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Fr Thomas Chellan, 57, was one of the first victims of the anti-Christian pogrom launched by the Vishva Hindu Parishad after the assassination of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati on August 23, 2008.Only after being beaten, abused, wounded and stripped was he rescued by the police.A nun was subjected to the same violence, perhaps treated with even greater brutality. The Pastoral Centre in Kandhamal was one of the first Christian institutions to be destroyed, torched. Father Thomas, who is now recovering in hospital, has agreed for the first time to talk about his ordeal. Forcing himself to speak, he is still hard...

According to witnesses, Saturday afternoon Fr. Thomas celebrated mass in Burgida, before setting out for another village in the district where he was to have celebrated Sunday mass. The last people to have seen him alive were religious sisters from Lingapetta convent, where the priest had stopped for supper before continuing his journey. “Fr. Thomas is a martyr – said Msgr. Marampudi, archbishop of Hyderabad, on hearing of the brutal murder. The Indian Church is shocked and deeply saddened by this barbarous killing, the result of a growing climate of intolerance and violence against Christians in this country”. The prelate...

38 year old Fr. Thomas Pandippallyil, was assassinated on the night of August 16th on his way to a village to celebrate Sunday mass. His body showed signs of torture, with wounds to his face, his hands and legs broken and his eyes pulled from their sockets. The bishop of Hyderabad denounces the growing climate of “violence against Catholics” in the country. New Delhi (AsiaNews) – “Father Thomas is a martyr: he sacrificed his life for the poor and marginalised.  But he did not die in vain, because his body and his blood enrich the Church in India, particularly the...

Her crime? Converting to Christianity. "Saudi man kills daughter for converting to Christianity," by Mariam Al Hakeem for Zawya, August 13:Riyadh: A Saudi man working with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice recently killed his daughter for converting to Christianity. According to sources close to the victim, the religious police member had cut the tongue of the girl and burned her to death following a heated debate on religion. The death of the girl sent shockwaves and websites where the victim used to write with various nick names have allocated special space to mourn her, while...

By Michael Ireland Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service SOMALIA (ANS) -- Islamic extremists shot and killed a Muslim convert to Christianity on July 10, 2008 in Afgyoye, a town 18 miles away from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. The victim's name was Sayid Ali Sheik Luqman Hussein, and he was 28 years old. ICC (International Christian Concern) www.persecution.org says that on Tuesday, July 8, two Muslim men approached Mr. Hussein and asked him if he faces Mecca when he prays (Mohammed instructed his followers to face the city of Mecca when they pray). Hussein told them that as a Christian, he does...

In a bid to evade detection by security personnel’s reluctance to conduct “immodest” body searches for bombs, Islamic terrorists are resorting to stuffing explosives in their underwear. The deadly skivvies are loaded with glass splinters, metal ball bearings and bullets wrapped around a plastic explosive. Normal search procedures focus on the upper body—looking for bomb-laden vests, but sparing the indelicacy of probing a suspect’s “privates.” The split second of agony as glass and metal fragment rip into the bomber’s scrotum is being sold to would-be martyrs as “the prelude to infinite ecstasy.” “I am told that by breaking the genitals...

The small Catholic community in Fanzhi does not have a church and wants property seized in the 1950s back. However, local authorities have already sold it in violation of the law that requires it be returned to its rightful owners. Taiyuan (AsiaNews/UCAN) – A priest suffered heavy blows to the back; two women had an arm broken; and another faithful received minor injuries, all because the small Catholic community in Fanzhi (Shanxi), 140 kilometres from the provincial capital of Taiyuan, wants its property back. Warned that it might not be able to meet for religious functions anymore, the community...

On June 6, Martin Burnham, an American missionary, died in a battle between his Islamic kidnappers and Filipino troops sent to rescue him. Burnham, thus, becomes the newest member of what the Te Deum, an ancient hymn, calls "the white-robe army of the martyrs" -- an army that, according to a recent estimate, is a staggering 70 million strong. But what's even more staggering is that, according to the same estimate, 45 million, or two-thirds of all Christian martyrs, died in the twentieth century. These estimates are contained in a new book, The New Persecuted: Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in...

McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann today on a conference call noted that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said he didn't want to make Osama bin Laden a martyr. "The last I checked, a martyr is someone who dies for a cause or someone who is killed for a cause," Scheunemann said. "It seems that Senator Obama is ruling out capital punishment."

