World Religions News

Bishop Christian Carlassare (center), President Salva Kiir (left), and Dr. Riek Machar (right). / Credit: Catholic Diocese of Rumbek/Office of the President - Republic of South Sudan

ACI Africa, Mar 29, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A Catholic bishop in the Africa’s youngest country has directed the people under his care to participate in daily prayers for peace amid testimonies of rising tension in South Sudan and reports of the arrest of the country’s first vice president, Dr. Riek Machar.

“First vice president” is a position that was created in 2015 as part of a coalition agreement. Five more such positions were created in 2020. They are temporary positions to assist during a transition period.

“As we witness rising tensions in South Sudan, I invite our parishes to pray every day for peace,” Bishop Christian Carlassare wrote in a March 26 note obtained by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa.

The local ordinary of the Bentiu Diocese in South Sudan, who also serves as the apostolic administrator of the country’s Diocese of Rumbek, directed that “the prayer for peace in South Sudan” be said “at the end of the Mass” and that there be in parishes “a weekly initiative for peace — either Eucharistic adoration or the Way of the Cross.”

Hours after Carlassare’s directive on daily prayers for peace in South Sudan, reports emerged of the arrest of Machar.

“South Sudanese security forces placed first vice president and opposition leader Dr. Riek Machar under house arrest in Juba on Wednesday night amid escalating political tensions, raising fears of a return to civil war,” Radio Tamazuj, an independent daily news service covering current affairs in Sudan and South Sudan, reported on March 26.

According to a March 26 Reuters report, Machar’s party, the South Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO), is “trying to locate him after the defense minister and chief of national security ‘forcefully entered’ his residence and delivered an arrest warrant.”

The Reuters report cites a statement from Machar’s SPLM-IO party condemning “a blatant violation of the constitution and the Revitalized Peace Agreement,” which refers to the September 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan that ended a 2013–2018 civil war between armed forces loyal to Machar and those aligned to South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir.

“The house arrest of Dr. Riek Machar is widely seen as jeopardizing the peace agreement,” Radio Tamazuj reported. The news service quoted Reath Muoch Tang, the acting chairperson of the SPLM-IO’s Committee on Foreign Relations, sharing details of Machar’s house arrest. 

“The security forces came and chased everyone away from the compound, and the minister of defense left, but many security vehicles remained in the compound,” Muoch Tang is quoted as telling Radio Tamazuj, adding: “Technically, Dr. Machar is under house arrest, but the security officials initially tried to take him away.”

In a statement obtained by ACI Africa, the official spokesperson of SPLM-IO, Pal Mai Deng, confirmed “with grave concern” that Machar “has been placed under house arrest.”

“This is an unfortunate move, and this violates the revitalized peace agreement,” Mai Deng said.

“For the sake of South Sudan’s future nationhood and nation-building, the physical security of Dr. Riek Machar is paramount,” said the SPLM-IO spokesperson, who serves as South Sudan’s minister of water and irrigation under the power-sharing agreement. “The region and the international community have the obligation to ensure his safety.”

According to Reuters, foreign governments have cautioned against a renewed civil war in South Sudan “following weeks of escalating tensions that originated in fighting between government troops and a militia that has historically been close to Machar’s forces.”

Earlier, in a media briefing on March 24, the special representative of the secretary-general for South Sudan and head of the United Nations mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, described the security situation in South Sudan as “dire.”

According to him, efforts to realize lasting peace in the east-central African nation can only succeed if the country’s president and its first vice president, Machar, have the will to engage and especially to “put the interests of their people ahead of their own.”

Meanwhile, in his directive on daily prayers for peace in South Sudan, Carlassare is considering the possibility of having more public prayer for peace.

This story was first publshed by ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

Launched in March 2025, St. Claret Maternity Center in the Nyabwina village serves the local region in the Sheema/Mbarara District of Uganda. / Credit: MaterCare International

CNA Staff, Mar 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

It all began with Pope John Paul II. 

In the 1980s, the late pope encouraged Dr. Robert Walley, a Catholic obstetrician and gynecologist who died in 2020, to provide life-affirming health care to women in need. Walley went on to found MaterCare International (MCI), which is now celebrating 30 years of supporting ethical maternal health care in developing regions around the globe.

“MaterCare International is vital for women’s health because it provides lifesaving maternal care to some of the world’s most underserved regions while maintaining an ethical approach that values both the mother and the unborn child,” Jennifer Derwey Deane, communications director at MCI, told CNA. 

MCI provides emergency obstetric care, remote transportation for rural communities to hospitals, and training for midwives and health care providers. The organization also prioritizes research into maternal health solutions. 

“Since its founding, MCI has worked to provide essential medical services, create sustainable models of maternal care, and advocate for ethical practices in maternal care, all while empowering local health care providers, like midwives and traditional birth attendants, through training and sustainable practices,” Deane said. 

MCI has established branches in Canada, Poland, Australia, and previously in the United States and Ireland. Its Canada branch has developed outreach projects all throughout the world, including in Rwanda, Haiti, Kenya, and Ghana. MCI’s model involves working in partnership with local communities in order to design sustainable models in various developing areas.

