As Israel prosecutes its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, eyes are nervously turning toward Lebanon, where a series of clashes along the border has raised fears of a second front breaking out, an outcome that could trigger a full regional war. Neither side appears to want an escalation, but the risks are high for a disastrous miscalculation.

So far, the pattern of violence along the Blue Line, the United Nations­–delineated boundary that corresponds to Lebanon’s southern border, has been relatively predictable, consisting of shelling and minor incursions. There has been some talk in recent months about the “unification of the fronts,” meaning the closer coordination between anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), along with myriad other Iran-backed groups in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Therefore, it would have been difficult for Hezbollah to simply stand back and do nothing as Israel wages its massive offensive against Hamas in Gaza. …

At this initial stage, it appears that Hezbollah wants to keep its actions (whether claimed or unclaimed) below a certain threshold so as not to force Israel into a more powerful retaliation. If Hezbollah were to overshoot, it could trigger an unintended escalatory cycle. It is, however, Iran that has the final say in whether Hezbollah goes to war with Israel. Iran recognizes Hezbollah as its most potent external asset and a key component of its deterrence architecture against a potential attack by Israel or the United States. It is unlikely that Tehran will want to waste Hezbollah in a futile full-scale war with Israel for the sake of supporting Hamas in Gaza.

Read it all.

Must-read piece from Nicholas Blanford in Beirut on the big question: What will Hezbollah do next? https://t.co/o0922YNI4x

— Daniel Malloy (@DanielPMalloy) October 11, 2023

As Israel combats the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it faces the strategic question of whether Iran will direct its other protégé, the Lebanese Hezbollah, to open a second front in the north. Hezbollah and Israel have already engaged in limited artillery exchanges that, according to the militant group, Monday killed three of its fighters. Hezbollah said it struck two Israeli military bases near the border using guided missiles and mortars, while the Pentagon warned the group to “think twice” before opening a second front and said the U.S. was prepared to come to Israel’s defense. Iran and Hezbollah have strongly supported Saturday’s invasion of southern Israel by Hamas, which briefly overran Israeli military bases and several villages and towns, killing at least 900 Israelis and taking many others hostage to Gaza.

With its arsenal of precision missiles that could target Israeli air bases and infantry forces hardened by the Syrian war, Hezbollah is a much more powerful enemy than Hamas. Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran, which has long supplied Hezbollah with weapons, helped plan Hamas’s attack on Israel. Hezbollah’s entry into the war, however, could unleash direct Israeli strikes not just against Lebanon but also against Iran. Such an escalation could drag the U.S. into a much wider conflict—not something that Tehran is likely to be interested in at this stage

Read it all.

As Israel combats the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it faces the strategic question of whether Iran will direct its other protégé, the Lebanese Hezbollah, to open a second front in the north https://t.co/VCheIcdocR

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 9, 2023

Why did Hamas launch this war now, without any immediate provocation? One has to wonder if it was not on behalf of the Palestinian people but rather at the behest of Iran, an important supplier of money and arms to Hamas, to help prevent the budding normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival, and Israel. Such a deal, as it was being drawn up, would also benefit the more moderate West Bank Palestinian Authority — by delivering to it a huge infusion of cash from Saudi Arabia, as well as curbs on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and other advances to preserve a two-state solution. As a result, West Bank leaders might have earned a desperately needed boost of legitimacy from the Palestinian masses, threatening the legitimacy of Hamas.

That U.S.-Saudi-Israel deal also would have been a diplomatic earthquake that would have most likely required Netanyahu to jettison the most extreme members of his cabinet in return for forging an alliance between the Jewish state and the Sunni-led states of the Persian Gulf against Iran. Altogether, it would have been one of the biggest shifts in the tectonic plates of the region in 75 years. In the wake of this Hamas attack, that deal is now in the deep freeze, as the Saudis have had to link themselves more closely than ever with Palestinian interests, not just their own.

Indeed, within hours of the Hamas invasion, Saudi Arabia issued a statement saying, according to Al Arabiya network: “The kingdom is closely following up on the unprecedented developments between a number of Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupying forces,” adding that it has “repeatedly warned of the consequences of [the deterioration] of the situation as a result of the occupation as well as of depriving the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights and of [not halting] systematic provocations against their holy [sites].”

