Beijing: China on Nov.1 started the world’s biggest exercise of population count, conducted once in a decade, to document demographic changes in the most populous country. About seven million census takers began door-to-door survey for the seventh census in the country to account for China’s population stated to be 1.37Continue Reading
Paris: An attacker armed with a sawn-off shotgun has wounded a Greek Orthodox priest in a shooting in the French city of Lyon, a police source said. Reverend Nikolaos Kakavelaki, 52, was closing his church mid-afternoon on October 31 when he was attacked and is now in a serious conditionContinue Reading
By Paul Bond Tennessee: At an October 17 Trucks for Trump Rally in Tennessee, a pastor named Bryan Nerren took the stage to speak about religious persecution in India. The topic isn’t exactly top of mind among the Trump faithful, but Nerren did his best to make it relevant. HisContinue Reading
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, civil and ecclesial authorities in the Philippines have agreed to cancel the Black Nazarene celebration in 2021, which gathers millions of churchgoers in Manila each January. Known as the traslacion, the 19-hour procession through the streets of Manila takes place each year on Jan. 9.Continue Reading
Paris: France stepped up security nationwide on October 30 to guard against new Islamist attacks following the fatal stabbings at a church in Nice, while Muslims in other countries protested in over perceived French slights to the Prophet Mohammad. President Emmanuel Macron deployed thousands of soldiers to protect sites suchContinue Reading
NICE, France: A knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in the French city of Nice on Oct. 29. A defiant President Emmanuel Macron, declaring that France had been subject to an Islamist terrorist attack, said he wouldContinue Reading
Colombo: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on October 28 visited the St Anthony’s Church in north Colombo, one of the three churches devastated by the horrific Easter Sunday attacks in 2019, and paid tributes to the victims of the deadly terror strikes. Nine suicide bombers belonging to the localContinue Reading
London: St Paul’s Church in Clapham has hosted a special service to make amends for the racist treatment received by Rev Carmel Jones when he visited back in 1955. After arriving in London from Jamaica as part of the Windrush Generation, Rev Jones attended the church as an Anglican himselfContinue Reading
Vatican City: Pope Francis on October 25 named 13 new cardinals, including two Asians. In a surprise announcement from his studio window to faithful standing below in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said the churchmen would be elevated to a cardinal’s rank in a ceremony on Nov. 28. Nine ofContinue Reading
Vatican City: A laicized priest who had been the spiritual director to six people who said they experienced visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje has been excommunicated. Tomislav Vlasic, who had been a Franciscan priest until he was laicized in 2009, was excommunicated JulyContinue Reading