The organization operates solely on charitable donations and takes no assistance from government agencies. It also welcomes health care professionals who are faithful to MCI’s mission to join project initiatives as volunteers.

Bringing care to underserved rural communities in Uganda

This month, MCI opened a maternity center in Nyabwina, Uganda. A team of MCI Catholic health professionals, working with local Church leaders, launched the St. Claret Maternity Center in the Nyabwina village, which serves the local region in the Sheema/Mbarara District of Uganda.

Archbishop Lambert Bainnomugisha of Mbarara blessed the facility on its opening day, March 6.

The project began when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tarbes reached out to MCI, explaining the local community’s need for improved maternal health.

In addition to poor roads and flash flooding during the rainy season, the region faces many challenges to maternal health, with a high maternal death rate due to infection, lack of postnatal care, and malnutrition.

MCI worked with the local religious sisters to develop outreach centers in remote villages as well as to develop a maternity unit with proper staffing and equipment.

A Catholic perspective on health 

Deane noted that many international maternal health programs “are influenced by policies that promote abortion and contraception as primary solutions, often neglecting basic fundamental maternal health care needs.” MCI combats that by providing “life-affirming” health care for women. 

“We recognize that motherhood is a sacred vocation, and our work reflects this belief by ensuring that expectant mothers receive the care and respect they deserve,” Deane said.

The organization prioritizes what Deane calls “the vocation of medicine.”

“The practice of medicine without vocation is a purely technical or transactional approach to health care, devoid of deeper moral, ethical, or compassionate commitment,” she said. 

“When medicine is practiced without vocation, it risks becoming impersonal and utilitarian, focusing solely on procedures, efficiency, and outcomes without genuine care for the dignity and well-being of the patient.”

MCI brings faith and medicine together. “It combines faith and practice in a meaningful way that builds up the practitioner, the patient, and the community that surrounds them both,” Deane explained.

MCI also prioritizes following the teachings of the Catholic Church in its care practices.

“We not only offer high-quality maternal health services but also focus on the moral and ethical implications of care, following the rich teachings of the Catholic Church,” Deane said. “This makes MCI a voice for life and an advocate for a comprehensive approach to maternal health care that respects both medical needs and advancements as well as the sanctity of human life.”

Founding and future 

Deane explained that MCI is devoted to its founding mission. 

“The idea for MaterCare was inspired by Pope John Paul II, who personally asked Dr. Walley to create an organization that would address the growing crisis of maternal mortality and health care inequities, particularly in areas where Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life were not being adequately respected in medical practices,” she said. 

This idea, Deane said, “was first introduced at a plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 1982.” It took more than 10 years of planning and support among health care workers worldwide before the organization took shape and was formally established in 1995 in Canada.

Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae, in which he called on health care professionals to promote a culture of life, was “the final inspiration” for the organization’s founding, Deane said. The encyclical was published in 1995, the year of MCI’s founding. 

The future goals of the organization are twofold. 

“Looking to the future, our goals include expanding our reach to even more regions where women still lack access to essential maternal health care,” Deane said. “We aim to continue providing training for health care professionals in underserved areas, building strong partnerships with local groups and religious orders, and advocating for policies that respect the dignity of life and prioritize maternal health.” 

MCI also aims to develop the realm of ethical maternal health care. 

“Our vision also includes increasing awareness about the importance of ethical maternal health care and advocating for global recognition of the Catholic approach to maternal health,” Deane said.

For its 30-year anniversary, the organization announced the MaterCare International Rome Conference — an event to commemorate the founding and a call to action to develop maternal health care around the world. It will bring together faith leaders, health care professionals, and pro-life advocates to promote care for mothers in need. 

“Catholic health care professionals of the next generation are relying on us to provide them with the space to study, learn, grow, and practice,” Deane said.

Whitleyville, Tenn. (RNS) — On a sunny morning in mid-February, Josh Abbotoy, who describes himself as a “conservative Christian who does land deals,” drove a 20-year-old Lexus LX470 around a former farm, crossing a creek, squeezing by a run-down barn and driving along one of the farm’s roads in hopes of showing off the view from one of the ridgetops.

But there had been too much rain and the road was muddy, so he parked and hopped out for a 10-minute walk up to the ridgetop, admiring the red cedars and Bois d’Arc trees that line the hillsides.

At the top of the ridge, Abbotoy surveyed the view of the green fields and rolling hills while painting a picture of a community filled with lovely homes and families, looking down over wide fields and a stately church.

A month earlier, RidgeRunner, a real estate company Abbotoy runs, announced it had bought the 448-acre farm, with hopes of developing it into an “agrihood” — with about 30 estate-style homes dotting the farm’s hillsides.

“The fields will be filled with livestock as God intended and as Jackson County remembers,” the RidgeRunner website read in announcing the purchase. “Our goal will be to preserve the sweeping views for those who build and live on the farm’s ridgetops.”

