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Pope Francis met Wednesday with two young Nigerian girls who suffered horrendous violence at the hands of the Boko Haram terrorist group.
“Oh, what sorrow to have watched three of my parishioners shot dead in cold blood, right before my eyes — and I couldn’t do anything,” Nigerian parish priest Father Bako Francis Awesuh, 37, shared in a new Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) report published Friday.
According to the latest available estimates as of midday Tuesday, the 7.8-magnitude quake has left at least 6,200 people dead in Turkey and Syria.
More than 840,000 people from 140 countries joined in praying the rosary Oct. 18 to ask for peace and unity throughout the world.
Pope Francis has appealed for the release of nine Catholics kidnapped in southwest Cameroon.
Pope Francis in his Angelus address on Sunday honored an Italian missionary sister who was killed by Islamist terrorists in Mozambique.
Christians continue to face persecution across the globe but there are many signs of hope, according to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The number of Christian women and girls kidnapped and forced to change their religion has grown “in the last few years” in a number of African countries, Catholic Pontifical and charity foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, has said.
Even without proper Church structures in place, the number of people coming to places of worship in South Sudan has been increasing steadily, the Catholic Archbishop of South Sudan’s Juba Archdiocese has said.
Children from 44 countries have already registered to take part in the rosary campaign.
Father Joseph Bature Fidelis of the Diocese of Maiduguri is aware of the danger priests face from local Islamist terror groups.
The Bishop of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri has called for fervent prayers through the Blessed Virgin Mary in reciting the Holy Rosary, saying that it is through the devotion to the Mother of our Lord that the war against Islamist militants in the West African country will be won.
In approaching the penitential practices of Lent, Catholics can learn a lot from persecuted Christian communities, an advocate for Aid to the Church in Need said at the Vatican on Friday.
As the Egyptian Coptic Church marks the 5th anniversary of the 21 Christian men who were beheaded by ISIS on a Libyan beach on February 15, 2015, the mother of two brothers who were among those that were killed by the abductors has said that she is a “mother of martyrs” and exuded confidence that her sons are in heaven, praying for her family.
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako has appealed for financial and spiritual aid for Christians in the Middle East, especially in Iraq.