Free Republic

Ten-year-old Romany sits in the same room where his family huddled together nearly three weeks ago, afraid for their lives, as a violent mob attacked their house. His family had fled to this room on the top floor, where pictures of Jesus and Coptic saints hang on bare cement walls. His parents dragged heavy furniture to the door, barricading it as they heard people try to break in below. The mob was throwing rocks at the windows, and he heard gunfire, says Romany. They were cursing Christians. "We kept praying that G0d would be with us," says the fourth-grader. "And...

This information is, of course, kept silent from us by the “correct” mass media: In Syria, things are going, as anywhere else in the Arab “Spring,” according to the seizure of power by political Islam. As the “Catholic Magazine for Church and Culture” reports, persecution of Christians in Syria are on a massive increase. Behind the so-appearing “freedom” battle is hiding a religious conflict: “Islamistic” Sunnis have Christians and Alevits in the crosshairs. 80 percent of Christians have already fled from Muslim and mixed neighborhoods. Update: Al-Qaeda is joining in the battle in Syria against the “anti-islamic” regime! (By Michael...

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, February 8, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) — One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com "we will not comply" with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. "We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write...

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, February 8, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write...

Perhaps the gravest under-publicized atrocity in the world is the persecution of Christians. A comprehensive Pew Forum study last year found that Christians are persecuted in 131 countries containing 70 percent of the world’s population, out of 197 countries in the world (if Palestine, Taiwan, South Sudan, and the Vatican are included). Best estimates are that about 200 million Christians are in communities where they are persecuted. There is not the slightest question of the scale and barbarity of this persecution, and a little of it is adequately publicized. But this highlights the second half of the atrocity: the passivity...

Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control. As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections. Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees. “Never before,...

A couple from Texas who moved to a violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found murdered on Tuesday in their ransacked home, relatives said. John and Wanda Casias, originally from Amarillo, Texas, moved to an area outside of Monterrey, Mexico, in the late 1970s or early 1980s to make it their home. Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, said one of her brothers found her father and stepmother dead on Tuesday in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon. John Casias, 76, was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent...

MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says two Americans have been slain outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey, an area plagued by drug violence. It identifies them as John and Wanda Casias. The embassy says the former Amarillo, Texas, couple's family has been notified and it is providing relatives consular services. The embassy hasn't confirmed reports that the killing happened Tuesday. Its statement provides no other details. Valerie Alirez in Greeley, Colo., is John Casias' eldest child. She says he and his wife were found dead Tuesday in Santiago, Nuevo Leon, by one of her brothers.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of LincolnLincoln, Neb., Jan 30, 2012 / 06:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics may have to suffer for the integrity of their institutions, Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska announced in his response to the Obama administration's contraception mandate. “We cannot and will not comply with this unjust decree. Like the martyrs of old, we must be prepared to accept suffering which could include heavy fines and imprisonment,” Bishop Bruskewitz wrote in a letter he ordered to be read at every Sunday Mass in his diocese on Jan. 29. “Our American religious liberty is in grave jeopardy,”...

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters disrupted a Right to Life rally and threw condoms on Catholic school girls inside the Rhode Island state capitol building.

Pittsburgh Bishop Zubik: 'To Hell' With New Contraception Rules The Obama administration is requiring church-affiliated employers to provide health care plans that cover access to contraception. By Larissa Dudkiewicz Email the author January 29, 2012 Pittsburgh Catholic Bishop David Zubik Friday joined a growing segment of religious leaders speaking out against the Obama administration’s new law that requires religious employers to offer health plans covering free contraceptives. In an open letter titled "To Hell With You," Zubik on Friday characterized some of the mandates in the administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a "slap in the face" and...

more than a decade, the politically-active Stone family, who founded RenewAmerica, has been harassed and intimidated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) for refusing to abandon their respected political work. This unAmerican persecution has come not just from a few errant leaders or members, unfortunately, but from the highest levels of the church. Stephen Stone, President of RenewAmerica, has written a compelling account of his family's ordeal in digital book form: A Mormon Story: Authoritarianism Knows No Bounds. It's a factual, objective history of the church's interference with RenewAmerica, itself — and with the...