Abbotoy said it’s too early to tell how much lots on the farm will cost but said there will be a premium for ridgetop views. A similar RidgeRunner project in Kentucky, where land prices are lower, has lots priced from $35,000 to $329,000. While the Whitleyville farm has access to city water, high-speed internet and electricity, there’s still a lot of work to do on the property’s infrastructure. 

But if all goes to plan, within a few years the former farm property will be filled with conservative Christians who have moved from blue states to this rural corner of the Bible Belt.

It’s the Big Sort as a business opportunity.

A former corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur and Christian publisher, Abbotoy is fond of quoting journalist Bill Bishop’s influential 2009 book about how Americans increasingly live in like-minded clusters.

That trend has accelerated in recent years, fueled by the work-from-anywhere revolution set off by the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s political polarization.

“It’s happening on all sides,” Abbotoy told Religion News Service during a recent visit to the farm in Whitleyville. “People want to live in communities where they have a better shot of having alignment on some really basic political issues.”

Rural Tennessee communities like Jackson County have begun to attract newcomers in recent years, according to data from the Boyd Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, part of an overall pattern of population growth. 

“We’ve seen more migration to rural counties so far this decade than in the entire previous decade,” said Matthew Harris, a professor of health economics who does population projection for the state of Tennessee. For example, in Jackson County, more people left than moved in from 2010 to 2020. That trend has begun to reverse.

“A couple hundred people have moved there this decade,” he said.

Abbotoy, who grew up on a small farm in Hartsville about 40 miles west of Whitleyville, sees RidgeRunner as a chance to become part of a conservative gentrification of central Appalachia, where economic decline and brain drain have left communities just waiting to be revitalized.

“If you’re considering a move out here — maybe you live in Silicon Valley and you want to move out to the country,” Abbatoy said, “we’ll be your Sherpa.”

RELATED: How a bucolic Tennessee suburb became a hotbed of ‘Christian Nashville-ism’

A graduate of Catholic University and Harvard Law School, Abbatoy lived for a few years in Boston before practicing corporate law in Houston and Dallas — then returning home. He’s now managing director of New Founding, which invests in “American ideals and a positive national vision” — of which RidgeRunner is a project — and the executive director of American Reformer, a digital publication that seeks to “promote a vigorous Christian approach to the cultural challenges of our day.” 

As Forbes recently put it, New Founding is part of a growing movement of “anti-woke” venture capitalists hoping “to remake society with a largely MAGA, tech-driven, Christian worldview.”

Standing on one of the farm’s ridgetops, Abbotoy said he’s not a Christian nationalist, adding, “that’s not my project.” He also said he is not going to let anyone tell him who his friends or his customers ought to be.

“I’ve got customers that are more right-wing than me. I’m not going to talk bad about them,” he said. “I like them. They’re my friends. And I don’t screen their religious or political views any more than I would anybody else.”

Federal fair housing law prohibits that anyway, Abbotoy noted, but the presence of a church on the property will be a signal as to the kind of close-knit community he hopes to build here. Folks are also drawn to Jackson County, he said, because of its Bible Belt culture.

“Even if they’re not Christians, they like being in a community that feels like it’s culturally Christian,” he said.

The proposed church — or at least its pastor, Andrew Isker — has been a source of controversy among locals. Isker, a podcaster and author, relocated from Minnesota to Tennessee to start Whitleyville Reformation Church, which currently is meeting on an invite-only basis during its start-up phase. The congregation plans to build on the RidgeRunner property. 

Isker, co-author of “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide For Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations,” with Gab founder Andrew Torba, as well as the author of “The Boniface Option: A Strategy For Christian Counteroffensive in a Post-Christian Nation,” is known for promoting the idea that Christians should dominate American culture and for his criticism of Jews and other non-Christians.

In a podcast earlier this year with Texas pastor Joel Webbon, Isker rejected the idea of “Judeo-Christian religion” and blamed Jews for the rise of secularism.

“We have to be wary of them,” he said. “We have to not allow them to have power in our culture and destroy Christian culture.”

Isker, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, has described his move to Tennessee as a chance to live near friends and “laugh at each other’s jokes on our front porch.” But he has also characterized the move in political terms. 

“If you were able to take even a few hundred people that all think the same way and have all the same ideas about common good and politics and so forth, and you can consolidate them in the same place, you can exercise far more political power, even with a few hundred or a few thousand people, than you can on your own, widely dispersed across the entire country,” he said in a video posted on social media by RidgeRunner. 

C. Jay Engel, who co-hosts the “Contra Mundum” podcast with Isker, is a recent transplant to Tennessee from California who hopes to buy property from RidgeRunner.

“We love their understanding of how young American conservative families are finding new opportunities to live peaceably and productively among themselves, and I want to involve my family in this meta-trend,” said Engel, who has described the Civil Rights Act as government overreach.

Engel, who calls himself a “Heritage American” — which he has defined as affirming “the domination and pre-eminence of the European derived peoples, their institutions, and their way of life” —  declined a request to discuss his political or social views with RNS.

