Saudi Arabia stunned foreign policy observers this month by publicly agreeing to normalize relations with Iran, under Chinese sponsorship. The deal between the neighbouring Sunni and Shia arch-rivals, known for sectarian proxy fights, is expected to ease tensions within Islam.
Meanwhile, the kingdom has recently taken less publicized steps toward another religious normalization: public Christian faith. In this case, Egypt is the supporting nation.
“Nine years ago, I was told, ‘Pray, but don’t publicize it,’” said Bishop Marcos of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church. “This time, Saudi Arabia is publicizing it themselves.”
On January 7, Marcos headlined a month-long pastoral visit by celebrating the eastern Christmas liturgy amid 3,000 Coptic Christians residing in the kingdom. Facilitated by the Egyptian embassy, additional services in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Khobar, and Dhahran were “held under the full sponsor-ship of the Saudi authorities.”
It was the first public Christmas celebration admitted by the Islamic nation, home to the pilgrimage sites of Mecca and Medina. Muslim traditions cite Muhammad as forbidding the existence of two religions in Arabia, though scholars differ as to the geographic scope.
But Marcos’s trip was not the first Christian worship permitted.
He began praying about visits to Saudi Arabia after being sent in 2012 to help solve a dispute between authorities and an Egyptian Christian migrant worker. Marcos estimates there are about 50,000 Copts in the kingdom, among 2.1 million Christians – mostly Filipino Catholics.
None have a church to worship in. Open Doors’ World Watch List ranks Saudi Arabia No. 13 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian today. Visiting Coptic clergy used to meet the faithful in neighboring Bahrain.
The idea had been broached as early as 2008 by Catholic officials. Various Saudi figures have stated “definitely …it’s coming” and that it is “on the to-do list” of the authorities. Speculation about its location centers on the diplomatic district in the capital, Riyadh, or on Neom, a $500 million planned megacity in the northwestern desert.

The French diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, currently under Vatican scrutiny for welcoming controversial religious groups, has suspended a priest and shut down his lay Catholic association after he revealed plans to marry a woman he said was “the incarnation” of the Holy Spirit.
Fr Antoine Coelho, a former Legionaries of Christ priest in his 40s who founded the “Holy Spirit House” association in 2017, had confirmed to the diocese “his intention to marry and found a family” with the 26-year-old Spanish woman, according to a diocesan statement.
“For these doctrinal and moral reasons, Fr Antoine Coelho was suspended and he is prohibited from exercising the priesthood,” the statement said.
Before founding Holy Spirit House to train fellow charismatics, he did two years of training in charism exercise and healing prayer with the English charismatic Catholic community Cor et Lumen Christi.
Fr Coelho has said he received a baptism of the Holy Spirit in 2010 and joined Fréjus-Toulon diocese in 2013. La Croix described him as “willingly mystical…with sometimes barely intelligible homilies”.