Like megachurches, homeschooling, and Tim Tebow, “Merry Christmas� has become a religio-cultural Rorschach test. If you prefer that department stores greet you with a “Merry Christmas,� or at least wish they didn’t feel compelled to adopt the anodyne “Happy Holidays,� chances are good you’re a conservative Christian of some stripe. If, on the other hand, you prefer to talk about how ridiculous it is that anyone should care how a department store greets them, or if you prefer to mock that concern and say that people who feel that concern should (a) get a life or (b) stop trying...

North Korea tops a list of the world’s worst religious persecutors for the tenth consecutive year, but Islamic states dominate the rankings, accounting for nine of the top ten and 38 of the full 50-country list released Wednesday. Going back nine years, that is the highest number of Islamic countries making the top ten in Open Doors’ annual world watch list, which ranks countries based on questionnaires completed by the Christian ministry’s personnel on the ground and cross-checked by independent experts. In 2011 and 2010, Islamic states accounted for eight of the top ten, in 2009 for seven of the...

Gay Pressure on PayPal Named as Fourth Top Anti-Christian Act of 2011 Commentary by Julio Severo Americans were asked to name the top 10 Anti-Christian Acts of 2011 in the US, and the fourth place was given to the homosexual effort to close PayPal accounts from a list of ten Christian organizations, including me. For a long time I have been under attack from Brazilian gay activists. But this was the first time that an American gay group blacklists me with major Christian groups. Read the full article here: Top Anti-Christian Acts of 2011 Revealed The year 2011 saw plenty...

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has given Christians three days to leave northern Nigeria following attacks on churches and other targets over Christmas that left more than 40 people dead. The ultimatum, issued late on December 31, intensifies the threat to Christians in the Muslim-majority North, parts of which are under a state of emergency after the Christmas violence. Boko Haram, which wants to impose Islamic religious law across the country, claimed responsibility for a coordinated series of bomb and gun attacks on churches and the security services in five states on Christmas Day 2011. The majority of the...

Islamist violence has forced NIgerian President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency and order the closure of part of the country's borders. Jonathan announced the emergency measures Saturday, labeling the Islamist sect Boko Haram a "cancer" that threatened to destroy Africa's most populated body after a deadly week in which scores were killed by the radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram. Speaking in a broadcast to the nation, the president said, "It has become imperative to take some decisive measures to restore normalcy in the country, especially within the affected communities..." He listed parts of the states of...

LAGOS — An influential body grouping Nigeria's Catholic Bishops Saturday urged President Goodluck Jonathan to hire foreign crime experts to snuff out an Islamist sect blamed for hundreds of deaths. "I call on Mr President to recall the retired experts in criminology and employ foreign experts in this field to assist the active security agents to put an immediate end to the Boko Haram menace," a statement said. Boko Haram is believed to include different factions with varying aims, including those with political links as well as a hard-core Islamist cell that has drawn supporters from young people in the...

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in parts of the country following attacks from the Islamist group Boko Haram. The measure is in force is areas of the Yobe and Borno states in the north-east, Plateau state in central Nigeria and Niger state in the east. International borders in the affected areas have been temporarily closed. Mr Jonathan vowed to "crush" Boko Haram, which killed dozens in attacks across the country on Christmas Day. Announcing the state of emergency in a live televised address, Mr Jonathan said: "The temporary closure of our borders in the affected...

Medics carry the body of a victim after a bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church inNigeria's capital, Abuja, on December 25."Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria's Christians are losing faith that the government will protect them from attacks by Islamic extremists and will "respond appropriately" to future killings, the country's leading church group warned Wednesday. In a public message to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Christian Association of Nigeria called the Christmas Day targeting of churches in several cities "a declaration of war on Christians and Nigeria as an entity." The group also criticized its Muslim counterparts for failing to condemn...

