Catholic Church, and al-Sistani, the highest religious authority of Iraqi Shi’ism, is due to take place in the city of Najaf. The pope will also visit the cities Read more
Iraqi Christian refugees’ situation is “critical and dangerous”, according to Jordanian priest, Fr. Khalil Jaar. He says their situation will deteriorate as access to international aid tightens. “This is now the third year of displacement for the Iraqi Christians. It’s very tough. Donations are becoming less, while global attention is waning,” Ra’ed Bahou, regional director Read more
There was something about Diyaa that his wife’s brothers didn’t like. He was a tyrant, they said, who, after 14 years of marriage, wouldn’t let their sister, Rana, 31, have her own mobile phone. He isolated her from friends and family, guarding her jealously. Although Diyaa and Rana were both from Qaraqosh, the largest Christian Read more
A leader from New Zealand’s Assyrian Christian community is calling for New Zealand to help the hundreds of thousands of their kind displaced by Islamic State militants in Northern Iraq. Assyrian priest Father Aprem Pithyou, of the Ancient Church of the East in Strathmore, Wellington, says his people need more humanitarian aid and wants Immigration Read more
WHEN the long, grim history of Christianity’s disappearance from the Middle East is written, Ted Cruz’s performance last week at a conference organized to highlight the persecution of his co-religionists will merit at most a footnote. But sometimes a footnote can help illuminate a tragedy’s unhappy whole. For decades, the Middle East’s increasingly beleaguered Christian Read more