I am watching how the Hamas-Israel earthquake will shake up another earthquake..:Ukraine…

Read it all.

“Hamas has been a deadly curse for the Palestinian people….The billion-plus dollars in aid that it received from Qatar…could have gone into building Gaza into a productive society….Instead, Hamas has devoted most of its…resources to” attacking Israel. https://t.co/JQ4v9Sp0nx

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) October 8, 2023

‘In an assault without recent precedent in its complexity and scale, the militants crossed into Israel by land, sea and air, according to the Israeli military, leading to some of the first pitched battles between large groups of Israeli and Arab forces on Israeli soil in decades…

All told, the Israeli military said that the militants had entered at least 22 Israeli towns, abducting soldiers and civilians, including an older grandmother.’

Read it all.

Here is what to know about the surprise attack on Israel. https://t.co/SKlRic24ZK

— Nancy Quinn (@nancyquinn) October 7, 2023

For many years, coups in Africa seemed a thing of the past. But in the 2020s they are back with a vengeance: the nine this decade account for more than a third of successful African putsches this century. At this rate there will be more of them in the 2020s than in any decade since the 1960s.

Aside from the latest one, in Gabon on August 30th, the seizures of power have been in the “coup belt”. It is possible, if inadvisable, to walk some 6,000km from the Atlantic coast of west Africa to the shore of the Red Sea and stride only through countries where there have been coups in the past three years (see map). The trek from Guinea to Sudan would cross the Sahel, the region south of the Sahara where there have been two coups each in Mali and Burkina Faso since August 2020, and one in Niger in July.

Africa—which covers an area larger than America, China, India, Japan and western Europe combined—is more than its coup belt. Yet the takeovers are part of a much broader political crisis. The most recent surveys by Afrobarometer, a pollster, find that in 24 of 30 countries approval of military rule has risen since 2014.

Read it all.

Democracy is under threat from graft, stagnation and violence https://t.co/FupUyTcOkU

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 3, 2023

It was a phrase he repeated to himself several times each day when his patience started to wane and he could feel the frustration hardening in his chest: They were all doing their best. The police officers whose active patrol force had shrunk by 20 percent to crisis levels because of attrition, recruiting challenges and the impact of calls to defund the police. The people sleeping on sidewalks as rents soared to record highs and shelters filled to capacity. The addicts who could either wait in line at 6 a.m. for the outside chance of a spot in rehab or numb their pain with another fentanyl pill for the going price of 50 cents. They were all suffering together through the morass of a damaged society.

“Our entire first responder system in this city, according to the people who run it, is 20 years behind the ball and critically understaffed,” the mayor said last year at a City Council meeting. The city itself had increasingly turned to the same Band-Aid fix as everyone else, spending more than $4 million a year on private security guards to help protect parks, water treatment facilities, parking garages and city hall.

The booming industry was nobody’s idea of a perfect or comprehensive solution. More than a dozen security guards in Portland had been accused of assault or harassment, and one was convicted of murder earlier this year after fatally shooting a customer outside of a Lowe’s store. Guards in Oregon were sometimes trained and certified in as little as 16 hours, and more than 100 companies operated in downtown Portland on any given night under different policies and company rules.

Echelon was one of the most proactive, with more than 75 guards who patrolled the city 24 hours a day. At least 400 fed-up local businesses paid Echelon a monthly fee to run interference with homeless people by building relationships, offering resources to people with addictions and mental illness, buying their breakfasts, replacing their shoes, reversing their overdoses and de-escalating their episodes of psychosis.

Bock’s previous security job had been at a company that stationed him outside a grocery store as a deterrent to shoplifting and told him to avoid interacting with customers. “A human scarecrow,” was how Bock described that role, so he chose to move to Echelon in 2021 despite the long hours and middle-class pay, because he wanted to be part of the glue that pieced his hometown back together.

Read it all.

"How can any of this be considered normal?" Another stunning @elisaslow story from the front lines of the urban unraveling, on one of the countless private security guards being hired to patrol American cities: https://t.co/kfYK1qGbNa

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) October 2, 2023

Ten survivors of church-based abuse have written to the Archbishops’ Council criticising their treatment after the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was disbanded.

