World Religions News

TENERIFE, Spain (RNS) – Pope Leo XIV issued a stark warning to human traffickers, telling them to “repent” or face the judgment of God, during a speech to charity workers for the integration of migrants on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Friday (June 12).

“I wish to address a clear message to those who take advantage of people’s desperation, to those who organize death routes, traffic in human beings, withhold documents, exploit workers, threaten women, deceive families and turn the suffering of others into a business. Stop. Repent,” Leo said.

The pope said that God hears the suffering of trafficking victims and that the money gained by their exploitations “will bring neither peace, nor honor, nor a future.” He said traffickers “will have to appear before divine justice,” urging them to free and make amends to those they harmed.

“Repent while there is still time,” he said, “for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion.”

Leo delivered his speech at Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna in Tenerife, one of the eight islands of the Spanish Canaries off the coast of Africa, where he has met and spoken to immigrants, refugees and charity workers.

The Canary Islands are a key stop on the Atlantic route, in which thousands of migrants from West Africa travel to reach Europe each year. While many arrive to the Spanish isles hungry and exhausted, many more die every year in its surrounding waters.

The pope’s message centered on integrating immigrants into society, saying they often face not only literal shipwrecks from the makeshift rafts taking them to Europe, but also the “silent shipwreck” of feeling abandoned in foreign countries and becoming prey to human traffickers. “Integration means preventing that second shipwreck,” the pope said.

Leo specified that integration doesn’t require migrants to leave behind their identity or be segregated from society. “Integration is a reciprocal journey,” he said, where those who arrive learn to live in a new land and those who welcome “learn to expand their own homes.”

Speaking to Catholic, the pope asked that integration doesn’t stop at providing for basic needs but requires also providing a community for migrants. “A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” Leo said.

“Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family,” he added.

Only humans can create things from scratch. Machines are brilliant at taking that “scratch” and running with it, but they’re useless in front of a blank page.

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(RNS) — When two teenage shooters armed with multiple weapons began firing on the Islamic Center of San Diego last month, a licensed security guard hired by the mosque exchanged fire with the shooters and warned others to flee. That guard — Amin Abdullah — lost his life in the attack, as did two other Muslims on the property.

Abdullah’s presence likely prevented a far deadlier attack, but it also raised long-standing concerns about whether Muslim institutions have adequate security, training and planning to foil such targeted attacks and, critically, whether the federal government is invested in helping them.

Next week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expected to announce awards of $274.5 million in nonprofit security grants to houses of worship and other religious institutions. Known as the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the program is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the DHS.

The grant program has become an anchor for many religious nonprofits as they try to harden high-risk facilities from physical and cybersecurity attacks with cameras, fencing, gates, bollards, reinforced doors and windows and ballistic film.

But some Muslim organizations are already warning they don’t expect any of their institutions to receive federal security grants in this latest round of funding.

“We’re not aware of any Muslim organization receiving grants, and if they did, it would be tantamount to the tokenization to say that Muslims had received the grants,” said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “The entire program lacks transparency, and it’s incredibly hard to determine which communities are benefiting the most from them.”

American Muslim organizations have had a long and uneasy relationship with the popular security grants program, created in 2004 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing war on terror.

But Muslim institutions’ wariness of the program has grown under the Trump administration. Last year, DHS unveiled new terms and conditions for the program that made many Muslim organizations even more concerned about applying for security grants. Those conditions require all NSGP recipients to cooperate with immigration enforcement officials, refrain from operating “any programs that advance or promote DEI” and avoid “discriminatory prohibited boycott,” which could include some forms of advocacy for Palestinian rights.

Under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the agency reportedly paused grants for Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, review; discussed proposals for a blanket ban on Muslim organizations receiving grants; and later stripped funding from dozens of Muslim organizations, using vague allegations of extremism, according to CNN reporting.

CNN and Fox News also reported that DHS relied in part on reports circulated by Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank, when reviewing grant applications from Muslim organizations.

That included a review of an application from the Islamic Society of North America that DHS rejected, according to CNN and Azhar Azeez, CEO of the national Muslim group. ISNA had received a grant of $150,000 during the Biden administration to upgrade its Indianapolis headquarters’ security systems and fencing.

“It is very biased to target the American Muslim community and deprive them of these grants,” Azeez said. “Every single faith-based group should benefit from such initiatives. Muslims should not be targeted and left behind. And this is very un-American.”

A FEMA spokesperson denied those allegations.

“Under President Trump, DHS protects all Americans from terrorism, regardless of faith,” the spokesperson said in an email to RNS. “Claims that FEMA blocked funds from Muslim groups are false. All applicants are evaluated equally based on risk.”

