Iraqi children who escaped fi erce fi ghting in Mosul rest on the ground October 20 upon reaching the Syrian border near Hassakeh. Photo: CNS

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has offered a personal donation to restoration works on the tomb of Jesus at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Mr Abbas announced his intention to make such a donation during an October 17 visit to the West Bank of Christian Church leaders representing the faith traditions having special responsibility for…

A site in Jordan which is traditionally seen as the site of the death of Moses is reopening for public access after a decade. Located on the 1,000-metre Mount Neba, some 20kms south of the capital Amman, the site has been a place of pilgrimage from at least the 1930s when monks took responsibility for…

Pope Francis has said 2018’s World Meeting of Families is a gift to the Irish Church, Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said. Speaking in Drumcondra at the formal launch of preparations for the ninth global Catholic family gathering, which Dublin will host with Dr Martin presiding, the archbishop warned against allowing the meeting to be…

There have been calls for a change to “oppressive” equality legislation in Northern Ireland in the wake of the failed Ashers Bakery appeal. Following a decision by the Appeals Court in Belfast to uphold a discrimination finding against the McArthur family in refusing to decorate a cake in support of same-sex marriage, the Christian Institute,…