When Nashville’s News Channel 5 reporter Phil Williams reported on Isker’s and Engel’s political views and their ties to the RidgeRunner project, some residents were outraged — rejecting the prospect of these outsiders taking over their community.

Sean Zearfoss is among those concerned about the RidgeRunner project. Zearfoss, a traveling musician, lives in a house he renovated just off the town square in nearby Gainesboro.

“I like the rural community,” said Zearfoss, who also has a place outside Atlanta. “It’s tight-knit. It’s a nice quiet town, right at the Cumberland River in a really beautiful area.”

Zearfoss, who grew up in a conservative evangelical home, said he is fine with the community’s Bible Belt culture, even though his politics lean more progressive.

But the type of Christian nationalism he sees Isker and Engel promoting is a different thing, said Zearfoss.

“I see it like a steamroller trying to roll into town and roll over these people who want to live quiet conservative lives,” he said.

After the backlash to the Channel 5 report, Travis Thomas, a local Church of Christ preacher, decided to host Engel on his call-in YouTube show, “Truth with Proof.” There Engel got an earful from residents who were upset by what they’d heard.

One caller in particular cited Engel’s call to repeal the Civil Rights Act, which brought an end to Jim Crow laws in the South, and asked if he wanted to return to segregation. Engel said matters of race should have been resolved by the states.

“But I’m not for segregation, and I think it’s very harmful to the soul of a nation to participate in those things,” Engel said.

Thomas, a bi-vocational pastor, said Jackson County is still shaped by the Bible Belt, though folks don’t go to church as much as they used to.

“I think it’s a good thing when people move in, especially if they are going to hold to more biblical principles and morals,” he said. “And from what I’ve seen of the individuals that are buying the land, at least they do hold to some kind of moral principles.”

That’s different, he said, than if a group of extremists were building a compound in the area. It’s not like David Koresh is moving to the community, he said.

Thomas said he has also invited Isker to appear on his YouTube channel to talk about religion — and he had some advice for the newcomer.

“He says some of the craziest stuff on his podcast,” Thomas said. “I’ve even told him, you can’t just get on here and say anything on a podcast, because people are watching you. It sounds ridiculous.”

While he appreciates Christian values, Thomas said you can’t force religion on people. And as far as politics goes, Thomas said it’s good to vote, but the church isn’t going to gain power by politics.

“Even in local politics, you can only do so much,” he said. “It’s not like they can come in and take away your freedom of religion.”

Abbotoy, for his part, worries about the decline of American civil religion. What will bind Americans together, he wonders, in the way that Protestant religion did?

“I think every society, if it’s going to stay together, needs to have one,” he said.

That has led some of his friends — and potential customers — to wonder if America was better off when Christianity was more prominent. There are trade-offs and downsides to that kind of arrangement, he said. But those trade-offs are better than what we have now, he added.

“I think you’re seeing a lot of people who are not personally Christian,” he said, “saying, the arrangement we had where Christianity was dominant public orthodoxy was better than what we have now.”

Abbotoy seems to let most of the criticism roll off his back. RidgeRunner, he said, hopes to sell property to people who want to be good neighbors and not try to impose outside views on the local culture. At the same time, new people will be coming, and that will bring change.

“Change is coming,” he said. “The question is, how do you want to direct that?”

RELATED: Decline in American Christian observance has slowed, Pew study finds

(This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

(RNS) — Earlier this month, the now-former mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was arrested on corruption charges along with 100 other opposition leaders. The arrests have provoked massive demonstrations across the country, not least because many Turks believe the arrests are a thinly veiled crackdown by Turkish strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the increasingly popular opposition as a 2028 general election approaches. İmamoğlu is by far the most prominent of those opposition figures.

The conflict in Turkey in many ways mirrors the domestic tensions playing out in many parts of the world, as the rising tide of authoritarianism does battle against the liberal world order. Turkey’s history and geopolitical position makes its post-postmodern struggle unique, but also of wider concern. With the fate of religious pluralism in the Balkans and (one might argue) the very survival of Christianity in the Middle East in question, the outcome of Turkey’s political conflict is important for most anyone west of Moscow.

For nearly a century after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk invented the modern Turkish state, Turkey was not just secular, but aggressively secular. One of the “six arrows” of Kemalist ideology was the stringently areligious civic life the French call laïcité. If anything Turkey’s version outdid that of France, particularly in its anti-clericalism. The Kemalist consensus began to crumble at the end of the 20th century, however, and the election of Erdoğan to the presidency in 2014 (after 11 years as prime minister) marked what many believed would be the end of its dominance in Turkey.

This was due in part to Erdoğan’s purported moderate Islamist leanings. In fact, like many budding strongmen of our era, Erdoğan exhibits no particular ideology beyond his own power, but he did recognize the growing power of Islamist factions in the country and has curried favor with them. In 2020, for instance, he oversaw the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque after its 85 years as a museum. 