LONDON - In chilling videos shown to a jury Friday, men accused of plotting to bring down jetliners over the Atlantic called for revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and praised Osama bin Laden. Six of the eight defendants videotaped messages denouncing the West for what they said was its suppression of Muslims, prosecutor Peter Wright said as he outlined his case to jurors at a London court. The defendants, all Britons with ties to Pakistan, are accused of plotting to blow up at least seven jetliners bound for the United States and Canada in 2006. Some of...

The beloved Archbishop of Mosul,Iraq was found dead, another True Martyr in Iraq.Catholic Online pledges our prayer and solidarity to our Chaldean Catholic brothers and sisters in Iraq, in America and throughout the world.

Someone once called her “Islam’s Ann Coulter,”...

When the accusations were communicated to Jerome, he refused to reply to them in prison; he demanded to be heard in public. With this request his judges deemed it expedient to comply; and on May 23rd, 1416, he was taken to the cathedral church, where the Council had assembled to proceed with his cause. [1] The Fathers feared exceedingly the effect of the eloquence of their prisoner, and they strove to limit him in his defences to a simple "Yes" or "No." "What injustice! What cruelty!" exclaimed Jerome. "You have held me shut up three hundred and forty days in...

What would you say about a politician who refused to tolerate sensible security measures just a few weeks after a major assassination attempt came within a hair's breadth of killing her, using a baby wrapped in a bomb? That bomb in Karachi killed an estimated 140 people, including the child. Bhutto only survived because by some miracle --- or by some intuition of danger --- she bent down behind the metal shielding of her open truck a few seconds before the bomb went off. *snip* The US government could have offered her improved security ---- and probably did. Her own...

Edmund was an English king who lived in the ninth century. He became king when he was only fourteen. Yet his high position did not make him proud or conceited. Instead, he took as his model the Old Testament king, David. Edmund tried to serve God as well as David had. In fact, Edmund even learned David's psalms by heart. The psalms are beautiful hymns of praise to God contained in the Holy Bible. King Edmund governed wisely, showing kindness to all his subjects. When Danish barbarians invaded his land, he fought them bravely. Their army was much larger than...

Madrid, Oct 29, 2007 / 10:38 am (CNA).- Bartolome Blanco Marquez is one of the youngest of the group of 498 martyrs beatified by Pope Benedict XVI this past Sunday at the Vatican.  A committed Catholic, the 22 year-old layman wrote a moving letter to his girlfriend Maruja just hours before his death. “Your memory will go with me to the tomb, and as long as my heart is beating, it will beat with love for you,” he told Maruja. “God has desired to exalt these earthly affections, ennobling them when we love each other in Him.”Therefore, although in my...

PREFACE by poster TOPHER of Freerepublic: Father Sebastian Râle, SJ, was viciously martyred on this date in 1724 (August 23). He was terribly disfigured in this martyrdom that Abenaki (native Americans that he was a missionary to) could not recognize him. This was not done by Mohawks or other Indians, but rather by a combination of New Englanders and Indians. The hate the people of New England had for this Holy Priest has stood in the way of his beatification and canonization.He wrote a dictionary of the Abenaki language, which is a prize treasure at Harvard -- but Harvard does...

They were martyred five centuries ago in the easternmost region of Italy, the spot most exposed to attack from the Muslims. The objective of the caliph Mohammed II was to conquer Rome, after having already taken Constantinople. But he was stopped by Christians who were ready to defend the faith with their blood ROMA, August 14, 2007 – The Roman Martyrology, the liturgical calendar of saints and blesseds updated according to the decrees of Vatican Council II and promulgated by John Paul II, shows that today the Church remembers and venerates... “... the approximately eight hundred martyrs of Otranto, in...

Iran authorities lash man for having bible in car - report Mon. 13 Aug 2007 Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 – Iranian authorities in Tehran lashed a man on his back earlier this year for having a bible in his car, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website on Friday. The man was only identified by the initials A. Sh. On 5 May, the man, driving his vehicle, was involved in a road accident with a car belonging to security guards for a government official in Tehran. A bible and a video of Jesus Christ...

Pace University Koran Case - Unbelievably Outrageous I’ve received an email from Stanislav Shmulevich, who has been arrested in New York for putting a Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And his case is even more outrageous than we first reported. First, Shmulevich was arrested and jailed for 24 hours. Second, he’s not facing misdemeanor charges—he’s being charged with two felonies, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment. Felonies. For putting a book in a toilet. Third, his income is on a borderline that disqualifies him for a public defender, so he stands to suffer incredible financial hardship as well. Fourth,...