On Sunday evening, a letter was sent to the council by ten of the 12 people who had been awaiting a review of their cases by the ISB when it was disbanded without warning (News, 21 June). They write: “In the period since you closed the ISB we have been left in uncertainty and distress.”

The group criticise the announcement on 14 September that Kevin Crompton had been appointed as an “interim commissioner of independent reviews”….They say that the council’s handling of the situation has caused “harm” to members of the group.

“We have no forum through which to raise these concerns. Collectively, we believe that the harm these decisions have caused needs to be independently assessed and we have asked an expert clinical psychologist to complete this work as a matter of urgency.”

Read it all.

Ten survivors of church-based abuse wrote to the Archbishops’ Council on Sunday evening, criticising their treatment since the Council disbanded the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).https://t.co/Tj6StIHVG3

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 25, 2023

Nyamut Gai lost everything four years ago when armed militias stormed through her village in South Sudan, a landlocked African country tormented by civil war, famine and flooding.

Desperate, she and her family fled almost 600 miles north across the border to Sudan, where she worked as a cleaner in the capital, Khartoum, and began to settle in. But then, a fierce war broke out in Sudan in mid-April between rival factions of the military, sending her packing yet again.

As she and her family made the weekslong journey by foot and bus from Khartoum, her 1-month-old son began coughing and withering away from hunger, and soon died. When she finally crossed the border into South Sudan, any sense of relief she felt was shattered when her 3-year-old son succumbed to measles.

“We are not safe anywhere,” Ms. Gai, 28, said on a recent morning at a muddy and congested aid center in Renk, a town in South Sudan.

Read it all.

Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese fled a grisly civil war years ago to settle in Sudan. With war now raging in Sudan, they are streaming home to a country ill-prepared to take them back. https://t.co/0u0yV1Hu22

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) September 7, 2023

“This memorial is designed to have life and legs,” he said.

Mayor John Tecklenburg called the memorial a “sacred public space” and celebrated its potential to foster healing.

Chris Singleton, son of the late Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, said the memorial was a helpful way forward from tragedy.

Malcolm Graham, brother of the late Cynthia Graham Hurd, said the site is “where love and harmony prevail over hatred and division.”

“Together we can channel our pain into positive action,” he said. “As Cynthia would say, keep the faith, do the work.”

Read it all.

Fundraising efforts, years of design and planning, and delays caused by the COVID pandemic, finally are in the rearview mirror as the Emanuel Nine Memorial Foundation broke ground today, signaling the start of the construction phase of the memorial project.https://t.co/bolJ34ysIL

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) July 22, 2023

Two people were killed on Wednesday in clashes between police and protesters in the Kenyan city of Kisimu.

Tear gas has also been fired in the capital, Nairobi, and the coastal city of Mombasa at those protesting over the high cost of living.

Several people were injured after being shot as police battled protesters.

Kenya has closed schools in the country’s two main cities as a three-day opposition protest kicked off with demonstrators confronting police.

Many businesses have remained shut over fears of looting, with people scared of getting caught in violent clashes.

Read it all.

Kenya Azimio demonstrations: Two dead in Kenya anti-government protests https://t.co/801HrjOGTz

— Kamal Mustafa ✪ (@MeKamalMustafa) July 19, 2023

Attacks on Christian communities in parts of Nigeria are now relentless, as men, women, and children are killed and churches are burned, the Director of Mission Operations in the Anglican diocese of Jos, the Ven. Mark Mukan, has reported.

He spoke at Holy Trinity, Eastbourne, on a “Day of the Christian Martyr” event last month. It was part of “Out of the Ashes”: a three-month campaign of events in the UK organised by the charity Release International to highlight the suffering of Christians in Nigeria (News, 9 June).

Archdeacon Mukan described a campaign of murder and arson, with houses, churches, hospitals, and farmland “burned to ashes”, in the north-east of Nigeria.

Many of the Christians in the north — most of whom belong to the Church of the Brethren — had been killed or displaced, including at least eight of their pastors, he said, and the denomination had been almost wiped out.

Read it all.

Nigerian Christians ‘under relentless attack’ https://t.co/b6cYDUrOmd

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 14, 2023

The sacked members of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) have this week given their side of the story, disputing the version given by the Archbishop of York last weekend.