“It’s my hope,” says the author of By the Rivers of Babylon, “that this story will enflesh, so to speak, the real struggles of biblical characters, and show how they resisted the dark undertow of despair, prevailing in hope at a time when there seemed to be no hope.”
Born in 1948, Michael O’Brien had a conversion experience at the age of 21, followed by several years of painting and writing. In 1996, Ignatius Press published Father Elijah: An Apocalypse, which became a best-seller and established O’Brien as a distinctive literary voice. Many more novels followed, including Eclipse of the Sun, Sophia House, The Father’s Tale, Theophilos, and several others, as well as works of non-fiction, and a beautiful collection of his artwork.
Now in his mid-70s, the prolific O’Brien has written yet another unique novel, By the Rivers of Babylon, about the mysterious 6th-century BC prophet Ezekiel. On writing the Biblical novels in Bible characters he said: “I prayed very much for light, for the “co-creative” grace, that I might tell a story about the unknown years of Ezekiel’s life before his great visions began. As I began to write, I had only the foundation of the little we know about him. Again and again, vivid images and scenes arose in my imagination that I hadn’t intended, but it soon became apparent they were exactly right for the developing story”. “I think there is plenty of room for the “baptized imagination”
“ I have always felt a strong natural love for the dramatic lives of King David and the prophets Elijah and Daniel, but I knew next to nothing about Ezekiel. Then came a night some years ago when I had one of the most powerful dreams of my life, in which the prophet Ezekiel appeared and I was singing to him with my whole heart and soul, calling him “my father.” I awoke, still singing, totally astonished, completely perplexed by the dream.
I’ve had ten thousand dreams in my life, all of them near-instantly forgotten when I awoke. But not this one—it’s as crystal clear to me today as it was then.” “The Babylonian Captivity was a catastrophic chastisement of apostate Israel. Yet, even during that 70-year desolation, the Lord sent words of consolation and hope through his prophets. Moreover, the Book of Ezekiel is rich in Christological signs of the coming of Christ and the New Covenant, which means that the Lord intended it for us as well.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has decried attacks on holy sites in Jerusalem and is calling for their protection.
In a statement issued in the wake of the March 19 attack against the Church of Gethsemane in East Jerusalem, the WCC Secretary General, Rev. Prof. Dr. Jerry Pillay, made the appeal, joining in that of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The Patriarchate had strongly decried the attack by two men against the church, where the Tomb of the Virgin Mary lies, during a religious service. Its Patriarch, Theophilus III, appealed for better protection of Christians and their holy places.
The WCC General Secretary underscored, “We stand in solidarity with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and all those calling for protection of holy sites, and we reiterate our calls for such protection during Christian holidays and during all days of importance for all faith communities.
“The WCC is extremely concerned about the increasing attacks on holy sites in Jerusalem and deems it necessary to facilitate a meeting of key religious leaders in the near future to discuss what can be done to stop these uncalled-for attacks on religious leaders, sacred places, and institutions.”
“This terrible attack – which appears to have purposely targeted religious leaders,” he stressed, “is an egregious violation of international law.”
This attack represents the latest in a series of attacks against Christians, churches, and cemeteries in the Holy Land.

Recently released political prisoners and human rights activists testified before members of Congress Wednesday about the ongoing persecution in Nicaragua, which one witness called an “unholy war against the Catholic Church.”
In recent years, the Nicaraguan government under Daniel Ortega has detained, imprisoned, and likely tortured numerous Catholic leaders, targeting at least one bishop and several priests.
In addition, the Ortega regime has repressed Catholic radio and television stations and driven Catholic religious orders, including the Missionaries of Charity, from the country.
Among those to testify March 22 was Juan Sebastian Chamorro, a former presidential candidate opposed to the Ortega regime who detailed his arrest and imprisonment.
“I was kidnapped by the police from my house the night of June 8, 2021. I was captured in front of my wife and my daughter … My family did not know anything about me until I was able to see my sister … almost three months after my arrest,” he said.
“Today, as the result of this authoritarian project in Nicaragua, there is no law, there is no media, and there are no civil rights.”

In another crackdown on religious freedom, local authorities in an eastern Chinese city ordered parents of kinder-garteners to sign a pledge that affirms they are not religious. Guardians of children at schools in Wenzhou, a city in the Zhejiang province, were asked to sign a “pledge form of commitment for family not to hold a religious belief,” according to the human rights group China Aid.
The pledge states that the parents affirm they “do not hold a religious belief, do not participate in any religious activities, and do not propagate and disseminate religion in any locations.” It also makes them affirm “exemplary observance of the [Chinese Communist] Party discipline and the country’s laws and regulations [and to] never join any Falun Gong and other cult organizations.”
Falun Gong, a religious movement founded in China in the 1990s, is openly critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
The order came from Chinese Communist Party officials in the Longwan district of the city of Wenzhou, according to ChinaAid. The nonprofit is a Christian human-rights organization that received the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy for its commitment to religious freedom in China in 2019.
The district is home to about 750,000, people. Christians represent about 10% of the city’s population and have grown in number over the past decade. This is much higher than the national average, which is less than 1% Christian.

