World

In a speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, Prime Minister David Cameron emphasized that the United Kingdom is a Christian nation.

“We are a Christian country,” he said. “And we should not be afraid to say so … what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Read more »

The soldiers are still there and continue to shoot and kill; the displaced increase and are desperate; peace with the Kachin ethnic minorities still seems far away.

This is the alarm raised by His Exc. Mgr. Raymond Sumlut Gam, Bishop of Banmaw, who indicates in a heartfelt note sent to Agenzia Fides, his concern for the people of his diocese, in the north of Myanmar, which for months has been the scene of fighting between government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Read more »

“Elections in Egypt are turning into a religious affair.” This is how Victor Anis, an Egyptian Copt, defined the outcome of the first round of Parliamentary elections which took place in Egypt at the end of November.

The first elections of the post-Mubarak era saw the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood, who won 40% of the vote, followed by the Salafites who gained 15-20% of consensus. Read more »

Examining various studies, including the European Values Survey, two professors Alejo José G. Sison and Juncal Cuñado of the University of Navarre, Spain have found “a significant effect of belonging to a religion on happiness.”

“The religion or denomination has a significant effect on happiness,” write Alejo José G. Sison and Juncal Cuñado. “Protestants, other Christian religions and Roman Catholics report higher happiness levels whereas Orthodox and Eastern religions report the lowest.” Read more »

The local Catholic Church calls her "a martyr of the faith": Mariah Manisha was a Catholic girl from Faisalabd who was killed a week ago by a Muslim man who had kidnapped her and intended to marry her.

Fr. Zafal Iqbal, a Catholic priest from Khushpur, where the 18-year-old Mariah’s family live, reports to Fides that "the girl resisted, she did not want to convert to Islam and she did not marry the man, who killed her for this. She is a martyr". Read more »

A Vatican official is calling for a World Day to mark anti-Christian violence and persecution, saying there might be more than 200 million Christians suffering discrimination.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See's secretary for Relations with States, addressed the 18th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) held today and Tuesday in Vilnius, Lithuania. Read more »

The number of Southeast Asian women being sent to China illegally, with the false promise of finding work or a rich husband who can help them escape poverty, is on the increase.

As AsiaNews reported, referring to an article published by the China Daily newspaper, girls are actually pushed into prostitution or sold to men who pressure them into forced marriages. Read more »

At 8:30 this morning, dozens of Hanoi Redemptorists led a group of hundreds of parishioners to the City’s People’s Committee to submit their urgent petition which asked for the suspension of a hospital sewage treatment system on a parish’ lot of land.

They could manage to hand in their petition.

However, on the way home, an outnumbered of police and militiamen stopped them and brutally beat, and arrested dozens of priests and parishioners of Thai Ha Parish. Read more »

Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina accused Egypt’s military of shooting innocent people and using violence in response to peaceful protests.

The Coptic Catholic Bishop of Giza, a major city outside Cairo, said that Christians and Muslims were united in the capital’s Tahrir Square in defense of human rights.

Bishop Aziz said, “The authorities have no right to shoot peaceful people.” Read more »

On Dec. 3, the Roman Catholic Church honors St. Francis Xavier, one of the first Jesuits who went on to evangelize vast portions of Asia.

Francis Xavier was born during 1506 in the Kingdom of Navarre, a region now divided between Spain and France. His mother was an esteemed heiress, and his father an adviser to King John III. Read more »