Muslims, Jews and Christians were among the thousands who attended the public funeral of ISIS-slain Fr Jacques Hamel on Tuesday. The requiem Mass, was led by the city of Rouen’s archbishop, Dominique Lebrun and afterwards Father Hamel was interred with a private burial ceremony. The archbishop told mourners that after his throat was slit, Hamel pushed one Read more
In his Atlantic article on “What ISIS Really Wants” last March, Graeme Wood insisted that “the Islamic state is Islamic. Very Islamic.” Wood’s detractors have been similarly emphatic, arguing that ISIS is a perversion of the Islamic faith. For Wood’s critics, secular politics, far more than religion or religious ideology, is the key to understanding Read more
A suspect who allegedly received orders from ISIS to attack the Vatican and Israel’s embassy in Rome is among several extremists arrested in Italy. The arrests were made in Lombardy and Piedmont late last month. They came as the result of a joint operation co-ordinated by Milan’s district attorney and the Italian anti-terror agency. Authorities Read more
In 1988, Ronald Reagan went to the newly restored Danilov Monastery in Moscow. Founded in the 13th century, the monastery had been restored not by the generosity of the Soviet state but by, as Reagan noted, “35 million believers” who had given “personal contributions.” “Our people feel it keenly when religious freedom is denied to Read more
A US woman who spoke at Auckland’s Eucharistic Convention this month has forgiven the ISIS killer who beheaded her son. Diane Foley, whose son James was executed in 2014, said she took no satisfaction from the killing by drone strike of her son’s killer, the man dubbed “Jihadi John”. “How can it give me joy Read more
For Muslims around the world, it’s become an almost daily heartbreaking experience to see Islam associated with all the shades of cruelty and inhumanity of so-called Islamic State (IS). It’s tempting to dismiss the group as lying beyond the boundaries of Islam. But this way of thinking leads down the same route IS has taken. Read more
A Tongan teenage woman Alo-Bridget Namoa, the wife of a western Sydney man charged with terror-related offences, has been arrested. The 18-year old married Sameh Bayda in December after converting from Christianity to Islam. Namoa, from Guildford in Sydney’s west, appeared at Parramatta Local Court via videolink on Saturday facing 31 charges of refusing to Read more
“In the case of our Pacific region, the hotspot is West Papua, the threat of ISIS, if there’s any degree of threat at all, it would be West Papua, because of the issue of West Papuan independence,” says John Tekwie, a community leader in Vanimo, the PNG town closest to the border. All mainstream religions Read more
President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey must feel like a chess grand master playing several games simultaneously. He has far more neighbours and different cultures to contend with than most leaders: eight in all. They are a mixed bag across more than 2600 kms of borders – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, an Azerbaijan enclave, Georgia, Bulgaria Read more
A Syrian priest held hostage for months by the ISIS terrorist group is certain his life was saved due to his interfaith work, despite being threatened with beheading by jihadists if he did not renounce Christianity. The Rev. Jacques Mourad, a Syriac Catholic priest, was taken hostage in May from the Mar Moussa monastery, situated Read more