Free Republic

CHESTER, England - Christianity in Iraq is just one wave of persecution away from extinction, said the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Basra. In an interview with Catholic News Service, Chaldean Archbishop Habib Nafali said there were now so few Christians in his country that the church there would disappear if it was subjected to further persecution. He said the displacements and murders of Christians over the past 15 years constituted genocide. “Another wave of persecution will be the end of Christianity after 2,000 years,” he said in the Oct. 5 interview in St. Columba’s Church. “There is a global game,...

“I will be so happy if my Lord Jesus Christ accepts me as one of His followers. Is it possible if I was born a Muslim?” That’s a question from a man in the Middle East who reached out to BGEA’s internet evangelism ministry, Search for Jesus, after hearing about Christ through Christian friends. Search for Jesus has over 500 trained volunteers ready to respond to online visitors with the hope of the Gospel. Two of those volunteers, Brian and Kimberly of North Carolina, spent years as missionaries to Muslims in Southeast Asia and now answer emails from Muslims around...

Cardinal Becciu will preside over the ceremony of the feast of the Immaculate ConceptionA bishop, seven Trappist monks and 11 other religious men and women killed by extremists in Algeria in the 1990s will be beatified on December 8, according to the Algerian bishops. Mgr Pierre Claverie and Companions will be beatified during a ceremony at the Basilica of Santa Cruz in the Algerian city of Oran on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Cardinal Giovanni Becciu, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will represent Pope Francis ceremony. The Algerian bishops described the event as a “great...

Is “Moderate Islam” an illusion? Moderate Islam is a wedge that will jam open the door to Jihad, and "evil will triumph when good Muslims do nothing." The great majority of Muslims are not adherents of the radical line. Yet, because Islamists wage war under the name of Islam, they receive immense direct and indirect support from rank-and-file ordinary Muslims. It is this support of moderate Muslims that keeps Jihadists alive. Perhaps it is wishful thinking on the part of non-Muslims to believe that one can be a moderate Muslim who does not participate in any shape or form the...

The Syriac Catholic Patriarch rededicated the cathedral in AleppoIn war-torn Aleppo, Syria, the Syriac Catholic patriarch proclaimed that “the will of life has overcome death; hope and security have overcome despair and chaos. Our people have overcome.” Celebrating Mass on September 9 at the inauguration and rededication of the restored Our Lady of the Assumption Syriac Catholic Cathedral, Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan said, “We will always be people of hope and life.” The cathedral’s inaugural Mass, filled with worshippers, was attended by Cardinal Mario Zenari, the Vatican nuncio to Syria; bishops of other Christian churches; and representatives of Aleppo...

The Turkish Supreme Court rejected a request from one of the religious groups. They had asked for the historical museum of Hagia Sophia to be transformed into a mosque. According to the Anatolian agency reporting the news on Thursday, the Court dismissed the case because of errors made in the written request. The basilica of Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, then into a museum in 1935. According to Turkish law, worship is prohibited in museums.

Franklin Graham, who has called Islam ‘evil’, is due to speak at a festival in BlackpoolBritain’s leading Muslim organisation has called on the Home Office to refuse a UK visa to a prominent US evangelical preacher with links to Donald Trump and a track record of Islamophobic and homophobic statements. Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham, has been invited to preach at a Christian festival in Blackpool this month. The preacher, who said Trump’s election victory was evidence that “God’s hand” was at work, has called Islam “evil” and “wicked”, claimed Barack Obama’s “problem is that he...

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick gave a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2001, when he was the archbishop of Washington, in which he noted the “sense of humanity” found in “all the holy books,” including “the Koran.” “But for everyone, not just Christians, there is a sense of humanity,” McCarrick said in an address that was televised on CSPAN. “It’s in all the books, all the holy books,” McCarrick said. “It’s in the Koran. It’s in the Bible. It’s in the writings of the eastern religions, this great sense of the wonder of the human...

Dominik Tarczyński is proud that Poland did not receive a single Muslim immigrant from the Middle East. Interviewed by Swedish newspaper Nyheter Idag, he has a clear message for the Swedish people: Change government. Tarczyński is an MP of the ruling Government Law and Justice party and also a prominent member of the Council of Europe. For Tarczyński, his grandpa, Józef Albiński is his great model in the fight against communists and other enemies. Albiński (nickname Fox) was an underground soldier after 1945 against the Soviets. “He would want me to fight for my country because he fought for me,”...

DAHUK, Iraq - The Chaldean Catholic Church concluded a weeklong synod in Baghdad offering thanks to God for the return of numerous displaced Christians to their hometowns in the Ninevah Plain and for pastoral achievements in their dioceses. The synod, held Aug. 7-13 at the invitation of Cardinal Louis Raphael I Sako, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch, brought together church leaders and participants from Iraq, the United States, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Canada, Australia and Europe to discuss issues vital for the church’s future both in Iraq and among its diaspora. Patriarchs and other leaders proposed potential candidates for election as new...

