Free Republic

Effectively exiled from his friary in Mosul by the Islamic State last year, Fr. Najeeb Michaeel, O.P. is working to preserve Christian manuscripts through digitization, recording a memory of Iraq's Christian past. Najeeb Michaeel is an Iraqi native who studied in the U.S., and founded in 1990 the Center for the Digitization of Oriental Manuscripts to foster the collection and recording of ancient manuscripts which he had started in the 1980s. Over the years, Fr. Michaeel has collected some 750 Christian manuscripts in order to preserve them and to make them available for study by making digital copies. The archives...

Questions that need to be asked about Islam were asked by Pope Benedict nearly ten years ago.On a plane ride between Sri Lanka and the Philippines this week, Pope Francis made headlines while talking with reporters about the moral limits to free expression. The issue came up, of course, in the wake of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France, which Pope Francis has strongly condemned. The attacks in Paris — including one at a kosher deli — along with the slaughter that Boko Haram inflicts in Nigeria, the terrorist attack in the Lindt café in Sydney...

Citing the widespread destruction of churches and other Catholic institutions and the general situation of insecurity, the bishops of Niger have indefinitely suspended the operation of all Catholic schools, health centers, charities, and development agencies. The bishops said that this suspension would allow them to pray and reflection upon “the painful events we have just endured.” The bishops pleaded for donations and attributed the destruction to rampaging young people who were responding to caricatures of Muhammad that appeared in Charlie Hebdo. The West African nation of 17.1 million is 80% Muslim and 0.1% Catholic.

The current arc of history seems to be drawing us back into a very dark past—a time when Islam ruled half the civilized world and threatened the rest of it.Where will the Pope live when Rome falls to Islam? It’s not an idle question. For one thing, there is historical precedent. Popes have been forced from Rome in the past. For another thing, numerous Islamic authorities have explicitly targeted Rome for conquest. Rome may be the Eternal City, but it has seen rough times. In 846, for instance, Pope Leo IV had to briefly flee Rome when it was attacked...

Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those on the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West.

Duke University’s reversal of today’s plan to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer from its historic chapel tower has reinvigorated a debate over shared worship space. The Durham, North Carolina-based school had authorized Muslim students to recite the three-minute chant from Duke Chapel on Friday, the weekly day of assembly in Islam, but rescinded the decision this week, following criticism and citing a “serious and credible security threat.” Franklin Graham, whose ministries (Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) are headquartered in North Carolina, attacked the university’s decision and condemned the use of a Christian space by members of...

A Catholic priest in Germany has been banned from giving sermons or representing the church after speaking at a Pegida rally. Father Paul Spaetling, from the Diocese of Munster, told the rally that Europe had spent over a thousand years fighting against Islam. He said that he did not agree that Islam had a place in the country, which the German chancellor had said.

On Aug. 6, 2014, after evening Mass on the feast of the Transfiguration, the Christian residents of Qaraqosh, Iraq, were threatened by the Islamic State to convert to Islam, pay a tax or be killed. That prompted the exodus of the city's 50,000 Christians, who fled to Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Qaraqosh, a bed of Christianity since the first century, was totally Syriac Catholic. Syriac-Catholic Bishop Barnaba Yousif Habash of the Syrian Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance, based in Bayonne, N.J., is a native of Qaroqosh. He describes...

On Tuesday in the case of Holt v. Hobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of a Muslim inmate in an Arkansas state prison who sought to wear a half-inch beard in accordance with his faith. “The decision in Holt v. Hobbs is a great victory for religious freedom,” said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, “because it underscores that each and every person enjoys this basic human right.” “You don’t lose it if you subscribe to a minority faith, or even if you enter prison —...

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri said that military intervention was the only viable option for combating the IslamistsA bishop whose diocese in north-east Nigeria has suffered at the hands of Boko Haram wants the West to send in military forces to defeat the militants. Describing how Boko Haram was now recruiting from countries across north Africa, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri said that Western military intervention was the only viable option in the fight against the militants. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, the bishop...

Orthodox Jewish women and conservative Muslim women both follow modesty rules, but Orthodox Jewish women are devout without abandoning their individuality and civil liberties. 26-year-old Hayat Boumedienneis the suspected accomplice in last week’s 3-day terror attack in Paris, France. Her common law husband, Amedy Coulibaly, murdered four Jews and a policewoman in a kosher Paris market. Boumedienne is now the poster girl for young, insecure Western women who abandon Western mores for radical Islam. Boumedienne’s close friend described her to France24 News as an emotional basket case “who often cries and has little confidence in herself.” After discarding her string...

