Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group in the world. The growth and regional migration of Muslims, combined with the ongoing impact of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other extremist groups that commit acts of violence in the name of Islam, have brought Muslims and the Islamic faith to the forefront of Read more
A French priest has been stood down after he compared those killed in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris with the ISIS terrorists who shot them. Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon announced the standing down of Fr Hervé Benoît last Friday. The priest had written a column posted to a traditionalist website in which he Read more
ISIS considers itself the “Islamic Caliphate” (a theological empire) and controls vast swathes of land in western Iraq and eastern Syria. They also have “allegiance” from different radical Islamic groups around the world (from Afghanistan to Nigeria) who “govern” self-proclaimed provinces. Within the areas they control they have established a reign of terror second to Read more
There’s something profoundly rotten about cultures that can give birth to the murderous behaviour on show in Paris last Friday. This is just the latest and probably most visible instance because it happened in one of the hubs of the European and North American news media. These hubs make things that happen in too many other Read more
Pope Francis’s personal security detail was nearly doubled at his general audience on Wednesday in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. Francis was surrounded by nearly 20 dark-suited bodyguards during his tour through St Peter’s Square aboard his open-sided popemobile, more than the normal 12 who usually jog alongside him. At each of the Read more
A “normal” Catholic Italian girl has been dubbed “Lady Jihad” because of her recruiting prowess for ISIS. Former call centre worker Maria Giulia Sergio, 28, converted her entire Italian family to Islam and bullied them into starting new lives in Syria with ISIS, it is alleged. Maria is now known as Fatima Az Zahra. Italian Read more
US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has said he would scare Pope Francis about an ISIS threat if the Pontiff told him about capitalism’s faults. Multi-billionaire Mr Trump, who is one of the contenders to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, said this during an interview on CNN last week. Presenter Chris Cuomo presented a hypothetical 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
In late June, images made their way around the world of four men as they were locked in a car and killed with a rocket-propelled grenade. They showed seven men, chained together with explosive necklaces, as they were blown up. And they provided evidence that five men had been locked in a metal cage and Read more
The murder of twenty one Christians by Islamic State in Libya brought condemnation from around the world. Their murder puts them in a long history of persecution of the Coptic Church. Martyrdom was not new to them or their people. For nearly two thousand years, their Church had prided itself as being the Church of Read more