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The thuggish pastor of a small Southern California church and two of his parishioners tortured a 13-year-old boy who lived at a church-run group home, savagely beating him, grinding salt into his raw wounds and forcing him to dig his own grave. The pastor, Lonny Remmers, 56, and his two goons even tortured the teen during a group Bible study session, forcing him to sit in front of the others while they twisted his nipples with pliers, court documents show, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Jewish communities around the world are not letting terrorist attacks from Hamas deter them from relocating to Israel. This week, hundreds of French Jews arrived in Israel to settle in the towns of Ashdod and Ashkelon, while incidents of anti-Semitism continue to rise in France itself. On Thursday, as the Israeli government announced a ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza, 430 Jewish immigrants from France arrived in Israel with the intention of permanently relocating. Of these, many came as entire families, with 195 children and 18 infants on the flights in. The numbers from France are to be expected-- polls...

Worried about global warming, a growing number of churches and other faith groups are divesting their holdings in fossil-fuel companies, which release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “The warning in Scripture that ‘the wages of sin is death’ could not be more literally true than it is in the case of fossil fuels,” said Serene Jones, president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, whose board voted in June to divest its $108.4 million endowment of holdings in fossil-fuel companies. “While we realize that our endowment alone will hardly cause the fossil-fuel giants to...

Gaza City, Jul 18, 2014 / 11:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Though fighting has escalated between Israel and Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip, a Catholic Relief Services spokeswoman has stressed that the agency still aims to advance peace in the region. “This conflict has dimmed the prospects for peace among Israelis and Palestinians, but as a Catholic organization, we are called to be peacemakers,” Liz O’Neill, Catholic Relief Services’ communications officer for the Middle East region, told CNA July 17. “We continually advocate for our leaders in Washington to take concrete steps to promote a peaceful resolution to the...

Palestinian soldier stands guard during Pope Francis' May 25, 2014 Mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA. Vatican City, Jul 18, 2014 / 08:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In wake of the rising death toll in Gaza due to increased tensions between Israel and Palestine, Pope Francis made a personal call to both presidents in order to ask for peace. “Following last Sunday’s heartfelt appeal for continued prayer for peace in the Holy Land, this morning the Holy Father Francis personally telephoned President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas,” a July 18 statement from the Vatican read. During the calls,...

Christians in Mosul, Iraq, have been told that they must leave, convert to Islam or accept dhimmitude, or die. A communique from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gave Christians a deadline of June 19, saying that if they do not leave or accept Islamic rule, "their destiny is the sword." The Aleteia web site, citing local sources, said that this message was being broadcast on loudspeakers by mosques in Mosul. Bishop Saad Sirop, an auxiliary of the Chaldean Catholic patriarchate in Baghdad, told Aid to the Church in Need: "In the last hours, the jihadists of...

Islamic State sets new rules, raising possibility of martyrdomChaldean Auxiliary Bishop Saad Sirop of Baghdad has confirmed a troubling report from Mosul that the Islamic State is now presenting Christians in that city with a final ultimatum of conversion, subservience or death. According to sources known to Aleteia, but kept anonymous due to security concerns, a number of mosques in the city of Mosul, and through loudspeakers, called on Christians Friday to leave the city. They said in their appeals that the reason was due to the rejection of the bishops to meet elements of the Islamic State to dictate...

Sergiyev Posad, July 18, Interfax - The precepts of St. Sergius of Radonezh is a key to understanding Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a gala concert on the occasion of the 700th birthday anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh. "The precepts of St. Sergius of Radonezh are key to understanding Russia, to learning its foundamental principles - its historical traditions, unity and togetherness. It is in this unity, in truth and justice, in our centuries-long traditions in which lie the strength of Russia, its great past, present and future," Putin said. St. Sergius played a truly seminal role...

Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to...

SAN DIEGO – Cornerstone Church in San Diego, California is the largest congregation led by a Latino pastor in the city's history. But the pastor, Sergio de la Mora, a second generation Mexican-American, says it is the church's message, not demographic, that attracts people to the church's several campuses throughout Southern California and Mexico. "Because God is raising us second generation Latinos, He's breaking rules by using people like us. I believe that God is saying to America, 'give me permission to use people who you wouldn't think I can use," de la Mora, who leads the multicultural Cornerstone church,...

The UN’s Committee on Human Rights has condemned Ireland’s ban on abortion as “unacceptable cruelty,” and demanded liberalization of the law. Following testimony by several pro-abortion organizations, the UN committee pressed Irish justice minister Frances Fitzgerald to defend the country’s law, with one member claiming, inaccurately, that under existing international law, legal access to abortion is “an absolute right.”