The 3rd International conference “Catholics and Shiites facing the future. On the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq” will be held in Najaf from the afternoon of 8 until 10 March. The dialogue conference has been organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio together with the Al-Khoei Institute of Najaf. It will be attended by a delegation of the Community including the founder Andrea Riccardi, the president Marco Impagliazzo and Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, Cardinals Ayuso, Coutts and Sako, Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldean, will also be present.
The delegation on the Shia side includes several clerics from the High Shiite Seminary in Najaf, as well as representatives from other Middle Eastern countries and Europe. The conference is scheduled to end on Friday, 10 March, with the final session at the Chaldean Patriarchate in Baghdad. This new phase in the friendship between Catholics and Shiites is part of a journey that began in January 2004, when a delegation from Sant’Egidio, invited to Najaf by Shiite clerics engaged in dialogue in the ‘spirit of Assisi’, met with Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani. In 2015, the first international Catholic-Shiite Conference took place. It was followed by numerous and varied presences of Shia religious at the International Meetings for Peace, promoted by Sant’Egidio in the “spirit of Assisi”.

There are calls for the Catholic Church to ordain women as deacons and priests and to allow women to preach the homily during Mass from in a new survey of more than 17,000 Catholic women around the world.
The International Survey of Catholic Women, carried out last year in response to the call for submissions to the 2021-2024 Synod of Bishops on synodality, is published as women worldwide celebrate International Women’s Day.
Recommendations include changes to Canon Law to permit women to preach the homily during Mass and considering the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood as a legitimate expression of doctrinal development.
There are also calls to respect women’s freedom of conscience in matters of sexual and reproductive health and decision-making, and for changes to Catholic theology, doctrine and liturgical practice to ensure women, LGBTIQ+ Catholics, and divorced and remarried Catholics “are valued and fully included in all aspects of church life”.
The report, devised and managed by researchers Dr Tracy McEwan and Dr Kathleen McPhillips at the University of Newcastle in Australia and Professor Emerita Tina Beattie at the University of Roehampton, London, draws on 17,200 responses from women in 104 countries.
Of those surveyed, 79 per cent agreed women should be fully included at all levels of church leadership, 84 per cent agreed reform is needed, 85 per cent agreed clericalism is damaging the Church and 80 per cent agreed Church leaders are not doing enough to address the perpetration and cover-up of sexual abuse.
Participants were recruited across multiple networks and forums worldwide including dioceses, parishes, and women’s networks and organisations.

In the latest move against the Catholic Church and government opponents in Nicaragua, the government of President Daniel Ortega has reportedly banned the traditional public processions of the Way of the Cross in all parishes in the country.
During Lent, and also on Good Friday, the ritual will take place inside churches and not in public venues.
The move comes in the context of President Daniel Ortega’s escalating crackdown against the Nicaraguan Church, and follows the widespread outcry over the recent sentencing of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa to 26 years’ imprisonment and the deportation to the United States of 222 political opponents.
They have all been stripped off citizenship along with other 94 Nicaraguan citizens, including the exiled Auxiliary Bishop Silvo José Baez of Managua, and a priest from Matagalpa.
Tensions between the Sandinista regime and the Catholic Church reached its peak last week when, in a speech for the 89th anniversary of the killing of Nicaraguan national hero Augusto Sandino.

Aside from the ruthless crack-down on protests over the death of Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in police custody, 2022 was another year in which Iranian Christians continued to face harassment, arrests and imprisonment only for practicing their faith, a new report of four non-profit organi-zations advocating for persecuted Christians in the world says.
Christians along with other religious minorities in the Islamic Republic continued to be systematically deprived of their right to freely practice their religion,  according to the 2023 Report on “Violations to the rights of Christians in Iran” released  by Article18, a London-based ONG, dedicated to the protection and promotion of religious freedom in Iran, with its partners Open Doors International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and Middle East Concern.
The 25-page study, in its fifth edition, was issued in recent days to coincide with the 44th anniversary of the murder of Anglican pastor Arastoo Sayyah, the first Christian killed for his  faith in the Islamic Republic,  just eight days after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in February 1979.134 Christians arrested in 2022 for faith related issues.