Still, Azeez said, in previous administrations DHS representatives held presentations and training at mosques across the country to encourage Muslim groups to apply for security grants. To his knowledge, DHS under Trump has not done such outreach to Muslim organizations, he said. 

CAIR also urged DHS officials to host a briefing for American Muslim leaders on how the federal agency will “ensure their equal access to the NSGP.” DHS has not responded, McCaw said.

This is not the first time Muslims have worried about whether they are being given fair access to the NSGP and an equal opportunity to enhance their security.

In the wake of 9/11 and the war on terror, legislation such as the Patriot Act expanded the powers of DHS to investigate and infiltrate American Muslim communities, mosques and charities. That led some Muslim groups to outright oppose the NSGP.

The Muslim Justice League, a Boston-based policy advocacy organization, has long argued Muslims should not apply for NSGP funding.

“There’s growing concern and understanding that these agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, are the same ones who are going after our community,” said Fatema Ahmad, deputy director of the league. “You cannot take money from that same institution and expect that DHS is really invested in our safety, when it’s clearly not.”

In its first years in the mid-2000s, the security grant program primarily benefited Jewish institutions — synagogues, Jewish day schools and nonprofits. Those institutions have received millions in grant dollars to beef up security. Increasingly, more faith groups have received funding. Still, last year, after a rash of antisemitic attacks, Congress allocated an additional $94 million supplemental in DHS’ budget to Jewish institutions.

Jewish community leaders are now asking for more. On Wednesday (June 10), two congressmen introduced the Jewish American Security Act, a companion bill to a Senate measure by the same name that asks for $1 billion annually for the security grant program to benefit all faiths as well as secular nonprofits. (The 2026 fiscal year cycle caps the program at $300 million.)

FEMA does not provide a public list of award recipients and leaves it up to the states to announce grants, but over the years, mosques, Muslim schools and other nonprofits were able to access grants. 

The Islamic Center of San Diego, for example, collected a total of $600,000 in federal security grants over the past 10 years. It also won a $590,000 state of California security grant.

Some of the grants were used for installing fencing and upgrading camera systems. The mosque raised the money to pay Abdullah from its own community.

Now, with anti-Muslim sentiment growing across the country, many feel it’s urgent to do more to protect worshippers.

Some pointed out that Muslims are at a financial and structural disadvantage. Many mosques are volunteer-run, said Ghouse Mohammed, head of security for the Islamic Center of San Diego.

Mohammed has helped his mosque apply for federal and state security grants for more than a decade. But he said the application process is difficult and requires skilled grant writers.

“We lack experts,” he said of mosques across the country. “We are not equipped to effectively participate in these competitive grants. And that’s why a very small percentage of Muslim institutions have been recipients.”

Across the country, some Jewish groups have stepped up to help. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, for example, helped the Attawheed Islamic Center in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, apply for a grant through the state security grant program. Last year, the mosque was awarded $100,000 to enhance security at a new community center with cameras, lighting and more durable security doors.

“To be honest, without the help, guidance and coordination provided by the Jewish Federation, it would have been very difficult for us to navigate the grant process,” said Bilal Stambouli, the mosque’s executive director. “We are truly grateful for all the assistance and support they provided along the way.”

Stambouli said one challenge with the NSGP is that it requires a professional vulnerability assessment, which can cost several thousand dollars. The Jewish Federation arranged for an assessment free of charge.

State security grants have been a growing source of funding for many Muslim organizations, in part because they do not include conditions that the Trump administration imposed. At least 10 states now have nonprofit security grant programs.

Private funding is also growing.

Last month, the North American Islamic Trust, a not-for-profit endowment that holds titles to hundreds of mosques, created a new fund to support security efforts at U.S. mosques. The fund will focus on educating mosque leaders about security planning and how to apply for federal, state and private grants, said Hanif Mohebi, a spokesperson for NAIT.

The fund is meant to provide sustainable support for generations of American Muslim institutions. If the endowment grows significantly, Mohebi said, it could eventually provide mosques with direct financial support for security upgrades.

“One of the biggest problems with our community is we don’t think long term as much as we should,” he said. “We need to move away from being reactive to proactive.”

It’s not clear if it will be enough. Mohammed of the Islamic Center of San Diego wants mosques around the country to consider the deadly shooting as a wake-up call.

“There was no such incident in the past where mosques were made this vulnerable in the United States,” he said. It is, he added, “a valid reason for more mosques to be considered for funding.”

So they knew where it was this whole time...

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(RNS) — Life after the COVID-19 pandemic — with everything from higher prices to the rise of technology driving the ways we approach work, fitness and mental health — will never be the same as before.

