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Rebels take another city, Church alive ‘even in suffering’, says Loikaw bishop

Last week the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) captured Namhsan, a city in the northern Shan State. The TNLA is one of three ethnic militias that form the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched an offensive against Myanmar’s military junta at the end of October. According to the militias, at least 650 regular soldiers surrendered, potentially […]

Jaranwala, a Christmas fair to restore hope for victims

Only 4 months ago in Jaranwala in Pakistan more than 900 Christian families were forced to flee and hide in the fields with women, elderly people and children to save their lives from the fury and burning of Islamic fundamentalists. The toll was hundreds of Christian homes burned and 21 churches attacked, of which 3 belonging to the […]

Hebei, Chinese police ban children from Christmas in Baoding

Christmas vigil prohibited for children. Traffic blocks and shop closures. Ban on display of objects that recall Christmas in university dormitories. These are some of the measures deployed by the local authorities of Baoding, a northern city in the Chinese province of Hebei not far from the capital Beijing. As a diocese with a long […]

Angelus: Pope urges the faithful to celebrate Christmas with ‘simplicity’, close to ‘those who suffer’ from war

On this Sunday December 24, the fourth of Advent and Christmas Eve, Pope Francis urged the faithful at the end of the Angelus to be close at this time of celebra-tion to the people in the world who suffer from war. “Palestine, Israel, and Ukraine,” he said this morning from the window of the Vatican […]

Nigeria: Over 140 people killed in Christmas Eve attacks on remote villages

Armed groups kill scores of villagers in Nigeria’s north-cen-tral Plateau state in the long-running conflict between noma-dic herders and farmers. At least 140 people were killed and others are missing after a series of attacks by gunmen on remote villages in north-central Nigeria’s Plateau state. Officials and survivors con-firmed the Christmas Eve attacks and blamed […]

Pope calls Vatican bureaucrats to resist ‘rigid ideological positions’

In his annual Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis urged the Church’s governing bureaucracy to be open to change and to resist “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from moving forward. Speaking to members of the curia during a Dec. 21 audience, Pope Francis stressed the need to “remain vigilant against […]

Convicted cardinal: ‘I want to shout to the world that I’m innocent’

In his first major media appearance since being convicted of financial crimes by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to five and a half years in prison, Cardinal Angelo Becciu told an Italian TV host Monday that “I want to shout to the world that I’m innocent.” “I’m going to do everything I can, everything to […]

Cardinal sentenced to five and a half years in jail in Vatican ‘trial of the century’

In the long-awaited denouement of the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” which has been seen widely as a litmus test of Pope Francis’s press for reform, a Vatican tribunal on December 16 sentenced Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison for his role in various financial crimes. Becciu was also […]