<p>Nigeria's Defence Minister Bello Halliru Mohammed says his men are once again "on top" of the security situation in the north - which has seen a spate of attacks by militant Islamist group Boko Haram - and that people have nothing to fear.</p>

Another Christmas, another slaughter of Christians by members of the so-called "religion of peace." The Boko Haram, a "radical Muslim sect" as the Associated Press puts it, claimed credit for bombing a Nigerian Catholic church on Christmas, killing 35 and wounding 52. What do the Boko Haram want? A sect spokesman calling himself Abul-Qaqa offered this in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. "There will never be peace until our demands are met," he said. "We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released, we want full implementation of...

Persecuted Christians are fleeing from the Middle East in increasing numbers. The United States should open its doors to them as a guaranteed safe haven.-SNIP-The Christian population in Iraq is one of the most at risk. Around half of Iraqi Christians have fled the country since 2003, and those who remain expect growing challenges, given the U.S. military pullout. Christians have suffered periodic waves of violence, including bombings, assassinations and church burnings. When Iraq's government said in 2010 it would issue a license to carry firearms to any Christian family that wanted one, it was simply acknowledging the reality that...

Sudan is a kind of diabolical Groundhog Day. In the film by that name, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) re-lives the same day over and over again until he learns the lessons needed to change his life and save the lives of others. In Sudan today, people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State are re-living the horrific nightmare from which they thought they had finally awakened after the signing of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But in this case, it is the United States government that has failed to learn the lessons needed to change conditions and save the...

A recent Fox News report tells of how "a rash of attacks on Christian-owned businesses in northern Iraq has raised troubling questions about the future safety of the country's shrinking Christian community, particularly as U.S. forces withdraw completely from the nation they've refereed since 2003." In fact, "questions about the future safety of the country's shrinking Christian community" have been raised ever since the U.S. toppled secular strongman Saddam Hussein, thereby unloosing the forces of jihad previously corked. The report continues: The attacks, which have received little international attention, raged through northern cities following a sermon last Friday by a...

Interview Series: International human rights lawyerJustus Reid Weiner: "They flee to almost any country that will issue them a visa." "The disputed territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and in more recent years, in part, by Hamas. Under these regimes, the resident Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses including intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycott, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. "Muslims who have converted to Christianity are the ones in the greatest...

VATICAN, November 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agency that he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested...

A worker who claims she was the victim of a race-hate campaign by fundamentalist Muslims because of her Christian beliefs has launched a landmark case against her former employers. Nouhad Halawi, a saleswoman at Heathrow Airport's World Duty Free shop, said she and other Christian staff were systematically harassed by Muslims. She alleged the intimidation included: # I was told I would go to hell, claims worker # 'Muslims made fun of colleague wearing crosses' # Lost job after speaking out about 'extremist' bullying # Bullying a friend at the airport for wearing crosses. # Muslims telling her she would...

Egypt's Maspero massacre—where the military killed dozens of Christians protesting the destruction of their churches—dominates October's persecution headlines. Facts and details concerning the military's "crimes against humanity" are documented in this report, and include videos of armored-vehicles running over civilians, a catalog of lies and deceitful tactics employed by Egypt's rulers and state media, and other matters overlooked by the West. More damning evidence continues to emerge: not only did Egypt's military plan to massacre Christians to teach them a "lesson" never to protest again, but "death squads" were deployed up buildings the night before to snipe at protesters. Instead...

A large cross that had been prominently displayed outside a chapel on an isolated military base in northern Afghanistan was taken down last week, prompting outrage from some American service members stationed there. “We are here away from our families, and the chapel is the one place that feels like home,” a service member at Camp Marmal told POLITICO. “With the cross on the outside, it is a constant reminder for all of us that Jesus is here for us.” Continue Reading Text Size -+reset Listen Latest on POLITICO Obama address: We can overcome For both parties, reasons to give...

Catholic Church agencies are closing their doors under new laws, policies gutting conscience rightsIs America on track for a religious freedom crisis generated by secularists in and out of government bent on pushing churches around on a variety of fronts? Fresh evidence strongly suggests that the answer is yes. Take what’s been happening lately in Peoria, Ill. In early October, the Diocese of Peoria announced it was discontinuing Catholic Charities foster care services in reaction to a new law requiring state-funded programs to place children with unmarried couples living in civil unions. The diocese said Charities also would withdraw from...