On Wednesday of last week, it was announced that the Archbishops’ Council had terminated the contracts of two of the three members of the ISB, and was moving to disband the body entirely (News, 23 June).

Archbishop Cottrell defended the decision in an interview on Sunday on Radio 4, in which he blamed “a breakdown in communication” for the ISB’s demise. On the same programme, however, the ISB’s lead survivor advocate, Jasvinder Sanghera, said: “It is not true to say this has happened because of a breakdown in relationships.”

On Tuesday, the other sacked ISB member, Steve Reeves, questioned the view that there had been a breakdown of trust, as suggested by Archbishop Cottrell and the secretary-general of the Archbishops’ Council, William Nye.

Read it all.

On Tuesday, ISB member Steve Reeves questioned the view that there had been a breakdown of trust. “When they say ‘trust’, I don’t think they mean trust in the way that your average person on the street does. What they mean is obedience,” Mr Reeves said.https://t.co/QZjeqoYtGi

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 29, 2023

The Church of England has sacked a panel of experts who provided independent oversight of how it dealt with abuse.

The Archbishops’ Council confirmed it was “ending the contracts” of all three board members – acting chair Meg Munn, Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves.

The latter two recently claimed the Church had been obstructive and interfered with their work.

The Church said relations between them and senior bishops had “broken down”.

Read it all.

I will be asking the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, to request a briefing for MPs & Peers on *what on earth is going on* with the ⁦@churchofengland⁩ & safeguarding. https://t.co/eI9XNwPyi5

— Ben Bradshaw (@BenPBradshaw) June 22, 2023

A national memorial commemorating the Emanuel Nine will break ground July 22 after years of fundraising and delays.

The project, flanking both sides of the church, will feature in part two large marble benches centered around a fountain inscribed with their names. Cynthia Graham Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance. DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Clementa Pinckney. Tywanza Sanders. Daniel Simmons Sr. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson.

Working on the memorial has helped cement them — a group including beloved wives, husbands, parents, brothers, sisters, pastors, a librarian, a track coach — in history. It has sustained a reeling congregation, and the broader Charleston community, in processing what happened inside such sacred space.

The project has brought a common goal, uniting Emanuel in a mission to preserve and honor the past while building a new future.

Read it all.

A memorial commemorating the Emanuel Nine will break ground July 22, weeks after the tragedy's eighth anniversary. The project has sustained a reeling congregation, and the broader Charleston community, in processing what happened inside such sacred space. https://t.co/wmFeHpKMxP

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) June 16, 2023

Numerous fatal shootings have occurred at churches in recent years. In March, an armed assailant killed six people at The Covenant School, a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn. Shootings have also occurred at other places of worship like Jewish synagogues and Sikh temples.

When asked about their protocols when they gather for worship, around 4 in 5 US Protestant pastors (81%) say their church has some type of security measure in place, according to a study from Lifeway Research. Still, more than 1 in 6 (17%) say they don’t use any of the seven potential measures included in the study, and 2 percent aren’t sure.

“Churches are not immune to violence, disputes, domestic disagreements, vandalism and burglary,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “While loving one another is a core Christian teaching, churchgoers still sin, and non-churchgoers are invited and welcomed. So real security risks exist whether a congregation wants to acknowledge them or not.”

Read it all.

Residents of Sudan’s besieged capital, Khartoum, said Wednesday that they are facing mounting hunger, sickness and continued airstrikes, despite a declared cease-fire between the country’s two most powerful generals, who began fighting 12 days ago.

Maysoon Abdallah Abdallmuttalib, who is among the leaders of a network of volunteers responding to crises in the city, said airstrikes led to the death of at least two people on Wednesday and wounded many others, adding strain to a medical system that is already in collapse. As of Wednesday afternoon, Abdallmuttalib said military planes were overhead, and that the bombing continued. During a brief lull, she said her network had received mostly requests for food, medicine and help evacuating, as conditions have grown increasingly dire for those that remain in the city.

“In this cease-fire, there was no ceasing of fire,” said Gasim Amin Oshi, a 29-year-old engineer who, like Abdallmuttalib, is a member of Sudan’s grass roots “resistance committees,” which have been active since the pro-democracy revolution in 2019. He said Wednesday afternoon that he had been hearing the sound of army helicopters circling, which means attacks are imminent.

