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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - The Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Basra said that 20% of Christian families emigrated from the city in 2014.
Basra, the largest city under Iraqi government control after Baghdad, is far from the region controlled by the Islamic State. The city “is considered to be a safe place with good employment opportunities and improving income levels,” said Archbishop Habib Hormuz Jajou Al-Naufali.
Nonetheless, Christians are seeking “political asylum because of persecutions” and are leaving because of “economic reasons caused by kidnapping, plundering and theft,” as well as because of “social reasons, the need to be emancipated from the restrains of the Iraqi society,” he said in an article posted on the website of the Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate.
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CWN - Pope Francis has reconstituted the Congregation for the Eastern Churches’ Special Commission for the Liturgy and has named Archbishop Piero Marini as its president.
The commission, founded in 1931, approves Eastern-rite liturgical books. Archbishop Marini, 73, served as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations from 1987 to 2007 and is president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.
The Pontiff named Father McLean Cummings, who has served on the staff of seminaries in Baltimore and Russia, as the commission’s secretary.
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CWN - The Church of England’s lead bishop for the environment has called upon Anglicans to join Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in praying for the care of creation on September 1.
“It will do us all good to stop, fast, think and pray about the need to care for God's good but fragile creation,” said Rt. Rev. Nicholas Holtam. “We live at a time when human activity has caused a dramatic reduction in the earth’s biodiversity and when people are causing climate change through our profligate use of fossil fuels.”
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CWN - Speaking with three diocesan newspapers in the United States, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil, Iraq, called for the declaration of the killing of Syrian and Iraqi Christians as a genocide.
“This is very important for us,” said Archbishop Bashar Warda. “You cannot accept this in the 21st century while everyone is watching. I would like the Americans to take responsibility.”
“Do not wait another 20 years and look back to what happened and say, ‘Well, I’m sorry that we did not do something really decisive,’” he added.
The Islamic State “is evil,” he stated. “The way they slaughter, the way they rape, the way they treat others is brutal. They have a theology of slaughtering people.”
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CWN - Pope Francis has created an eparchy-- the equivalent of a diocese-- for Catholics of the Syro-Malabar rite in Great Britain.
To lead the new Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Preston, the Pope appointed Father Joseph Srampickal, who has been serving as vice-rector of the Propaganda Fide College in Rome. Bishop-elect Srampickal will lead a community of nearly 40,000 Syro-Malabar Catholics in England, Scotland, and Wales.
The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, which traces its origins to the missionary work of St. Thomas the Apostle in India, claims over 4.5 million faithful, with the overwhelming majority in India. It is the 2nd-largest of the Eastern churches in communion with Rome.
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CWN - A Muslim organization associated with Lebanon’s highest Sunni authority has issued the Beirut Declaration on Religious Freedom.
“To deny Christian communities the right to exercise their religious freedom and destroy their churches, monasteries and educational and social institutions are contrary to Islam’s teachings, and are, since these abuses are made in its name, a blatant violation of its principles,” the Makassed Philanthropic Islamic Association of Beirut stated in its declaration, according to an AsiaNews report.
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