1. Boko Haram burns kids alive in Nigeria, 86 dead: officials
2.
One more reminder to pray and to work for the imperiled Syrian Christians. https://t.co/XtAwSdunRU
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) January 31, 20163. From Inés San Martín in Rome:
“We have to say that the morale of the Christians in Syria and Iraq is getting lower, because we see how the world powers don’t care about the survival of minority communities, but [only] about their own geopolitical interests,” Syriac Catholic Patriarch Youssef III Younan said Thursday.
“Our nightmare, our greatest fear, is that in Iraq and Syria will happen what happened in Turkey, where we can hardly speak of a Christian presence,” he said.
In centuries past, he said, major Church councils were held in Turkey because it was a thriving center of Christianity. Today, however, there are barely 150,000 Christians left, he said, in country with a population of 75 million.
“By now, not even the media is talking about us anymore,” he said to journalists. “This indifference toward the fate of so many innocent people hurts me deeply.”
4. La Stampa:
the anger I felt at my daughter’s death, slowly but surely gave way to a spiritual presence. When we escaped from Aleppo everyone told us we were mad, it was too dangerous. We had to pass through an infinite number of checkpoints. Each time could have been our last. But it was in teat very moment that I felt Pascale’s presence beside me, as if she had laid out a veil to protect us.”
“I am often asked whether I have forgiven my daughter’s assassins,” Claude Zerez goes on to say. “To which I respond: I can forgive but I cannot forget. I made Jesus’ words my own: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’. A Muslim heard me say it and remarked: ‘You led me to love Christians more’. This right here marks the beginning of reconciliation.”
5. Excellent John Allen column: The Church isn’t obsessed with sex, but it is with humanity
6. The Times seems darker than 1939?
7. Andrew Walker: Evangelical Support For Trump Plays Into The Left’s Caricatures
8. Terry Mattingly: Yes, some evangelicals are ready to smash GOP, but why?
9. Jay Cost says Trump can be stopped here.
10. This week is Catholic Schools Week. A Q&A about why they need to survive and thrive.
Ten Things that Caught My Eye Today (Feb. 1, 2016)