International News

WASHINGTON -- A few hundred Catholic activists, including dozens of women religious, gathered outside at the foot of the U.S. Capitol July 18 urging politicians to stop its "inhumane treatment" of immigrant children at the border and reminding people of faith to take a stronger stand against current U.S. border policies.

WASHINGTON -- Chaldean Christians in northern Iraq are determined to continue their 2,000-year-long mission despite the near-deadly blow inflicted by Islamic State forces and new challenges from nongovernment militias, said a priest ministering in the region.

MANCHESTER, England -- Abortion and same-sex marriage will be made legal in Northern Ireland unless self-government in the province is restored within three months.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Syriac Christians in northeastern Syria are calling on the United States to help defend them against a buildup of Turkish troops along the border, fearing they will be overrun and suffer the same fate as Afrin, where jihadist forces pushed out inhabitants last year.

WASHINGTON -- In conjunction with the U.S. State Department's Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, the Religious Freedom Institute presented a side event July 15 to discuss current international religious freedom policy.

MANILA, Philippines -- Catholic bishops in the Philippines criticized "the continuing destruction of our common home" and called for "ecological conversion" amid "climate emergency."

WASHINGTON -- The rabbi of a Pittsburgh Jewish community where 11 people were killed by a gunman in October told a worldwide meeting of religious freedom activists that only by rejecting racism and bigotry can violence in the name of religion be overcome.

BEIRUT -- The first time a band of Islamic State militants "visited" the monks, they presented the monks with a kind of suggestion, in a nonthreatening manner: "Why don't you become a Muslim?"

WASHINGTON -- The Pew Research Center's annual report on restrictions on religion worldwide showed the United States had the worst scores in the Americas in three of the eight categories Pew surveyed.

DOHUK, Iraq -- Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Cardinal Louis Sako is concerned by rising tensions between the United States and Iran, fearful that his country, Iraq, could be caught in the middle of any potential conflict. It has also made a proposed visit by Pope Francis to Iraq next year uncertain, he said.