The 10-month-old mystery of who threw the Koran into the toilets at Pace University's Manhattan campus was solved yesterday with the arrest of a student, cops said. Stanislav Shmulevich, 23, was confronted by detectives with a surveillance photo of himself leaving a Pace meditation room where the Muslim holy books were stored, police sources said. He made "admitting statements" after seeing the photograph, a source said. The suspect's roommate in Gravesend, Brooklyn, said she was stunned by the charges. "It's impossible. He was defending the Koran," said Ola Petrovich, 24, an online saleswoman. "We had that conversation. He said, 'Don't...

COLLEGE KORAN 'FLUSHER' COLLARED By PHILIP MESSING and HASANI GITTENS NYPost.com July 28, 2007 -- From Russia with . . . hate? Police yesterday arrested a Pace University student born in the former Soviet Union and charged him with a hate crime for allegedly clogging toilets with the Koran on two occasions last year. Business major Stanislav Shmulevich, 23, was collared at his Brooklyn home after cops confronted him with surveillance photos from the incidents last Oct. 13 and Nov. 21. In both cases, a teacher discovered a Koran in a second-floor toilet at 1 Pace Plaza in lower Manhattan.

MAN KICKED OUT OF THE YMCA FOR EVANGELIZING Living Waters via www.RepentAmerica.com July 9, 2004 We, Living Waters, wanted to bring to your attention a recent incident that took place with one of our ministry partners, Larry Lee, who lives in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. As you read his account, we are confident that you will see the unacceptable and unfair manner in which he has been treated by the YMCA. More importantly we are confident that you will agree with us in concluding that Larry's civil and religious rights have been violated. This concerns us because it...

'I Hoped To Be A Glorious Martyr' A woman who was inside Islamabad's Red Mosque when it was stormed by Pakistani troops on 10 July has given the BBC one of the first accounts of the final hours of the siege. Unwilling to be named, the survivor said she was not held hostage by militants inside. More than 100 people died in the army operation - she was one of only 30 women to walk out alive after soldiers went in. Following are excerpts from the interview with Rafia Riaz of the BBC's Urdu service. ..."They asked me to come...

When 16th century European priests arrived in southern India to introduce Christianity, they were told that a more famed Christian missionary had been there first. In the districts of Travancore and Cochin, there was already a community of Indian Christians with a tradition of loose communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The man who first converted them, the Indians said, was none other than St. Thomas the Apostle (the "Doubting Thomas"), who reputedly arrived in India aboard a Roman trading vessel in 52 A.D. Whether St. Thomas actually preached under the palm trees of Travancore and Cochin is a point...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A new al-Qaida videotape posted Sunday on a militant Web site featured a short, undated clip of a weary-looking Osama bin Laden praising martyrdom. The bin Laden clip, which lasted less than a minute, was part of a 40- minute video featuring purported al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan paying tribute to fellow militants who have been killed in the country. It was posted by the group's media production wing. Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad "had been wishing to be a martyr." "The happy...

Farfur may be dead, but his message continues. A week after the children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers showed the Mickey Mouse lookalike being beaten to death by an actor portraying an Israeli interrogator, the show was back on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV. The squeaky-voiced mouse was gone, but Friday’s program continued to preach hatred and praise Shahada – death as a martyr for Allah. This week’s messages came from the young viewers, who phoned into the show, expressed their views to the child host, Saraa’ and demonstrated how well they have absorbed the violent lessons of the show and possibly children’s programming....

BOSTON, Massachusetts, July 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A man who was given a failing grade on the Massachusetts bar exam has filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief and damages and is demanding a jury trial, claiming that he failed the exam after refusing to answer an inappropriate question on homosexual marriage. Besides requesting that bar examiners do not consider the offending question when grading his exam, however, Dunne is also challenging the very constitutionality of the homosexual "marriage" laws in the state of Massachusetts. In the list of defendants Dunne includes the Supreme Judicial Court and the individual Justices. In...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- For years he was known as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and assistant to President Bush. On Wednesday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became federal inmate No. 28301-016. Libby, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity, faces 2 1/2 years in prison.

[Taken from Saint John Fisher, by Michael Davies, The Neumann Press, 1998. Also available at St. John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr] Statue of St. John Fisher outside St. John Fisher Church, Rochester, England The Martyrdom of St. John Fisher The last four days of the saint's life were sunshine. All his depression of soul had left him, so that his jailors marvelled at the joy and sense of freedom which possessed him. At five o'clock in the morning of 22 June, the Lieutenant of the Tower [of London] came to his bedside and found him fast asleep. Waking the prisoner...