Modern Islamism and the Ottoman past have also shaped Erdoğan’s foreign policy and soft power strategy. Turkey has funded the building of mosques throughout the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean, including the new Turkish-funded Namazgah Mosque that Erdoğan personally inaugurated in Tirana, Albania, last year, and the massive Ottoman-style mosque in the disputed territory of Northern Cyprus completed in 2018. From Syria to Gaza to Kosovo, Erdoğan has sought to position Turkey as an explicitly Muslim state and himself as the leader of the Muslim world.

The effects for Turkey’s religious minority communities — most notably its significant Christian community — has been devastating. Turkey regularly appears on human rights watch lists, often for violations of religious freedom.

The opposition has seized on this human rights record. The Republican People’s Party, the oldest political party in Turkey, founded by Kemal Atatürk himself, still holds onto its founder’s radical laïcité. İmamoğlu has been so vocal in his support of Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox minority that Erdoğan attacked him in a 2019 speech as a “crypto Greek” and his supporters as Greeks “disguised as Muslims.” An Erdoğan deputy has said there are “many questions” about İmamoğlu’s ethnic and religious identity.

İmamoğlu’s response to these attacks reflect his own commitment to pluralism and the Kemalist tradition, telling The Times, “If I were of Greek origin, I wouldn’t mind to say so… I also condemn people who think they are degrading someone by calling them Greek.”

But the fact that such a response was even necessary highlights what is at stake for Turkey’s religious and ethnic minorities and for the future of religious freedom. Erdoğan still envisions Turkey as a place that has no room for non-Muslim Turks, precisely because his personal opportunities rest on the existence of the quintessential “other” — and for the Ottomanist, that other is still, as it has been for centuries, the Greek.

If Erdoğan is allowed to triumph in his battle against the more tolerant İmamoğlu, the fate of Turkey’s minority groups will inevitably be a darker one. Its dwindling Christian community is watching closely as Ottamanist rhetoric and Islamic policies put them directly in the crossfire. The world must wait to see if the Turkey that emerges from this conflict is Atatürk’s pluralist and secular dream or an Ottoman-inspired authoritarian and nationalist nightmare.

(Katherine Kelaidis, a research associate at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England, is the author of “Holy Russia? Holy War?” and the forthcoming “The Fourth Reformation.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

St. Paul’s Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in Mosul, Iraq. / Credit: France Yousif

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 28, 2025 / 17:35 pm (CNA).

Here are some of the major stories about the Church from around the world that you may have missed this week:

Cardinal calls on Iraqi Christians to vote for fellow Christians in upcoming elections

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Church, is urging Iraqi Christians to actively participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections, emphasizing the importance of updating electoral records and obtaining voter cards, ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, reported. 

Sako stressed that the five parliamentary seats that are designated for Christians be confined to Christians alone to ensure accurate representation and underscored the crucial role that each individual can play in shaping Iraq’s future. 

Latin patriarch of Jerusalem promotes interfaith dialogue during historic visit to Bahrain 

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, was received as an official guest of the Kingdom of Bahrain last week, marking a historic moment for the Catholic community in the Gulf country, with whom he expressed the Holy Land Church’s “spiritual ties,” ACI MENA reported. 

The cardinal met with Archbishop Aldo Berardi, the second apostolic vicar of Northern Arabia, along with various other religious leaders, parishioners, and representatives for the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence. He also presided over a pontifical Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, the largest Catholic church in the Arabian Peninsula.

During the homily, he emphasised the importance of coexistence, tolerance, and mutual respect in light of the various challenges facing the Middle East and called for prayers for the Christian community and harmony among religions. 

Cameroon diocese suspends ‘all forms of worship’ for chapel after Blessed Sacrament stolen

The bishop of the Diocese of Bafang in Cameroon has directed that St. Augustine Famkeu Chapel remain closed after it was desecrated and thieves stole a ciborium containing consecrated hosts and other items, ACI Africa reported. 

“This place can no longer host Christian worship until reparation has been made for this offense against God,” Bishop Abraham Kome said in a statement. “Therefore, the chapel will remain closed until further notice for the necessary time of reparation.” 

Excavation reveals further evidence of Armenian Christians in Jerusalem

Excavations this week in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem uncovered four ancient Armenian inscriptions dating back to the sixth and seventh centuries, according to the Jerusalem Post. 

The inscriptions were discovered on a mosaic floor, tombstones, and a large pottery bowl. One inscription, discovered in the center of the “reception room,” is a dedication by an Armenian priest that reads: “I Ewstat the priest laid this mosaic. You who enter this house, remember me and my brother Luke to Christ.” 

Ethiopian bishop: Northern region could be ‘engulfed in a very bloody confrontation’

Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of the Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has issued a warning of rising tensions between Ethiopia and its northern bordering neighbor, Eritrea, ACI Africa reported. 

“Instability in our region continues to persist, tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea are increasing, and the country could be engulfed in a very bloody confrontation. God forbid that the factions involved start a new war in Tigray, which has already suffered enormously,” the bishop said Tuesday in a statement to Agenzia Fides. He noted that political instability and violence in the region, coupled with the “sudden interruption of USAID funding, is severely penalizing millions of people.” 

