Christians continue to be the most persecuted religious group, according to a report by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Almost 300 million Christians, or one out of seven Christians in the world, live in a country where they face violence, arrest and human rights violations.  Some 61% of the world’s population live in countries where religious freedom is not respected, meaning that six out of every 10 people around the world cannot express their faith with total freedom, Vatican News reported.

These were some of the figures unveiled in the Religious Freedom Report 2018 by ACN, the international pontifical Catholic charity and foundation that helps persecuted Christians worldwide.

The report looks at 196 countries, examining the degree to which the basic right to religious freedom, as defined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is respected with regard to all the major religious faiths.

The report, which contains data from June 2016 to June 2018, shows grave violations of religious freedom in 38 countries. In 17 of them there is serious discrimination on grounds of religious faith, while in 21 there is outright persecution of religious minorities, in some cases to the point of death. The report reveals that in some of the worst countries for religious freedom, the situation has deteriorated over the past two years. On the global level in general, overall respect for religious freedom has also worsened.

The ACN study shows that in 22 countries the reasons for attacks on religious freedom are rooted in radical Islamism, while in other countries the dominant causes are the authoritarianism of states or governments which pursue policies of “aggressive nationalism.” Among these countries are China, India, North Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan.

On a more positive note, the report pointed to an improved level of religious freedom for minorities in Syria and Iraq following the military defeat of terrorist group Islamic State.

The International Union of Superiors General has called on women religious who have suffered abuse to come forward and report it to their congregations and church and state authorities.

“If the UISG receives a report of abuse, we will be a listening presence and help the person to have the courage to bring the complaint to the appropriate organizations,” it added in a statement published on its website on November 23.

The group – whose members are 2,000 superiors general of congregations of women religious across the world, representing more than 500,000 sisters – said it wished to express “deep sorrow and indignation over the pattern of abuse that is prevalent within the church and society today.”

“Abuse in all forms: sexual, verbal, emotional or any inappropriate use of power within a relationship, diminishes the dignity and healthy development of the person who is victimized,” it added.

“We stand by those courageous women and men who have reported abuse to the authorities. We condemn those who support the culture of silence and secrecy, often under the guise of ‘protection’ of an institution’s reputation or naming it ‘part of one’s culture.'”

“We advocate for transparent civil and criminal reporting of abuse whether within religious congregations, at the parish or diocesan levels, or in any public arena,” it said.

In a video message to young men and women around the world, Pope Francis has called on them to provoke an uprising of change by serving others.

In helping those who are suffering, both young believers and non-believers can find “a strength that can change the world,” the Pope said in a video message to youths for the up-coming World Youth Day in Panama. “It is a revolution that can overturn the powerful forces at work in our world. It is the ‘revolution’ of service,” he said in the message released by the Vatican.

The theme for the World Youth Day celebrations, which will take place on January 22-27, is taken from the Gospel of St Luke, “May it be done to me according to your word.”

In his message, the Pope said those words uttered by Mary during the Annunciation are “the positive reply of one who under-stands the secret of vocation: to go beyond oneself and place oneself at the service of others.”

Life, he said, can only find meaning when serving God and others. Like Mary, young people must engage “in conversation with God with an attitude of listening” so that they may discover their calling either in marriage, consecrated life or the priesthood.

ROME – Fully automated and autonomous lethal weapons systems must be banned now before they become a reality in tomorrow’s wars, a Vatican representative said.

The development of robotic weapons or “killer robots” will provide “the capacity of altering irreversibly the nature of warfare, becoming more detached from human agency, putting in question the humanity of our societies,” Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic told a group of experts at the United Nations in Geneva.

The archbishop, who is the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva, spoke Nov. 22 at a meeting of the high contracting parties to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, held in Geneva on November 21-23. The Vatican mission in Geneva released the arch-bishop’s remarks on November 27.

The legal and ethical implications of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) have been discussed and on the convention’s agenda for the past five years, the archbishop said in his speech.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has defined LAWS as being “any weapon system with autonomy in its critical functions. That is, a weapon system that can select – i.e. search for or detect, identify, track, select – and attack – i.e. use force against, neutralize, damage or destroy – targets without human intervention.”

At least 34 churches have been shut in Angola following an operation dubbed. The national police director for communication, Mr Orlando Bernardo, said 19 churches were shut in Cabinda Province, 11 in Luanda and four in Malanje province for operating illegally. The government said recently that more than 50% of churches operating in Angola were foreign, mainly from the DR Congo, Brazil, Nigeria and Senegal, adding that at least 1,116 of them operated illegally. The police rescue operation started on November 6 and will run until the end of the year. The operation aims at restoring the state authority by instituting order in worship, on the roads, fighting unregulated hawking and illegal migrations, among others.