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
No extra security measures will be taken during upcoming trips by Pope Francis to Albania and Turkey despite alleged assassination threats. Threats to kill the Pope by the terrorist Islamic State were revealed by Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See in an interview in an Italian newspaper on Tuesday. But Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, Read more
A top Vatican official at the United Nations has linked the recruitment of young people by Islamist terror groups with Europe having failed its young. The Holy See permanent observer at the UN office in Geneva, Archbishop Silvio Tomasi, said Europe needs to ask itself some hard questions. “Europe should ask itself why it has Read more
The Vatican has said there is no reason for concern following speculation in Italian media that Islamic State jihadists are targeting Pope Francis. Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told the Catholic News Agency on August 26 that “this news has no foundation”. The rumours spread following an August 25 article in Italian newspaper “Il Tempo”, Read more
The American journalist shown being beheaded by Islamist extremists in a video prayed the Rosary during a previous kidnapping in the Middle East. James Foley, 40, was the oldest of five children in a Catholic family in New Hampshire. Working for the Global Post and AFP, he was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. Commenting on Read more
Vatican officials and diplomats have expressed support for US airstrikes in Iraq amid fears of genocide against religious minorities. Islamic forces have swept northern Iraq in recent weeks, killing or expelling Christians and religious minorities like the Yazidis in a campaign that some consider tantamount to genocide. The Vatican’s nuncio in Iraq, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua Read more