Pakistan court sentences 5 men to death for alleged ‘online blasphemy’ 

A court in Pakistan has sentenced five men — four Pakistani nationals and one Afghan — to death on Tuesday for allegedly violating the Muslim-majority country’s blasphemy laws online, according to an AFP report on March 26. A representative for the legal group that brought the case forward told AFP that “all five accused were sentenced to death for spreading blasphemous content against the holy prophet.”

The five accused have each been sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly desecrating the Quran and 10 years for “hurting religious sentiments.” The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended Pakistan be designated as a country of particular concern in its latest annual global watch report earlier this week.

(RNS) — Since President Donald Trump took office in January, congregants of the Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle church in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston have gathered weekly to pray for a miracle.

Members of the Haitian congregation hope God will soften the hearts of the country’s leaders so they will spare immigrants from deportation, said the church’s lead pastor, Bishop Nicolas Homicil. 

“We prayed for God to take control of the White House, to change those people who lead the country now, to talk to them, to let them know Jesus himself was a refugee in Egypt,” Homicil said. 

But on Tuesday (March 25), the Department of Homeland Security ended a program that allowed more than half a million nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to remain in the country. The DHS notice said the temporary protected status granted to individuals — many of whom entered under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program called CHNV, an acronym for the four countries — would end on April 24. It urged individuals to self-deport or prepare to face arrest after the deadline.

The news sent a shockwave through the Haitian community, as many immigrants who left the Caribbean island stricken by gang violence benefited from the CHNV program. At the Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle church, 30 members came early on Wednesday to fast and pray for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who face deportation.

Homicil said they chanted a famous Creole anthem for difficult times: “Nan mitan gwo lanmè ak tanpèt mwen te ye/San sekou m te pèdi, San lafwa, san limyè,” which translates to, “I found myself amid terrible waters and storms/ Without help, I was lost, without faith or light.” The congregation also read portions of Psalm 46, as a reminder of God’s presence.

The Trump administration’s enforcement of stricter immigration policies, Homicil said, has resulted in fear for Boston’s vibrant Haitian community — the third largest in the U.S. — and affected religious life. Service attendance started to drop a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration. On Sundays, 300 people usually attended services. About 100 do now, and many Boston-area congregations face the same problem, he said. He recently met with Muslim and Jewish ministers and Mayor Michelle Wu to discuss the issue.

Some worshippers, Homicil said, are afraid to leave their homes because they fear being arrested by immigration agents. As a result, the church’s food pantry, which serves about 250 people, started delivering food packages to homes because some beneficiaries were too afraid to attend church.

Though the DHS notice mentions “self-deportation,” that’s not an option for members of his community, Homicil said. Haiti’s situation is too fragile for them to consider voluntarily going back. In Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, armed gangs have gained control of entire neighborhoods and could soon control the entire city. In 2024, 5,600 people were killed due to gang violence, according to the United Nations.

“Everybody is just trembling. Everybody was deceived, everybody lives in uncertainty because they cannot go back home, because back home, there is a legion of gangs who chase them out,” Homicil said. 

In January 2023, the Biden administration introduced the CHNV parole program to curb illegal immigration by creating legal routes. About 532,000 people entered the country through the program and were granted Temporary Protected Status, giving them the right to remain legally in the country, to work and to receive travel authorization.

DHS suspended the CHNV program in August 2024 after an internal report revealed possible sponsorship fraud. In October, the Biden administration announced it was not renewing it. Under that ruling, immigrants would face deportation when their two-year parole grants expired if they did not find another legal pathway, but were eligible to apply for other benefits, like asylum and TPS. 

The March 25 DHS notice said the CHNV programs didn’t “serve a significant public benefit, are not necessary to reduce levels of illegal immigration, did not sufficiently mitigate the domestic effects of illegal immigration, are not serving their intended purposes, and are inconsistent with the administration’s foreign policy goals.”

The day before, a first hearing was held at the District Court of Massachusetts in Boston for a lawsuit filed by immigrant advocacy groups against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, challenging the termination of the CHNV program. The lawsuit was filed by 11 beneficiaries, seven sponsors and organizational plaintiff Haitian Bridge Alliance.

The Justice Action Center, which represents the plaintiffs, also filed a motion for preliminary injunction, asking the court to suspend parole termination while the case is being heard. The next hearings are scheduled for April 7 and April 10.

At the Première Eglise Evangelique Haïtienne (First Haitian Evangelical Church) of Springfield, Ohio, congregants meet three times a week to pray for the Trump administration, pleading to God for a solution in favor of the local Haitian immigrant community, said Pastor Reginald Silencieux.

Last summer, the Haitian community of Springfield faced scrutiny and harassment after then-candidate Trump falsely alleged during a presidential debate that members of the community were eating pets in the city. The comments, and then the recent executive orders targeting immigrants, have taken a toll on the community, Silencieux said.

“This is a church of immigrants. The executive order really affects them,” he said. “They have psychological problems right now. They are very scared.”