Iraqi Christians experience 'authentic martyrdom,' Pope Benedict saysBy Cindy Wooden6/21/2007Catholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Christians of Iraq are experiencing an "authentic martyrdom" and must be supported materially and spiritually by the entire Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Peace, so long implored and awaited, unfortunately is still largely being offended," the pope said in a June 21 speech to representatives of the Catholic communities in the Middle East and to Catholic aid agencies that assist them. In "vast areas" of the Middle East, including Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, "interpersonal and communal relationships" are being...

The situation here is worse than hell," Father Ragheed Ganni wrote to a former professor the day before he and three deacons were shot after Sunday Mass in Mosul, Iraq. Father Robert Christian, a theology professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome, spoke at the requiem Mass held in that school on Tuesday. There, Father Ganni had studied theology and ecumenism. On June 3, Father Ganni and three deacons, Basman Yousef Daoud, Ghasan Bidawid and Wadid Hanna, were killed in front of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Father Christian began his homily, saying:...

The Last Mass of Father Ragheed, a Martyr of the Chaldean Church They killed him in Mosul, together with three of his subdeacons. In a tormented Iraq, he was a man and a Christian of limpid and courageous faith. Here is a portrait of him, written by someone who knew him well by Sandro MagisterROMA, June 5, 2007 – They killed him on the Sunday after Pentecost, after he had celebrated Mass in his parish church, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, in Mosul. They killed Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, together with three subdeacons who were with him...

Italian Priest Was Killed in Congo PALERMO, Sicily, APRIL 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Blessed Francesco Spoto knew the value of life, and how to give it up for others, according to the current superior general of his congregation. Palermo native Father Spoto, the superior general of the Congregation of Missionary Servants of the Poor, was 40 years old when he was murdered by a group of Simba rebels in Congo in 1964. He was beatified last Saturday in his hometown. Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, retired archbishop of Palermo, was delegated by Benedict XVI to preside at the Mass. Archbishop Paolo Romeo...

A Christian student has been punished by his Michigan high school for demonstrating opposition to a school event celebrating the homosexual lifestyle. The boy's father, a pastor, says he's frustrated the rights of Christian students are being constantly trampled on campus. Oakridge High School in Muskegon, Michigan, is one of many schools across the U.S. that took part in Wednesday's "National Day of Silence" -- an event promoted heavily by homosexual activist groups, which view it as a day to protest alleged discrimination faced by students who identify as "gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (GLBT)." At Oakridge High, duct tape...

Valencia, Mar 29, 2007 (CNA).- The Holy See is moving ahead with the cause of beatification of Father Felipe Ciscar Puig, a Spanish priest who was martyred during the persecution of 1936 for protecting the seal of confession.In statements to the AVAN news agency, the vice postulator of the cause, Father Benjamin Agullo, said Father Puig “is considered a martyr of the sacramental seal as he was shot for refusing to reveal the confession of a Franciscan priest who was himself executed.”Francisco Father Andres Ivars asked to go to confession when he was in prison in August of 1936, suspecting...

You must return from whence you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back on the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so to continue for three days without meat or drink, and on the third day to be pressed to death, your hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back.These words of condemnation were spoken by a British magistrate of her majesty Queen Elizabeth. On Tuesday, March 15, 1586, in the Court of York, Judge George...

An Eritrean Christian man recently died after spending four-and-a-half years in jail for his participation in a banned protestant church, reported a persecution watchdog group. ICC 'Hall of Shame' Names Top 10 Christian Persecutors Magos Solomon Semere, 30, died of torture and chronic pneumonia in a facility near the port city of Assab in southeast Eritrea, according to Compass Direct News sources. He died on Feb. 15 after refusing to deny his faith in exchange for medical treatment. Moreover, during his years in prison, the Christian leader was barred from seeing his fiancée who he was shortly engaged to before...

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Friday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has sacrificed his career to support the Iraq war, and the Arizona senator acknowledged that he could face the same fate. McCain, a staunch defender of President Bush's new Iraq troop deployment strategy, said he worries that a cutback of British troops in southern Iraq announced by Blair this week could lead to stronger control by "Iranian-backed Shiite" forces. But he said Blair and the British deserve gratitude for their efforts. "He has literally sacrificed his political career because of Iraq," McCain said during an appearance before...

OUSTED Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said today he would go to the gallows as a "sacrifice" and called on his former Iraqi subjects to unite against their enemies. Saddam, in a letter written to the Iraqi people from his cell and confirmed as genuine by his defence lawyer, said: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs." Yesterday, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed Saddam's conviction for crimes against humanity and ordered that he be hanged within 30 days. In what might therefore be his final message, Saddam blamed his...

