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Last Updated: 19 May 2015

CWN - An Egyptian court has sentenced Mohamed Morsi, who served as the nation’s president from 2012 to 2013, to death.

The sentence will be confirmed or commuted on June 2, according to the Fides news agency.

Violence against Christians increased during the rule of Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected to office following the Arab Spring protests that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak.

“The reaction of the Islamists has already taken violent connotations, while the population seems to support the judgment,” said Coptic Catholic Bishop Kyrillos William Samaan. “The people have not forgotten the suffering endured when Morsi was president.”

“The Church respects the independence of the judiciary, but believes that life is an inviolable right, and remains opposed to the death penalty,” he added.

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Last Updated: 19 May 2015

CWN - The Chaldean Catholic bishop of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, said that the Christians remaining there are losing hope.

“Now our situation is very bad, very difficult,” Bishop Antoine Audo, SJ, said in an interview with Catholic News Service. “We are without electricity, without (running) water.”

“80% of people in Aleppo are without jobs. So they don't have any money to survive,” he added.

Noting that two-thirds of Aleppo’s 150,000 Christians have left the city, Bishop Audo said that “we have everyday bombings. I can have a bomb on my street, my cathedral, my bishopric, on the schools. We don’t know why and where.”

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Last Updated: 19 May 2015

CWN - Bishops and episcopal conference officials responsible for relations with Muslims in Europe have affirmed their commitment to dialogue.

“Islam is a religion rich and diverse in its tradition with many schools of thought,” stated participants in a meeting sponsored by the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe at the Abbey of St. Maurice in Switzerland.

“However, like all religions, it faces challenges of radicalization within the contemporary context,” the statement continued. “In overcoming radicalization, we need freedom of religion and its underlying principle, freedom of conscience.”

Calling for a “profound self-examination” and “prayer and hospitality towards the ‘other’ in our midst,” the signatories pledged to “renew and deepen our commitment to dialogue from a religious, cultural, and social perspective. We also commit ourselves to engage in a dynamic encounter with Muslims on both the intellectual/academic as well as on the grassroots level.”

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Last Updated: 19 May 2015

CWN - The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem welcomed the new diplomatic agreement between the Holy See and Palestinian leaders.

Stating that it will “facilitate the life and work of the Church in Palestine,” Patriarch Fouad Twal said on May 18 that the agreement “will encourage us to go forward, and to be determined in our faith for a possible peace for everybody despite the circumstances. Peace will never occur for one people alone.”

Patriarch Twal also expressed hope that “once the agreement is signed, the Arab League will also be present, and that it will serve as an example for other countries.”

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Last Updated: 19 May 2015

CWN - The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church allied with the Moscow patriarchate has issued a plea for an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev bitterly complained that propaganda is “destroying brotherly relations” between Ukrainians and Russians. He urged all Orthodox believers, and especially members of the clergy, to recognize the duty to end the conflict.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow patriarchate has sought to walk a tightrope in the current political crisis, holding together the Ukrainian faithful without directly bucking the strong pro-Russian line of the Moscow patriarchate.

Metropolitan Onufry is engaged in a struggle for control of Orthodox parishes in Ukraine with Patriarch Filaret, who split with Moscow after Ukrainian independence and set up the rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev patriarchate.

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Last Updated: 18 May 2015

CWN - Pope Francis canonized four women religious during Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on May 17.

The four are St. Émilie de Villeneuve (1811-54), the French foundress of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Castres; St. Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (1843-1927), a Palestinian nun who founded the Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem; St. Mariam Baouardy (1846-1878), a Palestinian Discalced Carmelite; and St. Maria Cristina Brando (1856-1906), foundress of the Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

“Our faith is firmly linked to [the Apostles’] testimony, as to an unbroken chain which spans the centuries, made up not only by the successors of the Apostles, but also by succeeding generations of Christians,” he preached. “Like the Apostles, each one of Christ’s followers is called to become a witness to his resurrection, above all in those human settings where forgetfulness of God and human disorientation are most evident.”

Pope Francis added:

To abide in God and in his love, and thus to proclaim by our words and our lives the resurrection of Jesus, to live in unity with one another and with charity towards all. This is what the four women saints canonized today did. Their luminous example challenges us in our lives as Christians. How do I bear witness to the risen Christ? This is a question we have to ask ourselves. How do I abide in him? How do I dwell in his love? Am I capable of “sowing” in my family, in my workplace and in my community, the seed of that unity which he has bestowed on us by giving us a share in the life of the Trinity?