The Methodist church in Mornington, Dunedin, will be inviting refugees and members of the Muslim faith to take part in a shared religious service to dedicate a specially-made cross to refugees. It is a Lampedusa Cross, made from the wreckage of a refugee boat by Francesco Tucci, a carpenter on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Read more
A cardinal who denounced the threat to the family from a “gay empire” has been deemed by a Spanish judge not to have committed a hate speech crime. Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Valencia made this denunciation in a homily on May 13. In his preaching, the cardinal also listed gender theory as among the threats Read more
The UN says 65.3 million people were displaced last year by conflict and persecution, a new high. One person in 113 was displaced from her home in 2015 by conflict and persecution and is now an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee, the UN refugee agency says Monday in a new report. In all, the Read more
The Vatican has brought nine more Syrian refugees to Rome. This adds to the 12 who accompanied Pope Francis when he returned from the Greek island of Lesbos in April. The nine refugees, like the twelve who preceded them, were living in a refugee camp on Lesbos. The Sant’Egidio community in Rome has agreed to Read more
“It is now for us as a community to welcome those who will settle in New Zealand, and do what we can to support them as they build a new life and find peace after the trauma they’ve experienced,” says the President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops conference. Bishop Patrick Dunn was commenting on Read more
There was a very moving scene at the state funeral of Malcolm Fraser in March last year, when Vietnamese Australians thronged outside the church carrying placards which read: “You are forever in our hearts: farewell to our true champion of humanity: Malcolm Fraser.” I honour Fraser, but not because he opened our borders to fleeing Read more
Take a tape measure. Unroll the tape to about two meters (six feet) and place one end against a wall. The distance between you and the wall corresponds to the world population of about 7.3 billion people. The number of people worldwide who left their native countries in the last five years — in other Read more
A cardinal has said that Pope Francis and Europe’s people have differing views on the migrant crisis because the Pontiff comes from another continent. Cardinal Dominik Duka, the archbishop of Prague, spoke about the crisis in an interview with a Czech newspaper. “The sensitivity of Pope Francis on social issues is different from ours in Read more
A group of Perth church leaders who staged a sit-in in a cabinet minister’s office to protest treatment of refugee children have avoided jail. The group refused to leave Australian justice minister Michael Keenan’s office on February 20. At the Perth Magistrates Court last week, the protestors were given “spent” convictions for trespassing and were Read more
An Austrian bishop has refused to allow an anti-refugee border fence to be built on church lands. Bishop Aegidius Zsifkovics of Eisenstadt has ensured the fence being built along Austria’s border with Hungary will have at least two large holes. The bishop said that fences weren’t the answer to Europe’s refugee crisis and allowing them Read more