Read it all.

Conditions worsening in Sudan as rivals show little interest in cease-fires https://t.co/0HfyipSOSQ

— Gaurav Bansal (@JetLaggedGB) April 26, 2023

Street battles are being fought by Sudan’s rival forces in the capital, Khartoum, in an escalation of violence despite calls for a ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they had agreed to a three-day truce and several hours later the army did the same.

But bombing, shelling and gunfire continue.

At least 400 people have been killed in a week of fighting.

It is the result of a bitter power struggle between two factions of the Sudanese military leadership over how the country should be run.

Read it all.

Street battles are being fought by Sudan's rival forces in Khartoum, despite both the army and RSF paramilitary agreeing to a 3-day ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. https://t.co/JyZOuMRiNl

— Donatella Rovera (@DRovera) April 21, 2023

The baffling senselessness that we feel at a time like this—which lasts a few days for the world and years for those close to it—should not lead us into resignation and cynicism, where we shrug our shoulders in an attitude of “What can you do?”

Instead, it should bring a flash of recognition that this is not the way it’s supposed to be. What we are seeing is a mystery of iniquity so great that it should rattle us—prompting us to put aside our theatrical hatred of one another long enough to ask, “How can we stop this?”

But that will require genuine discussions on public policy, justice, and safety. It will also mean asking ourselves why so many people will forget about Nashville—and the terror faced by those children and teachers—in a matter of days, just as we’ve forgotten all the other towns and cities that have been torn apart by this kind of murder.

The time we live in is not normal, and it is not leading us anywhere we want to go. The first step to stopping these hate-driven crimes is to recognize that fact.

Read it all.

“The time we live in is not normal, and it is not leading us anywhere we want to go.”

From @drmoore: https://t.co/KT8dZUnLUO

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 29, 2023

Five of the victims were transported to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, about four miles away, but were pronounced dead on arrival.

“The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms,” Rachel Dibble, who was at the Baptist church with the waiting families, told the Associated Press. “They probably had some Froot Loops, and now their whole lives changed today.”

At Woodmont Baptist, not long after they heard the sirens whir by, pastors and staff read reports of a shooting at Covenant. When they saw on Twitter that their church was named as the reunification site, they didn’t question it—they just put on their nametags, met police in the parking lot, and prepared to open their doors to buses of surviving children and parents desperate to see their kids safe and sound, senior pastor Nathan Parker told CT.

The children gathered in the fellowship hall, where the student minister handed out coloring sheets and began processing the shooting with them. Parents waited in the sanctuary through the slow reunification process, not yet knowing the extent of the attack.

“As pastors, we are supposed to have the words. Today was one of those days that words didn’t come easy. If they came, they came from the Spirit,” Parker said.

Read it all.

The adult victims were head of school Katherine Koonce, 60; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61.

The three students killed were each 9 years old. https://t.co/zb9zQjrEbr

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 28, 2023

There has never been a visit like it and it has been years in the planning.

The first people to greet Pope Francis when he arrived in the South Sudanese capital were Archbishop Justin Welby and Moderator Rev Iain Greenshields, who both boarded the papal plane moments after it landed.

All three religious leaders were greeted with fanfare at Juba’s airport before travelling through singing, cheering and ululating crowds to the Presidential Palace.

“It is a circuitous journey, yet one that can no longer be postponed,” said Pope Francis, referring to delays in the trip caused by Covid, security concerns and the pontiff’s own health problems.

“I have come with two brothers, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Together, stretching out our hands, we present ourselves to you and to this people in the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace,” the Pope said.

But this trip comes at a time when long-term peace and stability in South Sudan seem a distant prospect. It’s people are suffering crushing poverty and have little hope in their political leaders.

Read it all.

Will the historic visit, by Pope Francis and other religious leaders, be a catalyst for change in South Sudan?https://t.co/EONAYWLLMI

— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) February 3, 2023

On his second day in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pope Francis told Catholics to go beyond ethnic and regional divides in fostering peace, and stressed forgiveness and conversion in overcoming violence and divisions currently tearing apart the country with Africa’s largest Catholic population.

He stressed the need to forgive even those who perpetrate violence, and called those who responsible for the country’s decades-long war to conversion.

