LONDON (CNS): The threat to religious freedom from Muslim fundamentalists is rapidly becoming a global phenomenon following the military defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said a new report from Aid to the Church in Need, published on November 22.
 
The Religious Freedom in the World 2018 Report noted that Islamist extremists have increased violence in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia corresponding to their loss of territory in the Middle East.
 

VATICAN (CNS): The brutality of the First World War is a lesson that the world has yet to learn, Pope Francis said on November 11, Armistice Day.
 
World War I is a chapter in history that serves as a dire warning and a call for world leaders “to reject the culture of war and to seek every legitimate means to put an end to the conflicts that still stain many regions of the world with blood,” the pope said after praying the Angelus with people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
 

VATICAN (CNS): “It is wrong to judge the Church for the acts of certain people within the Church,” Percival Holt, a 25-year-old observer at the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment, told reporters on October 11, during a daily briefin.
 
Holt, president of the Indian Catholic Youth Movement and member of the National Youth Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said he wanted to make it clear that the Church has “immense love and concern” for young people.

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis removed two Chilean bishops accused of sexual abuse from the priesthood.
 
In a statement released on October 12, the Vatican said 84-year-old Francisco José Cox, the former archbishop of La Serena, and 53-year-old Marco Antonio Ordenes, the former bishop of Iquique, were dismissed from the clerical state. 
 
“The decision adopted by the pope on Thursday, 11 October 2018, is not subject to appeal,” the Vatican said.
 

JAKARTA (UCAN): Police in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, have made four arrests after breaking up an alleged baby-selling ring run from an Instagram account.
The account claimed to be linked to the Family Welfare Institute and a Facebook group called the Child Care Foundation, according to local media reports.
 
The account holder identified himself as “AP” and said he was a 29-year-old man helping find solutions to family problems.
 

SWEDEN (Agencies): Denis Mukwege, A Christian gynecologist who has dedicated his career to caring for victims of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shared the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman victim of sexual and other violence at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) group. The Nobel committee said both winners modeled “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.”
 

WASHINGTON (CNS): Churchgoers around the United States (US) once again marked the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 with moments of silence, special prayer services and Masses.
 
In Brooklyn, New York, a Mass for fallen heroes was celebrated at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph on September 11. This followed a procession of firefighters from across the country who had first gathered at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre once stood. 
 

BEIRUT (CNS): “We appeal to the international community to shoulder its responsibility and strive to put an end to the ongoing conflicts and wars and to ensure the dignified return of the Palestinian refugees and displaced Syrians, Iraqis and others to their country,” Bechara Cardinal Rai, patriarch of Antoich and head of the Maronite Church said, as Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim religious leaders, met with the president of Switzerland, Alain Berset.
 

WASHINGTON (CNS): The United States International Commission on Religious Freedom (USCIRF) singled out 28 countries for repression of religious liberty in its annual report, issued on August 29.
 
The 228-page report designated 16 countries as Tier 1—the harshest level of repression: Myanmar, Central African Republic, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.