My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, In the last issue of The Tablet for 2014, the questions are always posed to me to look back on the year which has just passed and emphasize the lessons which, perhaps, we have learned. Like all years, this past year has contained challenges and surprises, joys […]
Syria
Light in the Darkness
This has been quite the year for violence in the world. Just looking at the past six months, we have seen the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the barbarism that has resulted from its insane campaign to spread its hatred throughout the world. We have witnessed their war on Christians […]
Pulling Heartstrings: Hand Puppets Bring Healing
By Barb Fraze BEIRUT (CNS) – Syrian children who have seen their houses bombed and family members killed are using string, glue, socks, beads and other odds and ends to help put their lives back together. Counselors, teachers and volunteers are being trained to help the children process their trauma through the use of puppets. […]
Lebanese Bishops React to Islamist Militants’ Incursion
Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic bishops underscored their “full confidence” in the country’s military and security forces as the Lebanese army battled Islamist militants’ incursion into Lebanon near the border with Syria.
Books Offer Middle East Reality Check
by George Weigel The humanitarian and strategic disaster of Syria should focus Catholic minds on the hard fact that there is no easy or quick path to peace in the Middle East, a very dangerous part of the world where Christians of all persuasions are at daily risk of their lives. Two recently published books […]
Refugees Explain They Hope to Return to Syria
by James Martone ISTANBUL (CNS) – In the small front room of an apartment in a middle-class district of Istanbul, five young men, some with university degrees or halfway there, talked about why they fled their homes in Syria. One of them had arrived from Syria that evening, another more than a year ago, and […]
Vatican Nuncio to UN: Peace Is the Only Path to Survival
Military strikes on Syria are unjustified and will create a far larger humanitarian disaster for people already suffering from hunger, displacement and critical lack of medical care, said the Vatican nuncio to the U.N. Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt urged, instead, that world leaders work toward a “cessation of violence, not an escalation of violence” in […]
Pope Leads Prayers for Peace
by Francis X. Rocca VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Leading a crowd in prayer for peace in Syria, Pope Francis said that war is ultimately caused by selfishness, which can be overcome only through expressions of fraternity and never with violence. “Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart, overcome the indifference that makes your heart […]
More Violence Not the Answer in Syria
by Stephen Kent “WE HAVE TO DO something.” That instinctual desire to take action has been ingrained in the American psyche since the colonial days. Yes, we have to do something about the chemical weapon killings in Syria, but that something cannot be more violence. Once again, we have the urge to resort to violence […]
War Begets War
Expect to hear very little in the days and weeks ahead than attempts to stir up the American public to give Washington – and its only most likely ally, France – sufficient cover to mount some kind of retaliatory attack on the Syrian regime. A case must be built to justify a military response with […]