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Last Updated: 09 March 2015

CWN - The Islamic State planned to release 52 Christian and Kurdish families who were being held hostage in Syria, the AsiaNews service reports. But the release was halted when the Islamic militants were attacked by Kurdish troops.

Archbishop Mario Zenari, the apostolic nuncio in Syria, told AsiaNews that the hostages were being released without any ransom payment, and were actually being loaded onto buses when the attack occurred. At that point, he said, that the Islamic State fighters “took the Christians for use as human shields.”

The future of those 52 families is now uncertain. Earlier this month the Islamic State had released 19 Christians, after receiving ransom for then. About 250 hostages were taken when the Islamic State seized several villages. Most remain in captivity.

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Last Updated: 09 March 2015

CWN - Armed men attacked a Coptic Catholic church in Egypt in the early hours of Monday morning, March 9, wounding a police guard and setting off an explosive device.

Bishop Adel Zaki, the apostolic vicar of Alexandria, told the Fides news service that the attack on the church in Kafr el-Dawar, in the Nile delta, is probably related to other recent attacks on Christian institutions. He said that the attackers may be trying to convey the idea that Egypt is politically unstable.

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Last Updated: 09 March 2015

CWN - Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Capuchin Franciscan friar who has served as preacher to the papal household since 1980, devoted his second weekly Lenten sermon to “East and West on the Mystery of the Trinity.”

The four sections of his March 6 sermon were entitled “bringing together what unites us,” “East and West on the mystery of the Trinity,” “two paths still open,” and “united in worship of the Trinity.”

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Last Updated: 06 March 2015

CWN - The Maronite Catholic Church has agreed to encourage organ donors.

In an accord with Lebanon’s national committee for organ donations, the Maronite bishops’ conference will form a committee to promote donations in parishes, dioceses, and Catholic health-care institutions. Father Edgar Haiby, a spokesman for the Maronite bishops, said that the committee would reach out to the faithful, assuring them that the voluntary donation of human organs is in accord with Catholic teaching.

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Last Updated: 05 March 2015

CWN - The German Bishops’ Conference recently issued a statement renewing its condemnation of the “the illegal annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the continued military engagement of the Russian Federation in the territory of Ukraine.”

The bishops characterized Russian actions as “unacceptable” because they endanger European peace and called for a de-escalation of the conflict, according to a February 26 press briefing.

“The Ukrainian people are happy that a truthful evaluation of what we have sounds from the Church through the common voice of German bishops,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

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Last Updated: 05 March 2015

CWN - Alexey Komov, an official of the Family Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church, has told an Italian news agency that progress has been made in defending human life, marriage, and the family in Russia.

Russia, he told SIR Europe, now pays $10,000 to each family upon the birth of a second child and has banned abortion advertising as well as “aggressive propaganda of the homosexual lifestyle [to] those under 18.”

“The number of abortions in Russia decreased five-fold over the past 25 years, from four million a year to less than 700,000 today,” Komov added. “However, there is still much work to be done.”

Komov said that the Russian Orthodox Church desires “to actively cooperate with our Christian brothers and sisters in the area of protection of life, of the family, of traditional values and of social projects. And obviously, we should develop all of this in the future, because we are under attack on the part of various negative tendencies.”