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistan-born former Bishop of Rochester, has weighed into the controversy around the burqa to call for a near-total ban on full face veils, supported by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey. The senior clergyman told the Mail on Sunday that, while a small minority of women might be choosing to cover their faces voluntarily, that there was no doubt “the burqa or niqab is being weaponised by Islamists to impose what they consider to be ‘Islamic’ character on communities, neighbourhoods and even nations.” He added: “In Britain, this has serious implications for the freedom of women, but...

A British woman going by the pseudonym “Kate Elysia” recently revealed the extent of her sexual victimization by Muslim men. While this included the usual -- including drugs, and gang-rapes by as many as 70 men -- her story had an interesting twist to it. According to the report: “[A]t one point during her abuse, she was trafficked to the North African country of Morocco where she was prostituted and repeatedly raped.” There she was kept in an apartment in Marrakesh, where another girl no more than 15 was also kept for sexual purposes. “I can’t remember how many times...

Christians in Turkey were recently pressured by Erdogan’s government to sign a declaration that they face no religious persecution in the nation, according to a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared last Wednesday that Turkey has no problems with religious minorities. “Turkey has no problems related to [religious] minorities. Threatening language of the U.S. evangelist, Zionist mentality is unacceptable,” he said, according to the Andalou Agency. His statement comes on the heels of the signing the day before of a joint declaration by every non-Muslim community, including Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Jewish leaders, denying allegations of...

The former foreign secretary faces a probe that could see him expelled, as a source close to him says "the world had gone mad".Boris Johnson is facing investigation by an independent panel after comparing women in burkas to "letter boxes" and "bank robbers". The former foreign secretary, who resigned last month, faces claims he breached the Conservative Party's code of conduct in an article for the Sunday Telegraph. In it, Mr Johnson questioned why Muslim women who wear the full-face veil would "go around looking like letter boxes". He added he would "feel fully entitled" to ask a woman "looking...

The Turkish government made an announcement on August 2 that is likely to increase tensions between the state and its Orthodox Christians. While the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s seminary on the island of Halki has remained closed since 1971, Turkey has announced that it intends to open an Islamic studies center on the same island. Moreover, building plans have the Global Center for Islamic Studies situated right in front of the Orthodox seminary building, reports Sedmitza. According to experts, the opening of the Islamic studies center would completely rule out the possibility of reopening the seminary, which the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been...

One of the instruments that the enemies use is creating discord among us. I insist that we stress and place great emphasis on this matter. Brothers, sisters, Muslims in the world of Islam, if this call reaches your ears, you should know that the day when the words “Sunni” and “Shia” appeared in the American discourse, we became concerned. Every insightful person became concerned. What does America have to do with Sunni and Shia? What does such and such a Jewish Zionist politician in America – who has done nothing except for showing malevolence against Islam and Muslims – have...

In my last piece for Crisis, I emphasized the importance of casting doubts on Islamic beliefs just as we cast doubts on Soviet Communist ideology during the Cold War. With that in mind, let’s talk about the Koran. It’s the fountain from which the ideology flows. It is quoted incessantly by terrorist leaders and imams alike, and it provides the motivation for both armed jihadists in combat fatigues, and cultural jihadists in business suits.So it would seem logical for those threatened by Islam to cast doubts on the Koran. If the Koran came to be seem as a man-made fabrication...

The Orthodox Monastery of St. Thekla in Maaloula, Syria has reopened its doors after the liberation of the city in the Damascus Province, reports Interfax-Religion. The nuns, who had been forced to leave the monastery due to the war, have been able to return. “Everyone was very worried about the nuns; everyone really loves them. The parishioners are warmed by their spiritual warmth. I returned here from Damascus as soon as I heard that the area was freed from terrorists,” monastery chaplain Fr. Ilias Ades reports. According to him, reconstruction work on the monastery is nearing completion. “Maaloula has revived;...

In a legal first, a British High Court judge has recognised a shariah marriage when ruling on a ‘divorce’ petition of a Muslim woman, likely setting a precedent on the acceptance of Islamic marriages and divorces in the UK. Mr Justice Williams ruled that an estranged Muslim couple’s Islamic marriage does fall under the scope of the 1973 Matrimonial Causes Act and that they could, therefore, ‘divorce’ — despite the couple never having had a legal civil ceremony, reports The Guardian. Nasreen Akhter and Mohammed Shabaz Khan, both of Pakistani heritage, had ‘married’ in an Islamic nikah ceremony conducted by...

The British government has admitted that no Christians were taken among the Syrian refugees flown into Britain recently, with the Home Office rejected the handful of non-Muslims selected for resettlement by the United Nations. Despite the persecution of Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists in Syria having been declared genocide by the U.S., the European Union (EU) and even British MPs themselves in a 2016 parliamentary vote, the 1,112 Syrians that Britain resettled in the first three months of 2018 consisted only of Muslims. The Barnabas Fund, an aid agency which supports Christians persecuted for their faith, obtained the...