After 7 7 7: Heaven's Answer?! Thank you for participating in 7 7 7: An Urgent Call to Prayer. The following picture was taken on Day 8 of 7 7 7 by a woman who prayer-walked the White House, Capitol, and the Supreme Court, using our prayers as a guide. Since the rainbow was given as a sign of God's covenant to Noah underscoring that never again would the world be destroyed by a flood, could it be that God has sent it as a sign that He has heard our prayers, will forgive our sin, and heal our land?...

The assault on religious liberty lost today as the Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes necessary to advance this bill. While the outcome is welcome, the fact that a majority of Senators, almost all Democrats, are still bent on eviscerating the religious liberty rights of Americans is very disturbing. It seems they will stop at nothing to trample on our First Amendment freedoms. The vote is being widely misreported by the media as a vote on contraception. It was not. The issue is abortion, not contraception. All four of the procedures that plaintiffs for Hobby Lobby cited in their...

Catholic News Service photo Bishop Elias Zaidan visits Portland the weekend of July 19-20. Catholic Sentinel photo by Ed Langlois Abouna Jonathan Decker and Monk Anthony Joseph Alles at the Maronite monastery in Beaverton in 2011. Ed LangloisOf the Catholic Sentinel The variety of Catholic tradition and the plight of Christians in the Middle East will be at the forefront this weekend in Portland. The leader of Maronite Catholics in the western U.S. is visiting to ordain a Portland monk on the path to priesthood. Bishop Elias Zaidan of the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon...

WASHINGTON — Tensions between Girl Scouts’ messaging and Catholic teaching have led to a national boycott of Girl Scout cookies, the ousting of Girl Scouts from parishes, and a significant drop in Catholic membership in the Girl Scouts. Now a panel of U.S. bishops has released the results of a two-year investigation into Girl Scouts’ problematic messaging, ties to Planned Parenthood, and continued advocacy of so-called reproductive rights by the organization’s international affiliate, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). Their findings indicate that the concerns continue to persist, regarding the problematic connections between the Girl Scouts...

WASHINGTON – Islamic State jihadists not only have designs on Saudi Arabia, Israel and Rome for their caliphate but also on Spain and other lands Muslims occupied from A.D. 622 to 1492. In a newly released video in Arabic, Islamic State jihadists vowed to “conquer Israel, Rome and Spain.” IS would redraw boundaries of countries, separate Shia and Sunni Muslims, and subject everyone to extreme Islamic law, or Shariah.

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - The jihadist militiamen of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who since June 9 control Mosul and have proclaimed the Islamic Caliphate, have ordered civil servants to suspend any provision of food aid and gas cylinders to the Shiites, the Kurds and the few remaining Christians in Iraq's second city. This is confirmed to Fides Agency by Christian sources in Mosul, after the news had been launched by the Arab website www.ankawa.com. According to what was reported by the local official Fadel Younis, representatives of the Islamic Caliphate have announced that any infringement...

Being on the wrong side of what nature teaches leads to social ruin and historical failureFrancis Cardinal George, in his most recent column in Catholic New World, reflects on the nature of religious freedom in the United States, and masterfully connects a number of important, related points in doing so: In this country, we do not fear being killed for our faith. What, then, are we afraid of? We are afraid that the institutions that perform the works of mercy that have been integral to the church’s mission for centuries will be forced to become, effectively, government institutions, given permission...

SYDNEY, Australia – A judge in southeastern Australia has been partially suspended after he declared that the culture’s acceptance of homosexuality will lead to a normalization of incest. According to a report last week from The Sydney Morning Herald, Garry Neilson is a district court judge in Sydney, Australia. In a recent sexual assault case, Neilson suggested that an adult male may not have been in the wrong for having sexual relations with his younger teenage sister over 30 years ago. The 58-year-old man, known for legal reasons as “MRM,” has admitted to raping his sister in the mid-1970s when...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A papal astronomer won recognition for his ability to communicate accurately and clearly the discoveries of planetary science to the general public. U.S. Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, a planetary scientist and meteorite expert at the Vatican Observatory, was awarded the prestigious Carl Sagan Medal for "outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist," said the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences, which chooses the annual prize winner. In addition to significantly contributing to the public understanding of and enthusiasm for planetary science, Brother Consolmagno "occupies a unique position within our profession as a credible spokesperson...