The path to holiness does not involve wrestling with some abstract boogeyman, but involves a “constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil,” Pope Francis said.
In his new apostolic exhortation, “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), released by the Vatican, the pope urged Christians not to think of the devil as an intangible construct but rather “a personal being who assails us.”
What is more important: a human being or a cow? While this may sound like a silly and irrational question, the sad situation on the ground in much of my Nigerian homeland is that innocent human beings are being slaughtered so that cattle can graze on their land.
“Once more I speak out in favour of the rights of the Yezidis, above all their right to exist as a religious community. No one can allocate oneself the power to eliminate a religious group because it is not among those who are ‘tolerated'” – Pope Francis
US Bishop Michael Burbidge writes on domestic violence in families within the US – we in South Africa have as great a problem with the same issue.
Once again, violence has struck. More than 500 people were wounded and at least 59 died in an Oct. 1 shooting during a country music concert in Las Vegas. Once again, people ask, “Why?” How can this sort of random violence happen? Why do people shoot other people? Why so much bloodshed?
Catholic families in a cross-community housing project in Belfast, Northern Ireland, have been forced to leave their homes after a sectarian threat, thought to be from Protestant paramilitaries.
A new proposed law will make hate speech and incitement a prosecutable crime. Bishop VICTOR PHALANA sees the point of such a law — and big risks. Parliament will debate a proposed law that will make hate speech illegal. The draft of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill still needs revision, especially in terms of conforming to the Constitution.
Anti-Semitism continues to raise its ugly head, even in South Africa, as recent press reports have shown. Yet, this year, we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Seelisberg Conference on anti-Semitism.
The US renews its commitment to the protection of religious minority groups threatened by the Islamic State in the Middle East, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the preface of the annual State Department report on international religious freedom.
