A seventh-grader recently asked me how to respond to his peer’s obstinate claim that he and the rest of his Catholic co-religionists are just as bad as ISIS. Continue Reading »
On Sunday, September 25, the 56-year-old Jordanian Christian Nahed Hattar was assassinated in Amman, Jordan. He had been arrested earlier in August by the Jordanian authorities after he posted on Facebook a cartoon mocking jihadis and their lustful portrayal of the afterlife. Continue Reading »
The incidents are numerous, and the phrase is one: “Allahu Akbar.” What does it really mean? Why is it so significant for those executing these attacks? Continue Reading »
In a press statement yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry did what many human rights activists have been asking him to do for months: he called ISIS’s treatment of Christians and other religious minorities “genocide.” Kerry’s statement came as a surprise. For months, the State . . . . Continue Reading »
How is it acceptable to tell religious minorities that things are comparatively good for them because they can “choose” to accept oppressive and demeaning treatment and manage to survive? Continue Reading »
While the U.S. remains the 800-pound gorilla in international relations, not everything occurring in the international realm comes in response to events in the U.S. This goes double for events in the Middle East. Reports that Saudi Arabia maintains current high production levels of oil despite . . . . Continue Reading »
I will start out politely, with the traditional As-salaam-u alaykum, peace be to you, and I will even use the title you have given yourself, and I will try to keep this note brief, for I can only imagine the press of your days, what with trying to manage a nascent state, and a fractious staff, and . . . . Continue Reading »
The Syrian refugee crisis has metastasized to a crisis for more than just the refugees. With at least one of the terrorists responsible for the slaughter of innocents in Paris having gained European entry from among the cohort of evacuees fleeing the Levant, the fear that the refugee crisis could . . . . Continue Reading »
Take a look at the photo below, which appeared recently on Instagram. It’s the photo of a page from the New Testament — Acts 25, which recounts St. Paul’s trial before Festus. The page, seared into a bookshelf, is all that remains of the Bible that once contained it. ISIS recently burned . . . . Continue Reading »