MOSCOW, January 18 (Sputnik) – The Patriotic Europeans against the Islamification of the West (PEGIDA) cancelled its anti-Islam and anti-immigration rally in the German city of Dresden scheduled for Monday after one of its leaders allegedly received a death threat from the Islamic State. "Please, don’t come tomorrow to Dresden, friends," the group said in a post on its official Facebook page. "Unfortunately we must cancel our 13th meeting due to security concerns. According to the police, there is a specific threat against a member of the organizing team," the group explained. PEGIDA claimed that the threat was issued by...

When Civilizations Meet: How Joseph Ratzinger Sees Islam The author of this essay is an Egyptian Jesuit who is very familiar with both the pope and the Muslim religion. It was written for and published by “Asia News.” Here it is in its entirety http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/53826?eng=y by Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. 26 may 2006 Benedict XVI is probably one of the few figures to have profoundly understood the ambiguity in which contemporary Islam is being debated and its struggle to find a place in modern society. At the same time, he is proposing a way for Islam to work toward coexistence...

On a recent Sunday, my family and I only showed up 10 minutes early for Mass. That meant we had to sit in fold-out chairs in the spillover room, where the Mass is relayed on a large TV screen. During the service, my toddler had to go to the bathroom. To get there, we had to step over a dozen people sitting in hallways and corners. This is business as usual for my church in Paris, France. I point this out because one of the most familiar tropes in social commentary today is the loss of Christian faith in Europe...

The editors of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have announced that they do not want the support of the Catholic Church in the wake of a massacre at their offices in Paris. In an editorial published in the first issue following the killings, the staff of Charlie Hebdo poked fun at some of the public figures who had joined in shows of public support. The editorial said: What made us laugh the most is that the bells of Notre Dame rang in our honor. We would like to send a message to Pope Francis-- who also was Charlie this...

OXFORD, England (CNS) — German church leaders have criticized an anti-Islamic movement that staged mass demonstrations in Dresden and other cities, but they also urged a better understanding of public fears. “This movement looks set to grow — and the Catholic Church totally distances itself from it,” said Michael Baudisch, spokesman for the Dresden Diocese. “But we also have to speak to those involved, many of whom nurse frustrations about the political process and their lack of life chances. Far from just branding them extremists, our bishops think we must consider their opinions and aims.” Jan. 12 rallies by “Patriotic...

There is a liberal progressive global vision for the world in which all religious beliefs, starting with Christianity, are wholly squelched. Those running this political and public relations campaign have the nation of Israel and American Christians in their sights. They continue to shape public opinion in such a way that the influence of Christianity will finally fall prey to 'science' and 'hate speech' as Israel loses its wingman (AMERICA) in their fight for self preservation. All the worlds problems can be solved, after all, if we could just annihilate all those pesky religions.... Looks like Allah hasn't got the...

As the world rightly focuses on the recent terror attacks in Paris on Charlie Hedbo and a kosher grocery store, it should be noted that the second attack is part of a larger problem: the ongoing vitriol toward the French Jewish community. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders invited French Jews to move to Israel. That’s a nice gesture, but it’s not enough. The United States should join Israel and offer to also open up its shores as a refuge to the endangered Jews of France. This past summer, I traveled to Paris with a...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Monday (Jan. 12) rejected reports that it could be the next target of Islamist terrorists after last week’s deadly attacks in France. The move came as Pope Francis called for a “unanimous” global response to the self-declared Islamic State as he left on his first official visit to the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Israeli state TV reported Sunday that U.S. intelligence services had warned the Vatican could be the next terrorist target, as international leaders joined an estimated 2 million people in a massive anti-terrorism rally in Paris. But the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the...

We are Charlie" How not to be indignant at the murder committed in cold blood? The attack that killed 12 people in the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo fills us with horror. As a result of a newspaper and its options, it is freedom of expression that is subject to terrorism. Unanimous reactions that have arisen, from right and left, among believers as from unbelievers, call out not to give in to fear and to defend a plural society. We have decided to put online [on our site] a few cartoons of Charlie Hebdo that relate to Catholicism.