Nigerian priest Fr Mikah Suleiman was released last Sunday after more than two weeks in captivity. The parish priest of St Raymond’s Catholic Church, in Damba, Zamfara State, had been abducted from his presbytery in Sokoto diocese, north-west Nigeria, in the early hours of Saturday, June 22. In the days that followed, fears for his…
Five Catholics and six Protestants who were jailed in Vietnam for a range of offenses related to religious activities dating back to 2011 have gone missing, highlighting a larger problem within the communist country’s judicial system, International Christian Concern (ICC) has said. It said nine of the Christians had been jailed for “undermining national unity policy” due…
A Catholic leader has called for an end to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, telling EWTN last week that the accused in such cases are “guilty before even [having] an opportunity to prove themselves”. A court in Punjab recently sentenced Ehsan Shan to death for sharing “hateful content” against Muslims on social media. Last year, when locals…
A distinguished cadre of British public figures is calling upon the Holy See to preserve what they describe as the “magnificent” cultural artifact of the Catholic Church’s Traditional Latin Mass. In 2021 Pope Francis placed sweeping restrictions on the celebration of Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal, known also as the extraordinary form of the Roman rite…
The Catholic leader responsible for a world-famous and much beloved Marian healing shrine in France has ordered measures to lower the visibility of mosaic artwork by an accused serial rapist, but has stopped short – for the time being – of ordering the removal of the art. Fr Marko Rupnik is accused of abusing dozens…
In the midst of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, the patriarchs and leaders of ancient Christian churches in Jerusalem have signed a joint document in which they denounce that four Israeli municipalities have sought to levy municipal taxes on church properties in violation of “centuries” of historical agreements. The Church leaders, including Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa,…
A Belgian civil court has fined two Catholic prelates after they denied a woman entry into a diaconate formation program. According to the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, the woman, Veer Dusauchoit, asked the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels to register for training as a deacon in June 2023 and again in October 2023. Ms Dusauchoit made her first request…
Inga Kilian The mosaics by the controversial Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik in the French pilgrimage site of Lourdes will not be removed from the basilica for the time being. Although he is convinced that they will have to be removed one day, the Bishop of Lourdes, Jean-Marc Micas, told the French newspaper “La Croix” (Tuesday…
Spain’s Catholic Church has excommunicated a group of 10 nuns after they refused to renounce their allegiance to a rebel former priest. The sisters, who live in a 15th-century convent in Belorado on the St James Way pilgrimage route near Burgos, said last month they no longer recognised rule by the Vatican and claimed they…
Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that about 9,000 Christian families have returned to their homes on the Nineveh Plains after fleeing a decade ago, when ISIS took the region. In June of 2014, the Islamist extremist group captured Mosul and the villages to the north and…