Rome Newsroom, Mar 3, 2021 / 06:15 am (CNA).- Christians in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains were able to rebuild a nursery school and other facilities destroyed by the Islamic State thanks to a custom Lamborghini auctioned off by Pope Francis.
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Rome Newsroom, Mar 2, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil said he hopes that with Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq, the world will see a different, and positive, side of the country, after many years of violence and war.
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Rome Newsroom, Feb 25, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).-
In a week’s time, Pope Francis is expected to make history by becoming the first pope to travel to Iraq. His March 5-8 trip will take him from excavations of historical biblical sites… […]
Rome Newsroom, Feb 25, 2021 / 09:01 am (CNA).- Catholics living in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province have lived an “experience of the cross” amid the escalation of terrorist violence over the past three years, according to their… […]
Lagos, Nigeria, Feb 23, 2021 / 07:49 pm (CNA).- Three years after Leah Sharibu was abducted from her school in Dapchi in Yobe State within Nigeria’s Diocese of Maiduguri, the Archbishop of Lagos has called on the country’s head of state to “do all in his power … to secure her release.”
In a Feb. 20 statement by the Director of Social Communications of Lagos Archdiocese, Fr. Anthony Godonu, Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins says “it is sad” that the Nigerian school girl is still being held, three years after she was kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents.
Archbishop Adewale urges President Muhammadu Buhari to “do all in his power as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, the one from whom all other security agencies take their orders, to secure her release.”
Leah is among the 110 girls abducted from the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC) Dapchi in Yobe State by members of the Boko Haram militia Feb. 19, 2018.
While most of the girls were released the following month, Leah, aged 14 at the time of her kidnapping, did not regain her freedom for reportedly refusing to convert to Islam. Five other girls died while in captivity, according to reports.
Following the release of the 104 girls, Buhari said that his government will not relent in efforts to bring Leah safely back home.
Making reference to the assurances Buhari give in March 2018 for Leah’s release, Archbishop Adewale regrets that “she along with others are still languishing in the hands of their abductors till date.”
“We have been told that several efforts have been made to ensure her release, but we are yet to see them materialize,” the 61-year-old Nigerian archbishop says, adding that “one can only imagine the severe physical, emotional, and psychological torture she and her parents have been going through all these years.”
In the Feb. 20 statement issued by the Director of Social Communications of Lagos Archdiocese, Archbishop Adewale also calls on Buhari’s government to work toward the release of other abducted students “and unite them once again to their already distraught families.”
Multiple reports indicate that Boko Haram has been responsible for attacks and kidnappings in Nigerian schools. Just last week, gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram militants raided the Government Science Secondary School in Kagara in Nigeria’s Niger State in the North-Eastern part of the country, kidnapping at least 20 teenage boys.
One student was killed during the Feb. 17 attack.
The militant group claimed responsibility for the December 2020 abduction of 300 boys from the Government Science School in Kankara, Katsina State, a territory covered by the Diocese of Sokoto. The boys secured their released after a week in captivity.
The Islamist militant group also claimed responsibility for the April 2014 abduction of 276 girls from their school in Chibok, Northeastern Nigeria. 100 of the girls are reportedly still missing.
In the Feb. 20 message, Archbishop Adewale also acknowledges with appreciation the January 27 appointment of Service Chiefs and reminds them of “the enormous responsibility ahead of them, especially the need to win back the full confidence of Nigerians in the military.”
The ordinary of Lagos further urges the new Service Chiefs to take the fight against insurgents to a higher level by “buoying the morale of the officers and men of the force and to employ sophisticated intelligence techniques to identify and further decimate the Boko Haram members and the bandits terrorizing the country.”
Wau, South Sudan, Feb 19, 2021 / 10:45 am (CNA).- A Catholic health centre of the Diocese of Wau has temporarily shut down after all three doctors at the facility tested positive for Covid-19.
The administrator of Sika Hadid Primary Health Centre, Sr…. […]
Rome Newsroom, Feb 18, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- A Franciscan friar was ordained archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan this week and commissioned to “offer the light of the Gospel” in Iran.
Archbishop Dominique Mathieu, 57, was consecrated in Rome in… […]
Rome Newsroom, Feb 17, 2021 / 06:05 am (CNA).- Pope Francis’ trip to Iraq comes at a time when the country faces severe political, socioeconomic, and security challenges. The European Union’s ambassador to Iraq has called Iraq’s curre… […]
Sokoto, Nigeria, Feb 15, 2021 / 07:19 pm (CNA).- One year after the burial of Michael Nnadi, an 18-year-old Nigerian seminarian abducted and killed by gunmen, the local bishop has indicated his sorrow at the lack of progress in preventing abductions and murders.
“It is quite tragic that one year later, we are still closer to nowhere we hope to be. The harvest of death has gotten richer, more and more people are dying,’ Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto said to journalists following a Feb. 12 memorial Mass.
“Things have gotten progressively worse as far as the lives of our ordinary people are concerned,” Bishop Kukah said in Sokoto’s Holy Family Cathedral.
He added, “It is a matter of great concern and great sadness that we haven’t come anywhere close to securing our people and securing our country.”
Nnadi was taken by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna around 10:30 pm on Jan. 8, 2020, along with fellow seminarians Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; and Stephen Amos, 23. The four seminarians were at the beginning of their philosophy studies.
All but Nnadi were released by the end of January, but on Feb. 1, 2020 Bishop Kukah announced that Nnadi had been found dead.
Bishop Kukah described Michael’s death as a “message of renewal” for Africa’s most populous country.
“Amid all this trouble, we as Christians have a message of renewal that this is not where God wants our country to be,” Bishop Kukah said.
He added, “We believe in the supremacy of His will and we also believe that amid all these confusion, death, unnecessary blood-shedding, that He has a message for us, and the message is for us to urgently think about building our country.”
“There is a saying in Christianity that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. Our religion has never triumphed because of patronage or government or because of the amounts of kingdoms that we run,” the bishop said.
In honor of the slain seminarian, the bishop’s residence has been renamed Michael Nnadi House.
The bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Kaduna have also approved the construction of a shrine at Good Shepherd Seminary in honor of Nnadi.
“In future,” Bishop Kukah said, “we hope to advance the course for Michael for him to be recognized by the Catholic Church as a martyr.”
According to the bishop, Michael’s course for sainthood should be advanced because “we have never had that kind of experience. That the people who killed him, actually came and testified that they killed Michael because he was preaching to them and telling them that what they were doing was not right.”
Mustapha Mohamed, one of Michael’s killers, said they murdered Nnadi because he “continued to preach the gospel of Christ” to his captors.
Rome Newsroom, Feb 15, 2021 / 06:30 am (CNA).- The Iraqi government has announced new COVID-19 restrictions, including the closure of all places of worship, less than three weeks before Pope Francis’ scheduled trip to Iraq.
On Feb. 14 the health… […]
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