Monthly Archives: March 2017

Cornerstone’s Clairvaux House Opens Surrounded by others who helped make the Clairvaux House a reality, Cornerstone Executive Director Helen Syriac cuts a ribbon to mark the opening of the new facility, on March 19. (Steve Smith/Courant Community) Steve Smith Steve Smith Contact ReporterStaff Writer…

SULAIMANI — The absence of Arab and Turkmen blocs from a Kirkuk Provincial Council meeting on the decision to raise the Kurdistan Region’s flag in the Kirkuk Governorate was a violation of the Iraqi Constitution, the spokesman for the Iraqi PM said on Tuesday (March 28).…

Relatives and friends carry the body of a man killed by a sniper while trying to flee fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants, Mosul, Iraq, March 23, 2017 (AP photo by Felipe Dana). Ellen Laipson Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Washington last week, and the Trump…

Damian Thompson There’s an extraordinary moment in this week’s Holy Smoke podcast when the aid official supervising the resettlement of 12,000 Iraqi Christians says that the latter supported Donald Trump ‘100 per cent’ in the US elections because they felt betrayed by the Obama administration.…

A fighter from the “Kataeb Babylon”, a group of Christian fighters who fight alongside the Hashd Shabi, Shi’ite fighters, wears a vest in Ali Rash, southeast of Mosul, Iraq November 21, 2016. (Reuters) By Sonia Farid Special to Al Arabiya English…

Signs of the unspeakable violence perpetrated on Iraqi Christians by the Islamic State: Above, bullet holes and a defaced cross mar the main altar of St. Addai’s Church in Karemlash. Below, Chaldean Father Thabet Yousif pokes through the rubble that was once his family home; a torn red curtain marks what is left of the…

A Chaldean Catholic church whose image announced the fall of Mosul in 2014 has been liberated. When so-called Islamic State (ISIS) swept through Iraq in June 2014, a ‘before-and-after’ picture of the Church of Our Mother of Perpetual help in Mosul emerged showing…

Lorraine Caballero Christians who fled their homes in Mosul may never be able to return because the Islamic State has spawned a new generation of radicalized children who will carry on the terror group’s deadly campaign against believers, a vicar in Erbil has warned. (REUTERS / Youssef Boudlal)Displaced Iraqi people from different areas in Mosul…

Jardine Malado21 (Reuters/Zohra Bensemra)Displaced Iraqis flee their homes, as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 2, 2017. A vicar in Iraq has warned that Christians who have fled Mosul may not be able to return to the city because the Islamic State terror group has trained a new generation…

Time is running out to preserve these historic communities. By Carl Anderson Carl Anderson is CEO of the Knights of Columbus and a New York Times bestselling author. An Islamic State flag painted on the wall of a church in a predominantly Christian village in Iraq. (Carl Court/Getty Images)…

By Hollie McKay FoxNews.com Canon Andrew White, known as the “Vicar of Baghdad” says the time as come where Christianity is over in Iraq. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban) He is one of the world’s most prominent priests, but Canon Andrew White – known as…

The Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate has announced that it cannot supply priests for all of the Chaldean communities living outside Iraq, and has urged those communities to find their own candidates for the priesthood. Because of the enormous exodus of Christians from Iraq to Australia, the US, Canada,…

Children flee violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar, Iraq, Aug. 10. (CNS photo/Rodi Said, Reuters) By Mark Pattison • Catholic News Service • WASHINGTON (CNS) — Despite then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s declaration one…

By NZ Catholic Staff – by PAT McCARTHY Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, who once made up one of the largest Christian communities in the Middle East, are facing double discrimination as displaced persons in their own country or as refugees abroad, according to agencies working in the field.…

Gina Kaufman , Detroit Free PressPhotos: Easter comes early for refugees with special needs Rita Faraj of Sterling Heights, center, dances with the Easter Bunny during the “Breaking Barriers Spring Event” on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church in Troy. Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press…

An Iraqi policeman collects himself as he is surrounded by bodies at the site of a mass grave containing some two dozen people, many of them children, in an area recently re-taken from Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, … more > By Bradford Richardson – The Washington Times – Thursday, March 16, 2017…

Washington D.C., Mar 16, 2017 / 04:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One year after the U.S. declared that ISIS was committing genocide in Iraq and Syria, advocates for religious and ethnic minorities are asking the Trump administration what the U.S. will do next to protect the vulnerable.…

A Yazidi man carries his child at the Sharaf al-Deen temple in Shingal, Ninevah province, Iraq, Aug. 14, 2016. (photo by REUTERS/Ari Jalal) BAGHDAD — On March 5, three bodies representing Iraqi minorities issued a joint statement calling for a semi-autonomous region in the country’s north. The idea was…

FHL ecumenical delegates at Lambeth Palace More than 60 Anglican and Roman Catholic representatives gathered at Lambeth Palace last week for FHL’s second national Diocesan Coordinators conference. With 25 Catholic and Anglican dioceses represented, it reflected FHL’s ecumenical and…

The purpose is not to discriminate against Islam, but to recognize the unique situation of non-Muslims in the Middle East. By Doug Bandow Mar Mattai monastery outside Mosul, continually inhabited by monks since the 4th century A.D. Chris De Bruyn / cc…