From a Middle East correspondent: Beirut Arab news agency al Nashra reported on Saturday November 22, that [White House Muslim envoy] Dalia Mogahed has succeeded in canceling a meeting between the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon and President Barack Obama. Writing in al Nashra, the reporter said “an unnamed US source told the news agency, that those who sought canceling a visit of (the spiritual head of the Maronite Church) Patriarch Beshara Rahi to the White House are Dalia Mujahid (Mogahed), the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department, who is from Egyptian origins. And that,” according...

The Vaticans Message Was Grossly Distorted by Reuters October 24, 2011 The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued a document today titled, "Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority." Commenting on it is Catholic League president Bill Donohue: There has been much hyperventilation from some quarters over the release of this document. All of it is unwarranted. To begin with, the text is not an encyclical, nor is it the work of Pope Benedict XVI. Much of what it says is consistent with long-standing Catholic social teaching: the quest for the...

Just got this email and am asking for all people concerned about persecuted Christians in the Middle East to please sign this petition and let everyone you know about this. Thanks and God Bless. CALL FOR MERCY PETITION TO BE DELIVERED SOON. PLEASE SIGN TODAY. Dear friends: We recently received an update from our field staff in Pakistan regarding Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy against Muhammad. Although we had heard reports that Asia had been "tortured" by a prison official, her husband clarified that she has not been tortured but has been harassed by...

There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime. In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan's new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country. The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the Statet Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and...

TEHRAN (BP)--Imprisoned Iranian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani "remains in grave danger of execution more now than ever" with a verdict in his case expected Oct. 10, although one watch group fears that the death sentence could be implemented without any prior announcement. Nadarkhani was arrested in 2009 and charged with apostasy, an offense punishable by hanging. A lower court found that while he had never been Muslim, he was guilty of apostasy because he came from a Muslim family. The Iranian Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. "Continued international vigilance and pressure is vital: the life of this man is still...

Egyptian Coptic Christians hold a protest in front of the state TV building in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Oct. 4, 2011. Hundreds of Egyptian Christian Copts staged a sit-in on the road in front of the state TV building in downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening, demanding Aswan provincial governor Moustafa el-Sayed step down and a church be rebuilt at Marinap village in Aswan province. (Xinhua/Qin Haishi) CAIRO, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Egyptian Christian Copts staged a sit-in on the road in front of the state TV building in downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening, demanding Aswan provincial governor Moustafa el-Sayed...

Eleven Iranian Christians who fled Iran in the wake of a government campaign against evangelical Christianity have received threats via email from ‘the unknown soldiers of the Hidden Imam’ calling on them to either repent or face extra-judicial execution. The ‘unknown soldiers’ are alleged to have links with Iranian security services. The email, which was sent to each individual on 14 September, warned the recipients that although they may have managed to flee Iran, they are not hidden from the ‘acute eyes of the unknown soldiers’, who claim they have been advancing to the heart of the ‘Zionist regime’ over...

SNIPPET: "A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia..." SNIPPET: "While a suicide bomber struck Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (translated as "Bethel Full Gospel Church") in Solo City in Central Java province Sunday morning, police found another bomb in front of Maranatha church in Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province, Monday. "This is in a series of bombs that we found there [in Ambon]," the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam as saying. "All are homemade bombs, they are all similar. So the maker is the same.""

CSW is urgently calling for action on behalf of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani who faces execution anytime from Thursday onwards after refusing to renounce his faith. Pastor Nadarkhani is currently on trial in Rasht. He has appeared in court three times this week and each time has refused to renounce his faith when asked to do so by the court.

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Iran is under increasing pressure from leaders around the world to halt the execution of Iranian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who on Wednesday refused for the fourth and final time to recant his faith and could be executed at any time. In the U.S., Speaker of the House John Boehner released a statement urging Iran to spare the pastor's life and release him. Overseas, British Foreign Secretary William Hague also called on Iran to overturn the sentence. Observers say external pressure could be critical in preventing the Iranian government from performing its first apostasy execution since 1990. Arrested...