But for some diagnosed with long COVID, a chronic condition continuing months and years after infection, the pandemic didn’t just change the world outside. It uprooted their entire existence. 

My friend Anjum, a former avid traveler and elementary teacher, is now on disability leave from work and bedridden most days. 

“I honestly thought after having COVID for five days, my life would go back to normal,” she said. “But it never did.”

As a Muslim woman who regularly attended her local mosque in Toronto not only for spiritual needs, but also — and primarily — social needs, Anjum says her perspective on faith and friendship has completely pivoted. Her life changed from being quite active socially — volunteering at the mosque’s various charitable programs and attending weekly social outings with large groups of friends she’d made through its youth group — to texting and calling only a handful of close friends. While losing many friendships through this illness, she also lost the opportunity to connect with her religious community — a key part of her mental health and overall well-being. 

The isolation of being homebound has taught her hard lessons on letting go, being patient and accepting that many, if not most, things in this life are out of our control. As a result, she believes that her connection with God has increased.

“Being a Muslim means that my goal in life is to connect with God,” she shared. “I have to have full trust in him and all my hopes about being healed are through him.”

Anjum developed long COVID in 2023. She noticed that her heart would race when she would sit or stand, causing severe dizziness, extreme fatigue and brain fog. At the time, she was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system that causes abnormal increases in heart rate.

A few months later, her symptoms began escalating as she began to experience significant “crashes.” 

“Anything I do has an energy cost,” she said. “On bad days, even tiny actions like brushing my teeth or going on the computer for five minutes causes me to become extremely exhausted and bedridden for literally days or weeks after.”

This energy crash is known as post exertional malaise, or PEM. Doctors officially diagnosed her with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome in 2024. ME/CFS is a neurological illness affecting multiple biological systems and is characterized by extreme physical and mental fatigue and cognitive impairment after minimal physical, cognitive, emotional or social exertion, such as showering, walking or reading. 

But receiving a diagnosis that explained her myriad symptoms does not mean that Anjum is on the road to recovery. ME/CFS is a disease that is very poorly understood, despite the fact that its prevalence is rising rapidly, with one recent estimate indicating that ME/CFS rates are now 15 times higher than before the pandemic. In fact, one study suggests that quality of life among patients with ME/CFS is among the lowest from several debilitating diseases, including diabetes, arthritis, schizophrenia and various cancers.

With no cure for ME/CFS, current treatments are offered only to manage symptoms.

Three years in, Anjum has tried to manage her symptoms with major lifestyle modifications, adjusted expectations and a change in how she approaches her faith as a Muslim. 

Islam’s tenets have a strong focus on the transient, temporary nature of this life, guiding submission (the literal meaning of the Arabic word “Islam”) and contentment with God’s will.

“I understand on a deep level that everyone is tested and challenged in different ways,” she said. “Everyone in life is going through something difficult and when you think of it that way, your problems don’t seem as overwhelming.” 

Anjum lives with her parents, who have become her around-the-clock caregivers. Her focus is on survival. Some days she doesn’t even have enough energy to eat, she said. Any leftover energy she has after meeting basic needs usually goes toward spending time with her family. 

She depends on her mom for most of her activities of daily living, especially on days she is completely bedbound, while her dad handles much of the administrative tasks at home. And for someone with a chronic medical illness or disability, the administrative tasks are endless. Filling out forms for insurance or medical appointments becomes incredibly daunting.

In these moments, she has tangibly felt the immense benefits of having a connected family and faith community. 

“You really show your faith through your actions, not just through your words,” she said. “As Muslims, we are taught that acts of charity and kindness are very important. I truly believe that helping someone dealing with a hard time is as important as attending mosque regularly. A huge part of being a caring member of society is to sacrifice your time or energy to help somebody struggling.” 

Anjum recalled instances when someone sent her a meal, helped fill out forms needed to secure disability pay and acquire new supports that could aid her during her day-to-day functions, or simply listened to her grieve when she was unable to function.

“It meant so much that they cared enough to help me out without me having to ask for it.”

And although Anjum watched as the world as she knew it shrank, she also witnessed how her faith and gratitude expanded in tandem. 

“We go through life at such a fast pace without stopping to be grateful. Even the simple things in life can be somebody’s dream. I think having deep gratitude really puts things into perspective,” she said. 

As Anjum continues to research treatments and consider various clinical trials for ME/CFS, looking forward to the day when she can return to a normal life again, she holds onto a deepened faith and a more enhanced hope to get through the hard moments of her new life — one day at a time, one whispered prayer at a time. 

(Zehra Kamani is a Toronto-based freelance writer with a background in research. Her website is zehrakamani.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)