News

Details

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

CWN - Militants of the Islamic State have abducted at least 100 Christians from Syrian villages.

The Reuters news service reported that Kurdish forces, assisted by US airstrikes, are battling with ISIS for control of northeastern Syria. As Kurdish forces massed on one front, the Islamic State struck on another front, capturing several Christian Assyrian villages.

Details

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

CWN - Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv, Ukraine’s leading Latin-rite prelate, reflected on recent meetings with Pope Francis and curial officials that took place during the Ukrainian bishops’ recent ad limina visit to Rome.

Ukraine has 16 Eastern-rite ecclesial structures, most of them part of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, as well as seven Latin-rite dioceses.

“We were very impressed that every cardinal, every bishop asked us about the situation in Ukraine, [assured] us of their prayerful solidarity,” said Archbishop Mokrzycki, according to a report from the Religious Information Service of Ukraine.

He added that Pope Francis

told us that he did not know about the tortures used by enemies towards our soldiers. He said he would talk with representatives of the world’s countries and will be asking their assistance so the war ended soon.

He asked us to tell all the faithful and all the laity in Ukraine that he remembers them in prayer every day, he stays beside us and will do everything to help us. Every hour, every day, if we have any problems, any request, we can always turn to him as a father, because he loves us, and he also said he would think about coming to Ukraine.

Details

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

CWN - While kidnapping residents from Christian villages in northeastern Syria, militants from the Islamic State burned down at least four Christian churches, according to the Assyrian International News Agency.

The number of hostages taken from the Christian villages may be as high as 150, rather than the 90-100 originally reported, the AsiaNews service says. There are numerous unconfirmed reports that some hostages have been killed, some rapes committed, and "blood everywhere."

“A number of churches have been destroyed, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua,” the agency reported.

Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana, who heads an aid program for Christians in Iraq, told Aid to the Church in Need that roughly 100 Christians who had been abducted from the captured villages have been taken to another village. “They are alive so far,” he said, “but the men are separated from women and children.”

Bishop Georges Abou Khazen, the vicar of the Latin-rite diocese of Aleppo, told the AsiaNews service: "This will not be be solved with bombs; cutting financial and military supplies will. What we ask is for others to stop supporting these people, to stop selling them weapons. We have been saying this for some time but no one has been listening to us."

Details

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

CWN - The forces of the Islamic State have demolished the public library in Mosul, Iraq, and the thousands of volumes it contained.

The library in Mosul had been looted and vandalized after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the collection had been mostly restored through the work of wealthy local families.

The library was destroyed by crude explosive devices.

Details

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

CWN - The Coptic Orthodox Church has established a “crisis unit” to help evacuate all Egypts still living in Libya, the Fides news service reports.

The crisis unit, under the direction of the secretary of the Coptic Synod, is amassing information about any Copts who moved to Egypt to pursue work opportunities there. The unit will work with the Egyptian military to establish plans for bringing them back to Egypt.

Details

Last Updated: 23 February 2015

CWN - Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako has warned that the spreading violence in Libya is a “trap” set by the Islamic State, and said that Italy should resist the temptation toward military involvement.

“It’s better not to start a war, which then has no end—as the Americans did in Iraq,” said the Chaldean leader, in an interview with the Zenit news service. He pointed out that in Syria, too, warfare has now continued for four years without achieving a useful end. The Iraqi prelate said that statements made by spokesmen for the Islamic State, vowing to extend their control over Libya and threatening eventually to conquer Rome, were baiting the trap, especially for Italy.

Patriarch Sako said that in Iraq, years of bloodshed have drawn together the country’s people, including both Christians and Muslims. “The dimension of suffering, on the purely human plane, brings the two religions close,” he said.