Now, every Sunday when Silencieux looks out at the pews, he sees the effects: the 500-member congregation has considerably shrunk, he said. 

As a faith leader, the situation has been overwhelming since January, he said. Many congregants don’t understand why their legal status is being challenged. 

“If the system is illegal, we can say, ‘Yes, we are illegal.’ If the system is legal, we are legal because they all went through the system,” Silencieux said.

The Rev. Myrlande DesRosiers, pastor of New England Voice of Hope and Peace Ministries and executive director of the Everett Haitian Community Center in Massachusetts, said the local Haitian community has not only lost its vibrancy but also toned down religious celebrations as fewer people are attending services.

For Lent, the Haitian community reflected on the fragility of life and the events that sometimes shatter one’s faith, DesRosiers said. And local Haitian faith leaders in the community have expressed a desire to dedicate more time to praying about the situation during Sunday services, she said.

“Prayer still works. … When we wholeheartedly cry out to the Lord, He does listen, but we really need to put ourselves together to make it a priority — not just something on the side, just a few minutes, but really concentrate on that and cry out to the Lord,” she said.

DesRosiers also said the situation has taken a toll on faith leaders who lead fearful congregants. “You give pastoral counseling, and you have to deal with the tears, you have to deal with the fears. You have to deal with the sadness that you see,” she said.

The Rev. Manny Daphnis, pastor at Restoration Community Church in Holbrook, Massachusetts, and a member of the Fellowship of Evangelical Haitian Pastors of New England, said his latter organization tries to equip faith leaders with resources to protect worshippers. In light of the immigration policy changes, the fellowship urged churches to designate someone to identify who is entering sanctuaries “so that folks aren’t just welcoming ICE members into the congregation and worship services,” he said.

The group also urged faith leaders to be responsible and to educate congregants on their rights and obligations.  

Meanwhile, as the clock ticks for those who will soon face deportation, Homicil plans to host a legal advice event on Saturday (March 29). The church will also continue its weekly prayer meetings for the Trump administration, he said. 

“If God doesn’t intervene, I don’t know how this is going to be,” he said. “But God is in control of everything. Mr. Trump is not God. God is God. He’s the one who is in control.”

HIDALGO, Texas (RNS) — In a warehouse about two miles from the Mexico border, silver-haired men moved pallets of food with a forklift. Under a Spanish-language banner reading, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever,” a white board listed papaya, beetroot, red bell peppers and tomatoes and other fresh produce. On this and every Thursday, the volunteers at Border Missions, a Christian ministry, serve 350 to 400 food-insecure community members who receive a free hot meal, worship together and take groceries home.

One of the men is 87-year-old Francisco “Panchito” Ramirez Guajardo who discovered Border Missions on one of his daily visits to lay flowers at the grave of his wife of 47 years at the cemetery next door. Like many who first come to Border Missions for a meal, Ramirez then began to volunteer, and he has brought his adult children and neighbors. “I love them all as if they’re my family,” said Ramirez of the community who have supported him in his grief. 

In Hidalgo County, where the 26.9% of people living in poverty is more than twice the national average of 11.1%, Christian faith binds communities together as they serve one another and advocate for better resources. 

Quoting Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament’s Book of Acts that “it is more blessed to give than receive,” Mario Ramirez, the operations manager at Border Missions (no relation to Francisco), told RNS, “Being able to serve and help other people fills us with energy and makes our lives very joyful.”

Border Missions makes a significant impact in low-resource communities in Texas, but the vast majority of Thursday participants actually cross the border from Reynosa, Mexico, to join what the participants view as “their church.”

Midwestern evangelicals Harold and Katherine Morgan decided to found Border Missions in 1956, after a successful tent revival in what is still a traditionally Catholic area. “Mrs. Morgan never asked what kind of religion you are. She always believed in God and that the God she has is the same one everyone has,” said Lydia Weaver, whose mother was among the first Reynosa residents to adopt Border Missions as her church. Lydia Weaver has been attending since she was two.

Weaver called it “a miracle” that nearly 70 years later Morgan’s great-granddaughter, Megan Gonzalez, a Catholic convert, is extending that legacy as co-director with her husband.

Gonzalez said her faith has grown as she stepped into the role, trusting God to work out the details. On the days that the donated food that fills their warehouse gets low, she picks up the phone and starts calling companies, relying on God’s favor, she said, adding, “We’ve never not had enough.”

With all that is “freely given” to Border Missions, “we give with no requirements, no expectations,” Gonzalez said. “This is God’s grace. He’s given us this to bless you and to know that he still cares about you and loves you,” she said.

Gonzalez, pushing her son Jack in a stroller as she tours the facility, said, throughout the rest of the week, some 80 registered ministries also rely on Border Missions to feed their communities throughout the Rio Grande Valley.

One of them, the House of Love and Justice, is led by Caly Fernandez, a grandmother of four and a Presbyterian with a long career in public health. The daughter of a doctor, Fernandez is passionate about bridging health care disparities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Recently, she said, she has been grounding her work in the writing of B. Hunter Farrell, director of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s World Mission Initiative, on co-development, which rejects the idea that the powerful “givers” grant life-giving aid to needy “receivers.” Rather, Farrell wrote, “there are only human beings desperately in need of God’s grace in Christ.”

