Report: Wear veils, Iraqi Muslim cleric warns Christian women

From Catholic News Agency:
Christian women in Iraq are being warned that they must wear the Islamic head scarf or face punishment, the Middle Eastern news agency AINA reports.
AINA says that the influential Iraqi Shi’ite leader Moqtada al Sadr has issued a statement calling upon all women, Muslim or Christian, to wear the traditional Islamic [...]

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Report: Spain shows Europe’s highest divorce rate

From Catholic World News:
A survey by Spain’s Institute of Family Politics has found that Spain has the highest divorce rate in Europe.
Three out of every four Spanish marriages now end in divorce. In 2006, there were 142,000 divorces in the country.
In 2005, Spain’s governing Socialist coalition passed legislation liberalizing access to divorce, bringing [...]

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Christian Minorities in the Islamic Middle East : Rosie Malek-Yonan on the Assyrians

From The Religion Report with Stephen Crittenden (Tip to Dhimmi Watch):
Rosie Malek-Yonan: The Assyrian people are the indigenous people actually of Mesopotamia, before it even was Iraq. All of that area was Mesopotamia and is the original homeland of the Assyrians. They date back to over 6,000 years and were always concentrated in that region.
Stephen [...]

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Report: No religious freedom for China’s Catholics, cardinal states

From Canadian Catholic News / The B.C. Catholic:
Known as an outspoken critic of communism, a tireless supporter of human rights and for being staunchly loyal to the magisterium of the dhurch, Cardinal Zen, now in his mid-70s, has gained a reputation as a man who won’t be bullied by those in authority in the Chinese [...]

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Report: Brazil to subsidize birth control pills, despite criticism from the pope

From AP:
For years, Brazil’s government has gotten into the Carnival spirit by handing out tens of millions of free condoms on the streets.
Now the world’s largest Roman Catholic country is helping to make birth control pills more affordable, subsidizing a program that will allow people to buy a year’s supply for just $2.40.
Weeks after Pope [...]

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Report: In Delhi 4,000 Christians arrested in peaceful protest against violence

From Asia News:
More than 4,000 protestors marched through the streets of India’s capital today to call for the Union Government of India to break its silence on violence against Christians across the country have been arrested by the police.
The rally, called “Stop Violence On Christians”, was organised after two recently televised attacks on Christians [...]

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Report: Malaysia rejects Christian appeal

From BBC News:
A three-judge panel ruled that only the country’s Sharia Court could let Azlina Jailani, now known as Lina Joy, remove the word Islam from her identity card.
Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim. Under Sharia law, Muslims are not allowed to convert.
Ms Joy said she [...]

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Article: The Last Sunrise

Paul J. Cella III on the Muslim conquest of Constantinople:
Five hundred and fifty-four years ago on this day the Roman Empire was at last extinguished. By then the Empire was, of course, Greek not Roman; Christian not pagan; and no longer strong but pitifully weak. Dispossessed of all its Anatolian and Asian province, and most [...]

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Report: A Final Appeal: Save Christian Iraq

From Chiesa:
Christian refugees from the center and south of the country are streaming into the Kurdish cities of Erbil, Zahu, Dahuk, Sulaymaniya, Ahmadiya, and the Christian villages of the surrounding area.
But just a short distance to the north, in the region of Mosul and the plain of Nineveh, the danger becomes palpable once more. [...]

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Theme: The Latin Conundrum

On the demise of Latin in the liturgy and the awkward balancing act (as exhibited by the statements of then-Cardinal Ratzinger below) of pushing for its greater use while at the same time honoring the fateful decision of Pope Paul VI to “part” with it…
[*see update below concerning Pope Benedict's motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum]
* [...]

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