Agents of Iran’s intelligence ministry recently took a Christian couple’s adopted child, demanding that the couple file a complaint against other Christians being held in prison, according to Mohabat News. The couple was taken to the hospital because of emotional stress caused by the loss of their child. “This is the first time I have ever seen this tactic — taking a child hostage,” said a VOM contact. “In the past, it is always the parents.” The Christian couple legally adopted their child after years of waiting, according to Mohabat News. Security officers reportedly took the child as a way...

Legal Persecution By James V. Schall, S. J. Thursday, 22 September 2011 Catholics have little legal future in this country except as a narrow, strictly defined sect. Catholic law schools, lawyers, and politicians have proved mostly ineffective or indeed abettors in the process by which “human rights” are used, step by seemingly logical step, to eliminate Catholics from the public order. Much has already occurred. The “Catholics” who are the prime target are those who hold and live the central teachings of reason and faith. Those who do not, matter little. Addressing a new Health and Human Services mandate concerning...

The city of San Juan Capistrano, California is laying heavy fines on a local couple for hosting semi-regular bible readings in their home. From the Los Angeles CBS affiliate: Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called “a regular gathering of more than three people”.That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple’s legal representation.The Fromms also reportedly face subsequent fines of $500 per meeting for any further “religious gatherings” in their...

After an extensive search, Christians in the Bakool region of southwestern Somalia discovered the decapitated body of kidnapped Christian Juma Naradin Kamil on Sept. 2, 2011. Kamil’s body reportedly bore the marks of an execution by the Muslim terrorist group al-Shabab. “It is usual for al-Shabab to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or sympathizers of Western ideals,” a local Christian told Compass Direct News. “Our brother accepted the Christian faith three years ago and was determined in his faith in God. We greatly miss him.” On Aug. 21, three suspected al-Shabab terrorists forced Kamil into...

A congregation in South Asia cannot meet for worship this weekend because their church was vandalized by local anti-Christian fanatics, who also locked them out of the church building. The trouble started on August 17 when a group of local anti-Christian fanatics confronted Gospel for Asia-supported missionary Jank Nayak at the church where he serves as pastor. “We will kill you if you don’t leave this place,” the leader bluntly told Jank. Then they forced him into a room at the church. While Jank was locked up, he called his GFA leader, who contacted the police. The officers said they...

A formal investigation of several Christian organizations has been launched by PayPal, the huge money-transfer company, because of an online campaign of "hate" against them by homosexuals, according to one of the targets. The notices of the investigation were sent to Julio Severo's Last Days Watchman blog and Peter LaBarbera's "Americans for Truth," among others. Read more: Online 'hate' campaign targets Christian sites http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=345613#ixzz1YQVuK8Fd

Traditionalist Catholics in Puebla state threaten to kill Protestants. MEXICO CITY, September 16 (Compass Direct News) – About 70 Protestant Christians lived in the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan, Puebla state, until Monday (Sept. 12), when they faced a frightening ultimatum – leave immediately or be “crucified or lynched.” Traditionalist Catholics in the village, near the municipality of San Martín Texmelucan about 60 miles from Mexico City, reportedly threatened to burn down or otherwise destroy their homes. The Protestants left Cross The traditionalist Catholics, who practice a blend of indigenous and Catholic rituals, reportedly asserted that 20 years ago an...

Father Pavone (CNS file) By Dennis SadowskiCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Frank Pavone, one of the country's most visible and vocal opponents of abortion, has been suspended from active ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, over financial questions about his operation of Priests for Life. The suspension was made public in a Sept. 9 letter from Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to his fellow bishops across the country, but Father Pavone told Catholic News Service that he was returning to Amarillo and planned to continue functioning as a priest there. "My decision is the result of...

Beijing (AsiaNews) - A group of priests and laity from the underground community of Tianshui (Gansu) were arrested by the security forces last weekend. Among them are the administrator of the underground diocese, Fr. John Baptist Wang Ruohan; retired Bishop Casmir Wang Milu; Father John Wang Ruowang; as well as several other priests and dozens of parish lay leaders. Bishop Wang and the two fathers Wang are brothers. They are being held in different places and subjected to political sessions. So far, the underground diocese of Tianshui had maintained a comfortable relationship with the police and government authorities. The two...