Fernandez explains, “I don’t want to go in and do things for you. I want us to work together, and I want us to collaborate and use our God-given gifts to help in the community.”

While she has worked on both sides of the border, as executive director of the House of Love and Justice, Fernandez focuses on Hidalgo County’s colonias, neighborhoods originally settled by low-income Latinos that often lacked basic services such as running water or sewers. Fernandez says the county contains 947 colonias, with 11 experiencing extreme poverty. 

Twice a month, Fernandez takes produce to three of those 11, working together with community health workers from Texas A&M University’s Colonias Program. As the produce is distributed, they talk with families about their other needs and coordinate services alongside other partners, which have included women’s hygiene supplies, classes in fertility awareness, water purification and garbage disposal and recycling, know-your-rights training for migrants, and advance planning for children if parents are deported, as well as material support and social services for one family that has already been separated.

In the coming months, Fernandez plans to provide mental health first aid, a space for women to gather for Bible study and fellowship, women’s leadership training, summer vacation Bible study and gardening classes for the youth. She’s also advocating for a planned county public transportation pilot program to be implemented and joining groups trying to preserve SNAP nutritional assistance.

Because so many families with mixed immigration statuses inhabit the colonias, Fernandez worries that families may begin to increasingly avoid medical care and is exploring how to meet that need, possibly through specialized medical missions.

Her dream is to build a community center in La Piñata, where well-built homes stand next to ramshackle trailers, and stray dogs roam mostly unlit streets. But with $80,000 needed just to buy the land for the site she has picked out, the dream feels out of reach.

La Piñata, founded in 1993, is not technically a colonia. The government narrowly defines colonias as communities within 150 miles of the border developed before 1990 that have poor-quality housing and infrastructure. Starting in 1990, Texas developers were required to install water and wastewater services in new subdivisions.

But Noah Durst, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at Michigan State University, said millions of subdivision lots on the urban fringe throughout the U.S. may not officially be colonias, like La Piñata, but have comparably poor conditions because of similar building practices. In such places, a developer sells empty lots with minimal infrastructure, often financing the sale at high interest rates, with a contract or deed that allows prompt repossession of the property.

Fernandez thinks it would make a huge difference for the nearby city of Donna to annex La Piñata, which would give residents access to city services like animal control, police and street lights.

Eddie Anaya, a Catholic lawyer and lifelong resident of a colonia called Las Milpas, got involved as a young man with Valley Interfaith, an affiliate of the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, because his Mexican immigrant mother, Carmen Anaya, was one of its co-founders. When he was growing up, Anaya said Las Milpas had no water, sewers, street paving or lighting or police force.

Anaya chauffeured his mother around the state and interpreted for her at meetings with other Texas IAF affiliates as they championed 1989 state legislation that provided funding for water and wastewater infrastructure, which Anaya said stimulated other improvements in the community.

In Las Milpas, where the Catholic Church is the center of community life, Anaya said, conversations after Mass shaped a political agenda for the whole community through Valley Interfaith and backed by the Diocese of Brownsville. “ When you organize around Scripture and put it into action, that not only strengthens the community, but also makes people understand the Gospel much better,” said Anaya.

They also learn that as a community they have the power to change their circumstances. “Really the main objective of the organization is to teach people to do for themselves,” said Anaya, “to educate them to fight for their issues.”

The story Anaya tells of Las Milpas is a prime example. Anaya’s mother and other allies wanted Las Milpas to be its own city, but in 1987 the nearby city of Pharr annexed Las Milpas. It took decades of organizing for Las Milpas residents to transform Pharr’s political culture to get the kind of respect — and the infrastructure — that truly made them feel like part of the city.

In 2015, Valley Interfaith pushed the city further, adopting a six-point plan for Las Milpas, calling for a bridge to link the neighborhood to a park, funding for workforce development, building a library and recreation center, curtailing predatory lending, more bus service and paving more neighborhood streets. With an election coming up, the group invited city commissioner candidates to an accountability session at St. Francis Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church to commit to work with them.

When two candidates didn’t show up, Anaya and other leaders launched an intense get-out-the-vote campaign, with a youth contingent registering more than 500 voters after Mass. Those two candidates ended up losing by fewer than 50 votes each. Less than a year after the accountability session, Pharr broke ground on a library in Las Milpas.

Pope Francis has met three times with leaders of Industrial Areas Foundation groups, including a delegation from  Valley Interfaith in 2022, where Anaya was there to witness the pope applauded the group for living the Gospel by “walking with” suffering people.

The recognition has inspired them, but there is much work still to do. Delfina Villarreal, a resident in a colonia south of McAllen, told RNS that communities there are still struggling to secure drainage for flooding and sidewalks, but they hope faith-based organizing and getting out the vote will make all the difference. “Here we are all working for each other,” said Villarreal.