Pope Francis is dispatching Cardinal Fernando Filoni as his personal envoy to northern Iraq today, the Vatican press office has said. Islamist militias have sent thousands of Christians and other religious minorities fleeing for their lives in the region. The Boston Globe’s John L Allen Jr writes that “Filoni is the pope’s top Iraq expert,...
The UK is to set up a publicly-funded sperm bank in response to increasing demand and a shortage of donors. For around £300 – considerably cheaper than the cost of the service at a private clinic – women who make use of the sperm bank will be able to search an online database and choose...
Christians and other religious minorities in Northern Iraq are facing “genocide” at the hands of Islamic State fighters, one of Iraq’s leading Catholic Bishops has warned. “They are facing a human catastrophe and risk a real genocide. They need water, food, shelter,” Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako of Babylon said in an open...
The Australian parliament is set to hold a vote on same-sex marriage, in which all MPs will be free to vote with their consciences. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Liberal party, the senior partner in the ruling Liberal-National Coalition under Prime Minister Tony Abbot, is likely to suspend its binding position against gay...
Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who faced the death penalty in Sudan for alleged ‘apostasy’ from Islam, has arrived safely in the United States after a prolonged struggle with Sudanese authorities. Ibrahim’s husband, Daniel Wani, is a US citizen and has relatives in New Hampshire where the family hope to settle. The BBC report...
Church of England Bishops have called on the British government to offer asylum to Christians fleeing Islamist extremists in northern Iraq, saying that from the UK has a “moral duty” to take them in, because of its role in the 2003 invasion which was followed by years of instability in the country leading up to...
A Thai surrogate mother raising a Down syndrome baby who was abandoned by his Australian genetic parents said Tuesday she would be happy to have the baby’s twin returned. The Thai woman, Pattaramon Chanbua, carried the twins for the commissioning Australian couple who have denied they knew about the Down syndrome baby and are currently raising...
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, has called on Christians to pray for the Christians of Mosul and northern Iraq who are being attacked and driven from their homes by radical Islamists. In a statement, Dr Clarke said: “Recent reports of the forced expulsion, violence and intimidation against...
More terminally ill patients should be able to die naturally and with dignity in hospices and their own home, Lord Michael Howard, the former leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, has said. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Lord Howard, chair of the charity Help for Hospices, warned that hospitals were increasingly becoming the “default...
Babies born through mitochondrial DNA transfer, a process which uses donor DNA to fix genetic flaws in an embryo and effectively gives a child three genetic parents, will not be allowed to find out the identity of their “second mother” under UK government guidelines. According to the Daily Telegraph, under the new guidelines children would...
