Free Republic

In my homilies to you over the years, I’ve often spoke of our Catholic Faith, and sometimes of our Byzantine Tradition; but I have rarely spoken of the particular Church to which we belong, and of it’s history in Eastern Europe. Our Metropolitan Church is located entirely in the United States; and, the further you travel outside of Pennsylvania, the less you see of any ethnic identity among the members of our parishes; but, as you know, the ancestors of our Church’s original members came from an Orthodox Church which came into union with Rome in 1646 at the Union...

Somalia: Christian Leader Killed On Sept. 28 an Islamic extremist shot and killed Mariam Muhina Hussein, an underground church leader, after discovering six Bibles in her possession, according to Compass Direct News. The day before the shooting, a leader of the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab reportedly sent his wife to visit Hussein's home in Marerey villange. She pretended she was interested in learning about Christianity. During the visit, Hussein read passages of the Bible and told the woman that she could visit regularly to discuss God's Word, according to Compass. The following day, the al Shabaab leader, identified as...

Colombia: Pastor Martyred On Sept. 21, Pastor Manuel was shot and killed by The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in San Jose del Guaviare, Colombia, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. FARC guerrillas made an appointment with Pastor Manuel and his family. “He thought they were going to authorize him to have a church officially, which he had discuss[ed] and asked [for] before,” said VOM contacts. “One of them came in [the house] with the pastor’s wife, Gloria, and his daughter while the pastor was outside. He was shot five times.” A FARC guerrilla who was...

Let us suppose that Manuel Zelaya, the ousted former president of Honduras, is a intelligent man with a good understanding of how politics works. Then the question is: what is his game? Because he started all this. He was removed from office three months ago in circumstances of doubtful legality. Both the Supreme Court and the Congress had demanded his removal for "repeated violations of the constitution and the law," but the way it was done - woken up by soldiers and hustled out of the country by plane - smelled more like an old-fashioned military coup. A member of...

Mourners Protest Islamic Attacks on Copts in Egypt Muslim assailant gruesomely slays Christian, attacks two others with knife. ISTANBUL, September 23 (CDN) — A funeral for a Coptic Christian gruesomely killed on a village street north of Cairo by a Muslim assailant last week turned into a protest by hundreds of demonstrators in Egypt. Galal Nasr el-Dardiri, 35, attacked 63-year-old Abdu Georgy in front of the victim’s shop in Behnay village the afternoon of Sept. 16, according to research by a local journalist. Other Copts watched in horror as El-Dardiri stabbed Georgy five times in the back, according to interviews...

Motive Sought for Slaying of Church Worker in Bangladesh Police, wife doubt student attackers’ story of cell phone theft. DHAKA, Bangladesh, September 24 (CDN) — Authorities are investigating possible motives for the vicious killing of a church worker by students at Dhaka University. A management student at the university and his friends are accused of torturing and killing Swapan Mondol, 35, on Sept. 12 in Suhrawardy Park, adjacent to the university. Mondol, a convert from Hinduism, was supervisor of youth mission for Free Christian Church of Bangladesh (FCCB). The primary suspect’s friends claim they came to his aid after Mondol...

St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea's first priest and martyr Seoul, South Korea, Sep 15, 2009 / 12:10 am (CNA).- After two years of remodeling which included the addition of multimedia exhibits, the Korean Martyrs Museum-Shrine has reopened in Seoul.The Museum-Shrine, which contains rooms for liturgical celebration and prayer, was built in 1967 on the site in Jeoldusan where many of the Korean martyrs died from 1866 to 1873. Thousands of Catholics were killed in the fierce persecutions.The Shrine-Museum presents numerous historical documents, visual reconstructions, photographs and documentaries, Fides news agency reports.Archbishop of Seoul Cardinal Nicholas Choeng inaugurated the reopening...

A Michigan police chief says a 63-year-old anti-abortion activist who was protesting outside a high school was shot and killed in front of horrified students and parents. Owosso police chief Michael Compeau said the activist, Jim Pouillon, was outside the school this morning with a sign when a man drove by and shot him. No one else was injured. Compeau says a 33-year-old Owosso man was later arrested in the school shooting and he then told police he was involved in the gravel-pit shooting.(continued)

VOM: Pray for Muslims On Sept. 1, The Voice of the Martyrs received a letter from the wife of one of many Christians being held in prison in an Islamic country. In her letter, she shared how her 3-year-old daughter struggles with her husband’s imprisonment and asked for continued prayers. Her letter reads: “Thanks for your e-mail and love and prayers. I am doing OK. Worry tries to take over me and my mind keeps thinking worries I shouldn't. But the Lord continues to calm me down and give me peace and patience to wait. This week [my husband] is...

