Blog Spotlight: “Cor ad cor loquitur” reflects on the Crusaders’ Sack of Constantinople in 1204

From the post: “Heart speaks to heart” – John Henry Cardinal Newman Reflections on the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 and Lesser-Known Byzantine Atrocities:
“With reluctance, sadness, and regret, Catholics must forthrightly address the issue of the sacking of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (hence the center of Orthodoxy), in 1204 by the Latin [...]

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The Spanish Civil War: Slain for their Faith

In Spain, one of Europe’s most staunchly Catholic countries, large numbers of Catholics were butchered during the 1936-1939 Civil War solely for being Catholic. Unlike the martyrdoms in most parts of the world, whole sectors of the religious community were liquidated. At least 6,832 priests and religious were martyred, including 13 bishops. In the 20th [...]

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Portrait: Saint Gianna Beretta Molla

From Idle Speculations:
“A few days before the child was due, although trusting as always in Providence, she was ready to give her life in order to save that of her child: “if you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child – I insist on it. Save the baby”.
On the [...]

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Report: Philippines: Almost half a million abortions a year

From AsiaNews:
About 473,000 abortions occur every year in the Philippines according to a report based on data collected by the government and presented Wednesday at the Sixth National Homebirth Conference by Elizabeth Dumaran, secretary of the Midwives Foundation of the Philippines.
“A higher proportion of pregnancies are unintended in Metro Manila, and an even higher proportion [...]

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Report: China: Government forces 61 women to abort, even those nine months pregnant

From AsiaNews:
The Chinese governments cruel abortion campaign continues: on April 17th last in the southern province of Guangxi, police forced 41 women to abort their children, dragging them into the local hospital to carry out the termination. The following day the same fate awaited a further 20 women.
China Aid Association (Caa), a [...]

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Report: Nuns killed for convent treasure

From BBC News
Police in southern Greece are hunting the killers of two elderly nuns found suffocated in their hillside convent.
The motive appears to be robbery – the killers are believed to have taken a crucifix containing wood reputedly from the cross on which Jesus Christ died.
The two murdered nuns were 83 and 61 [...]

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Report: Martyrs of the Armenian holocaust remembered in Holy Land

From Catholic News Agency
On Tuesday the Franciscans charged with the care of the Holy Land celebrated the “Day of Memory of the Armenian People,” recalling the legacy of the missionary martyrs who worked in Armenian territory occupied by the Turks.
“From 1894 to 1923, an unheard-of tragedy befell the Armenian people without distinction for sex or [...]

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Report: Mexican capital defies Church on abortion

From Reuters via The Australian
Mexico’s capital has legalised abortion, defying the Church but delighting pro-choice advocates in the world’s second-largest Roman Catholic country.
Mexico City politicians voted 46 to 19 to pass a leftist-sponsored bill allowing women to abort in the first three months of pregnancy.
The vote split Mexico and prompted a letter last week [...]

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Report: Bishop of Kurdistan: “the Church in Iraq is in great danger”

From AsiaNews:
There are numerous children and Dominican nuns among the wounded from yesterday’s suicide bombing of the Christian village of Tell-el-skop, north east of Mosul. Suicide attacks targeting the North of the country have sounded the alarm for religious leaders, who now ask the Holy See for help. “Find a way, a means [...]

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Article: The Much Exaggerated Death of Europe

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, writing in First Things, critiques the views of Philip Jenkins, author of God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis:
God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis is a tour de force that puts the most hopeful possible construction on a set of circumstances that leads others to the edge of [...]

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