Cairo, Egypt, Apr 20, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Egyptian police on Sunday arrested 13 people who were planning attacks against Christians and public institutions in the country.
The April 16 arrests take on greater importance as Pope Francis prepares to visit Egypt at the end of the month.
According to Aid to the Church in Need, the arrests of these terrorists reveal “how these extremist groups continue to target the Christian community after the double attack against two churches in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday.”
The attacks of April 9 which caused the death of 44 Christians and injured more than 100, were claimed by the Islamic State, which led the authorities to implement security measures outside churches.
The attacks made the government decree a state of emergency for three months, to which was joined the decision by some Christians to celebrate discretely Easter Sunday .
Egypt has a population of 92 million people who are mostly Muslim. Christians are about 10 percent of the population, and have been victims of a number of recent attacks and assaults.
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Niger’s National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane (center), General Mohamed Toumba (center-left), and Colonel Ousmane Abarchi (right) are greeted upon their arrival at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niamey, Niger, on Aug. 6, 2023. / Credit: AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2023 / 07:25 am (CNA).
Nigerian Catholic bishops are discouraging the leaders of Western African nations from using military intervention in the neighboring country of Niger after the government’s military ousted its president and installed a general as the new head of state.
Less than two weeks ago, senior military officials deposed Niger President Mohamed Bazoum and presidential guard commander Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani announced himself as leader.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened military intervention if Niger’s military refused to restore democracy within one week. The deadline passed on Sunday, but the coup leaders remain in power.
In response to the threat, some Nigerian groups are discouraging Western African countries from using military intervention and are encouraging diplomacy instead. Nigeria is positioned just north of Niger and shares a nearly 1,000-mile border with the country.
The president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, is urging Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dissuade Western African countries from using military intervention despite the deadline passing.
“At the end of their meeting, [ECOWAS] gave the coup plotters one week to restore democratic leadership in Niger or risk military intervention,” Ugorji said during a pastoral visit to Mary Mother of God Catholic Parish, according to the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.
“This marching order [expired Sunday],” Ugorji added. “They reasoned that it is wrong to change government by force. They are correct, but we also believe that shedding precious human blood is equally wrong. Two wrongs can never make a right.”
“We are begging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dissuade ECOWAS heads of states to resist the temptation of going to war against the coup plotters,” Ugorji said. “We beg them to stop the imminent bloodshed that will trail the military intervention. We have wasted a lot of human blood in Africa. We have also wasted precious human lives in Nigeria and we cannot continue in this ugly fashion, for whatever reason,” the archbishop said.
Ugorji noted that some countries are supporting the coup and suggested ECOWAS “think of what should be the fate of the organization” if Western African countries intervene.
“The media is awash with the news of some countries that have already declared their full support for the country and their military strongmen,” the archbishop continued. “Russia may also be there, without our knowing. While we say no to coup d’etat, we also say no to war, for whatever reason. We say no manipulation of election results because it is also another shade of coup d’etat.”
The United States government, which had strong relations with the country’s ousted president, condemned the coup and paused some foreign assistance programs in Niger.
Pope Francis greets the crowd in Bahrain’s national soccer stadium before offering Mass on Nov. 5, 2022. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Nov 5, 2022 / 05:00 am (CNA).
About 30,000 people crowded into a soccer stadium on Saturday morning to attend the first public papal Mass in the Kingdom of Bahrain, a Muslim-majority island country in the Persian Gulf.
In the crowd was Julius Rhe, who traveled with his wife and son from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where restrictions prohibit the celebration of Catholic Masses in public.
“We are very honored to be part of this very, very memorable event. . . . We are very blessed,” Rhe told EWTN on Nov. 5.
The Rhe family traveled from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to attend Mass with the pope in Bahrain. Alexey Gotovsky/EWTN
The Rhe family practices the Catholic faith at home and has attended a private Mass in an apartment while living in Saudi Arabia.
According to Bahrain’s Daily Tribune, around 2,900 of the registered attendees at the stadium Mass with Pope Francis came from neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Reuters reported that foreign workers living in Saudi Arabia were bussed in for the Mass over the King Fahd Causeway that connects the two countries.
Many of the Gulf region’s foreign workers come from the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and other South Asian countries.
Pope Francis receives the gifts during Mass in Bahrain on Nov. 5, 2022. Vatican Media
Catholic foreign workers living in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates also traveled for the Mass.
Pope Francis arrived to cheers at Bahrain’s national soccer stadium as he greeted the enthusiastic crowd from the popemobile.
In his homily, the pope repeated the words of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Pope Francis said that Jesus “suffers when he sees in our own day and in many parts of the world, ways of exercising power that feed on oppression and violence, seeking to expand their own space by restricting that of others, imposing their own domination and restricting basic freedoms, and in this way oppressing the weak.”
In the face of the oppression and enmity that exist today, the Gospel calls Christians to “love everyone, even our enemies,” the pope said.
A family waits for Pope Francis’ arrival in Bahrain’s National Stadium on Nov. 5, 2022. Alexey Gotovsky/EWTN
Christians make a small minority in Bahrain. While it is more than 70% of Bahrain’s total population of 1.5 million is Muslim, there are about 161,000 Catholics living in the country, according to 2020 Vatican statistics. The country is home to two Catholic churches and 20 Catholic priests.
Pope Francis described Bahrain as “a living image of coexistence in diversity” and “an image of our world, increasingly marked by the constant migration of peoples and by a pluralism of ideas, customs and traditions.”
He added: “It is important, then, to embrace Jesus’ challenge: ‘If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?’”
At the end of the Mass, Bishop Paul Hinder, the apostolic administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia thanked Pope Francis for showing “pastoral care for a tiny Church in a tiny country.”
The bishop said: “Like your patron Saint Francis of Assisi, you are not afraid to build bridges with the Muslim world and to show your fraternal closeness to all people of goodwill regardless of their cultural background and religious belief.”
“We Christians in the Middle East—those of ancient Oriental tradition and those who as migrants temporarily live in this part of the world—try to implement the invitation of Saint Francis to his brothers to ‘live spiritually among the Muslims … not to engage in arguments and [simply] to acknowledge that [we] are Christians.’”
Pope Francis expressed his gratitude to the Catholics who had traveled from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region to attend the Mass. He said: “I bring today the affection and closeness of the universal Church, which looks to you and embraces you, which loves you and encourages you.”
“May the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Arabia, accompany you on your journey and preserve you constantly in love towards all.”
In a July 24 press release, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem — a diocese that includes Jordan, Cyprus, Palestine, and Israel — announced that 40 tons of non-perishable food kits were delivered by Malteser International to a newly-established … […]
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