The Huffington Post explains that "Melissa Lafsky is the deputy web editor at Discover magazine, where she writes the Reality Base blog. She was previously the editor of the New York Times's Freakonomics blog, and is a former associate editor at HuffPo's Eat The Press." So she's a major-media-certified pundit when she wrote about Chappaquiddick drowning victim Mary Jo Kopechne on Arianna's pages today:

Maybe she phrased it wrong. Maybe liberal blogger Melissa Lafsky writing in Huffpo this morning had a brain cramp and wrote something she didn't want to. Maybe aliens made her do it.Somehow, some explanation must be given for this kind of incredible, tone deaf, idiocy:"We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome. Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a...

Pakistan: Eight Believers Killed On Aug. 1, a mob of angry Muslim extremists attacked Christians in Gojra district, Punjab province, killing at least eight believers, including a seven-year-old child, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. Dozens of homes and a church building were looted and burned. Reports indicate the violence resulted from rumors Christians had desecrated pages from the Quran several days earlier at a wedding in a nearby village. This was the second attack because of such a rumor. On July 30, Muslim extremists attacked Christians, burning more than 50 homes and animals in Korian village, Faisalabad....

Bangladesh: Pastor Tortured by Police On June 7, police raided an evangelism meeting, arrested and tortured a pastor and two others in Boalia, Bangladesh, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. Pastor Habibur Rahman, of Boalia Spiritual Church was leading the meeting when suddenly the police came in and took them to the police station. That night the police blindfolded them with cloths for few hours and beat them up. During the beatings police asked who was supporting them financially, and how long they had been evangelizing and how many people they had converted. At some point during the...

Nigeria: Pastors Beheaded On July 26, 12 Christians were killed, including three pastors, in northern Nigeria after members of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram launched attacks on police and government bases, according to contacts at VOM Canada. The violence, which began in Bauchi state, spread to Borno, Kano and Yobe states. Churches were set ablaze and several people were abducted, including Christians. Many believers were threatened with death if they refused to convert to Islam. According to media reports, assailants behead three pastors: Pastors Sabo Yukubu, Sylvester Akpan and Pastor George Orji. The assailants were reportedly acting on the...

Pakistan: Day of Prayer Christians in Pakistan are inviting believers around the world to join them in prayer for their nation and for the blasphemy laws to be repealed, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. More than 575 pastors from different churches in Pakistan have agreed to observe July 26, 2009 as a day of prayer for persecuted believers. Christians are also running a petition aimed at repealing the blasphemy laws that have led to the arrest of many believers. The Voice of the Martyrs joins believers in Pakistan in prayer and encourages believers around the world to...

July 28 Spiritual Bouquet: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give it to you. St. John 14:27 SAINTS NAZARIUS and CELSUS - Martyrs (First century) Saint Nazarius, born in Rome, was the son of a pagan military man who held an important post in the Roman army. His mother, honored by the Church as Saint Perpetua, was a zealous Christian, instructed by Saint Peter or his disciples in the most perfect maxims of Christianity. Nazarius at the age of nine embraced the Faith with so much ardor...

July 27 Spiritual Bouquet: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. St. John 14:23 SAINT PANTALEON of NICOMEDIAPhysician and Martyr(†303) Saint Pantaleon was born in Nicomedia of a pagan father and a Christian mother, who died while her son was still a child. He was among the court physicians of the Emperor Galerius Maximianus. Deceived by hearing the false maxims of the world applauded, he was without religion when God decided to rescue his soul from its unhappy darkness....

A Christian woman accused of distributing the Bible, a book banned in communist North Korea, was publicly executed last month for the crime, South Korean activists said Friday. The 33-year-old mother of three, Ri Hyon Ok, also was accused of spying for South Korea and the United States, and of organizing dissidents, a rights group said in Seoul, citing documents obtained from the North. The Investigative Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri's government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children and parents were sent to a political prison the day after her June 16 execution......

While watching Sarah Palin's resignation speech, I thought, "Who is this amazing woman? What planet did she come from? Will there ever be anyone like her?" Once again, I was blown away by her power, grace, character and courage. The world is mourning the loss of a one of a kind pop icon. I mourn the loss of a one of a kind conservative leader martyred for the cause of conservatism. Though impossible for the pop icon, I pray Palin will be resurrected for 2012. The martyr of Palin has angered, energized, and elevated my commitment to fight for the...

I am so restless, I cannot cease thinking! It seems like the world we live in reveals to us incessantly, at certain moments or in certain circumstances, just how little we are and how vast the universe is. This world of ours is a very complex world. The world we live in is a world of many brutal voices. It is a world of heavy blows and delirious trances, but it is the only world that we know. Like millions of people around the world, the tragic death of Neda Soltan has affected me tremendously. I felt a temptation to...