Thomas Craughwell  Other Articles by Thomas CraughwellPrinter Friendly Version   A Patron Saint for Deacons December 25, 2006 Everything we know about St. Stephen, one of the first deacons and Christianity's first martyr, comes from chapters six and seven of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Stephen came from a family of Hellenists, Jews who had emigrated from Palestine to one of the Greek-speaking provinces of the Roman Empire. These Jews spoke Greek rather than Aramaic and in their synagogues heard Scriptures read in Greek rather than Hebrew. The sixth chapter of Acts tells us that...

If the Democrats think the Islamic Jihadists will respect them more than President Bush then read this! This is an article everyone needs to read. If you think that because you refuse to be politically incorrect and see these inhuman animals for what they are that they will somehow respect you enough not to do to you what they did to these young girls, then think again! It will get worse. Beheaded girls were Ramadan ?trophies? THREE Christian high school girls were beheaded as a Ramadan ?trophy? by Indonesian militants who conceived the idea after a visit to Philippines jihadists,...

14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group Posted GMT 10-29-2006 20:14:18 (AINA) -- According to the Assyrian website ankawa.com, a 14 year old Christian Assyrian boy, Ayad Tariq, from Baqouba, Iraq was decapitated at his work place on October 21. Ayad Tariq was working his 12 hour shift, maintaining an electric generator, when a group of disguised Muslim insurgents walked in at the beginning of his shift shortly after 6 a.m. and asked him for his ID. According to another employee who witnessed the events, and who hid when he saw the insurgents approach, the insurgents questioned Ayad...

St. Crispen's Day Speech William Shakespeare, 1599 Enter the KING WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! KING. What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me...

A householder has told of his despair at being landed with a criminal record for putting a scrap of paper in a bin bag meant for bottles and cans. Michael Reeves, 28, has become Britain's first recycling martyr after a court fined him £200 for disobeying rules about sorting his rubbish. He had volunteered to take part in a recycling scheme launched by Swansea Council. But somehow a single piece of junk mail found its way into a bag designated for other rubbish. And when council workers found his name and address on it, they prosecuted. Last night the case...

The Witness and the Sword As for the murdered Nun, it shows that Christian martyrs die defending and caring for the innocent...while muslim martyrs die killing the innocent. (anonymous commenter on Joee Blogs) In the Christian tradition, martyrs are witnesses, those who take their witness of following the way of Christ to its final destination, a life given up out of love, to stand to the last moment saying, "Jesus is Lord," because someone else has decided that they were worthy of death because they were Christian. They were respected because they thought love of the Lord was worth...

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (ANS) -- Somali Christian sources report that Ali Mustaf Maka'il, a 22-year-old college student and cloth merchant, who converted from Islam to Christianity eleven months ago, was shot and killed in the Manabolyo quarter of Mogadishu on September 7. According to a report from The Barnabas Fund, quoting a Christian source inside Somalia, the gunman was loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (ICU), the Islamist organization that took power in Mogadishu in early June 2006 and now controls much of southern Somalia. The report states: "The gunman shot Ali in the back after he refused to join...

September 16, 2006 Memorial of Saint Cornelius, pope and martyr, and Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr Psalm: Saturday 38 Reading 11 Cor 10:14-22 My beloved ones, avoid idolatry.I am speaking as to sensible people;judge for yourselves what I am saying.The cup of blessing that we bless,is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ?The bread that we break,is it not a participation in the Body of Christ?Because the loaf of bread is one,we, though many, are one Body,for we all partake of the one loaf. Look at Israel according to the flesh;are not those who eat the sacrifices participants...

ISTANBUL, August 8 (Compass Direct News) -- Seven years after Issa Motamedi Mojdehi converted from Islam to Christianity, Iranian secret police have jailed him for abandoning Islam but officially charged him with illegal drug trafficking. Authorities formally charged the 31-year-old Christian with drug trafficking when he was arrested two weeks ago. But Savama (secret police) officials have told Motamedi Mojdehi that his real offense, said to be recorded in his confidential legal file, is abandoning Islam. Unless he renounces his Christian faith and returns to Islam, officials told him, he will remain in jail and possibly face execution. In a...

Poland: Auschwitz martyr Kolbe remembered By ASSOCIATED PRESS WARSAW, Poland A leading Roman Catholic official led a Mass at Auschwitz on Monday to mark the 65th anniversary of the death of Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan friar who gained martyrdom by volunteering to die in the place of another man at the Nazi death camp. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the archbishop of Krakow and the longtime secretary to the late Pope John Paul II, led the ceremony for the Polish friar whose action during World War II carries symbolic weight for the church and Catholic-Jewish relations. Kolbe was sent to Auschwitz in...