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said he was "ready for martyrdom," according to an ally, in leading protests that have shaken the Islamic Republic and brought warnings of bloodshed from Iran's Supreme Leader. Mousavi also called on Saturday for a national strike if he is arrested, a witness said. As darkness fell, rooftop cries of Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) sounded out across northern Tehran for nearly an hour, an echo of tactics used in the 1979 Islamic revolution against the Shah. EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to...

Near the end of the President's big speech in Cairo he said: All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings. Does the President actually understand what that "future we seek for our children" really means in many places in the Muslim world. For example there...

Slain abortionist mourned as 'martyr' Liberal clerics host memorialsThe Rev. Rob Schenck leads a prayer before a press conference outside the Supreme Court on Monday, the day after an abortion doctor was slain in Wichita, Kan. Mr. Schenck's fellow pro-life activists, Matt Lockett (left), director of Bound4Life, and the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, joined him in denouncing the slaying. Liberal religious groups joined secular pro-choice organizations Monday to mourn as a martyr one of the country's most famous providers of late-term abortions. A nationwide network of candlelight vigils and services took place from Lafayette Park...

Taliban fighters ride on their motor bikes in an undisclosed location in the south of Afghanistan May 13, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer Cue the violin and color me unsympathetic. I simply found this disillusionment amongst jihadi-wannabes simply amusing and pathetic: Reporting from Brussels — Determined to die as martyrs, the French and Belgian militants bought hiking boots and thermal underwear and journeyed to the wilds of Waziristan. After getting ripped off in Turkey and staggering through waist-deep snow in Iran, the little band arrived in Al Qaeda's lair in Pakistan last year, ready for a triumphant reception. "We were expecting at least...

On April 26, three Christians were killed and two others wounded in Kirkuk, Iraq, according to CNN.com. Local police in southern Kirkuk told CNN attackers slit the throats of a Christian woman and her daughter-in-law, killing them both. Meanwhile in a nearby neighborhood gunmen attacked another Christian family shooting the father and his three sons. One of the sons died instantly and the others were wounded. This incident is the latest in a series of attacks on Christians that have occurred in Iraq in recent years. In October 2008, more than seven Christians were killed and more than 200 families...

VOM-USA Prayer Update for April 21, 2009 INDIA - Pastor Arrested in Andra Pradesh – VOM Sources The Voice of the Martyrs contacts report that Pastor Prabhu Dass was arrested April 6th by police while attending a prayer meeting in a local Christian's home in the village of Dharmapuri, Karimnagar district, Andhra Pradesh. During the prayer meeting, a man asked Pastor Dass for some Christian literature. When Pastor Dass gave it to him, the man left. He later returned with a group of villagers and they threatened the pastor and accused him of forcibly converting people. Pastor Dass was taken...

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors plan to move an alleged al-Qaida sleeper agent out of a Navy brig in South Carolina and send him to federal court in Illinois to face trial. Two people familiar with the case of Qatar native Ali al-Marri said Thursday the government plans to transfer him to the civilian court system. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because it's a pending criminal case. The transfer could avert a Supreme Court hearing in April and a subsequent ruling that would govern other cases against accused terrorists. To justify holding al-Marri, the Bush administration claimed the...

According to an AFP report Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese plans to adapt the 1966 novel “Silence” by Shusaku Endo for the screen. The book tells the story of a young Jesuit priest from Portugal who lands in southern Japan, and of Japan’s brutal persecution of Catholics during the 17th century.

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-24711?l=english20 Missionaries Killed in 2008 Vatican: Like St. Paul, They Inspire Courage in Witness to Faith VATICAN CITY, JAN. 7, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The list of missionaries killed on active duty in 2008 includes an archbishop, several priests, religious and laypeople, reported the Vatican's Fides agency. This list, compiled by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, includes the names of missionaries as well as all pastoral workers who died violent deaths, sacrificing their lives as a result of hatred of the faith or other reasons. The list avoids using the term "martyrs," leaving this judgment of merit to the...

BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- Father Bernard Digal, the Bhubaneswar archdiocesan procurator who survived an attack by Hindu extremists and had been hospitalized for a month, died of dengue fever Oct. 28. "We are saddened by Father Bernard's untimely demise," Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar told Catholic News Service. "He was a dedicated priest at the service of the people," Archbishop Cheenath said of the 46-year-old priest from the Kandhamal district in Orissa state. Father Digal was beaten by Hindu extremists and left to die in the jungle Aug. 26 before he was moved to a local government hospital. On Aug....

From Wikipedia: In psychology, a person who has a martyr complex desires the feeling of being a martyr for its own sake, seeking out suffering or persecution because it feeds a psychological need. In some cases, this results from the belief that the martyr has been singled out for persecution due to exceptional ability or integrity. Theologian Paul Johnson considers such beliefs a topic of concern for the mental health of clergy. Other martyr complexes involve willful suffering in the name of love or duty.

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...