Speaking during his Feb. 1 public Mass in Kinshasa, the pope said Christians “are called to be missionaries of peace,” insisting that “it is a decision we have to make.”

“We need to find room in our hearts for everyone; to believe that ethnic, regional, social and religious differences are secondary and not obstacles; that others are our brothers and sisters, members of the same human community; and that the peace brought into the world by Jesus is meant for everyone,” he said.

Read it all.

On his 2nd day in the #DRC, #PopeinCongo told Catholics to go beyond ethnic/regional divides in fostering peace & stressed forgiveness & conversion in overcoming violence & divisions tearing apart the country w Africa’s largest #Catholic population https://t.co/R4ULaov55r

— Elise Ann Allen (@eliseannallen) February 1, 2023

The Archbishop of Canterbury will be visiting South Sudan with Pope Francis and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland from 3rd to 5th February.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has urged people to pray for the people of South Sudan ahead of his historic joint visit to the country with the Pope and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The Archbishop said the church leaders are making their Pilgrimage of Peace to South Sudan “as servants” to “amplify the cries of the South Sudanese people” who continue to suffer from conflict, flooding and famine.

The Archbishop will be visiting South Sudan with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and the Rt Rev Dr Iain Greenshields from 3rd to 5th February. The unprecedented Ecumenical Pilgrimage of Peace is part of the Pope’s Apostolic Journey to the DRC and South Sudan which begins on Tuesday 31st January.

During the South Sudan visit the three church leaders will meet the country’s political leaders, hold an open-air ecumenical prayer vigil for peace and meet with people displaced by the conflict.

Read it all.

Please pray for the people of #SouthSudan as @Pontifex, @churchmoderator and I prepare to make our historic Pilgrimage of Peace on Friday.

We come as brothers in Christ to amplify the cries of the South Sudanese people and to pray for justice and peace. https://t.co/qBQQOEp7n4

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) January 29, 2023

Once again, we see a phenomenon that I have written about many times here at GetReligion.

This kind of international story, in the context of America’s niche-media realities, is now seen as a merely religious, Catholic or even “conservative” story. Click here to see a Google News file illustrating this, in the case of the murder of this particular priest. There are the major, trend-defining newsrooms in this picture? That is, of course, the question.

But you can find more details (#DUH) in Catholic media. What you will read at The Pillar — “Nigerian priest killed in Sunday attack; another in critical condition” — shows that this bloody, fiery dark-of-night attack isn’t all that unusual.

The second priest, Fr. Collins Omeh, is the parish’s parochial vicar. He was shot several times as he tried to escape the scene, and is now hospitalized. From the hospital, Omeh has described the violence to priests in the Diocese of Minna, in messages shared with The Pillar.

According to Omeh: “The bandits, who were about 15 in number, came fully armed and shooting sporadically in the air shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is great].”

Read it all.

Why Is the Biden Administration Ignoring Religious Persecution in Nigeria? https://t.co/uPasIiQXSo

— Newsweek Opinion (@NewsweekOpinion) January 23, 2023

I also came to see that liberalism’s superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man’s defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

In spite of the fact that I had to reject some aspects of liberalism, I never came to an all-out acceptance of neo-orthodoxy. While I saw neo-orthodoxy as a helpful corrective for a liberalism that had become all too sentimental, I never felt that it provided an adequate answer to the basic questions. If liberalism was too optimistic concerning human nature, neo-orthodoxy was too pessimistic. Not only on the question of man but also on other vital issues, neo-orthodoxy went too far in its revolt. In its attempt to preserve the transcendence of God, which had been neglected by liberalism’s overstress of his immanence, neo-orthodoxy went to the extreme of stressing a God who was hidden, unknown and “wholly other.” In its revolt against liberalism’s overemphasis on the power of reason, neo-orthodoxy fell into a mood of antirationalism and semifundamentalism, stressing a narrow, uncritical biblicism. This approach, I felt, was inadequate both for the church and for personal life.

So although liberalism left me unsatisfied on the question of the nature of man, I found no refuge in neo-orthodoxy. I am now convinced that the truth about man is found neither in liberalism nor in neo-orthodoxy. Each represents a partial truth. A large segment of Protestant liberalism defined man only in terms of his essential nature, his capacity for good. Neo-orthodoxy tended to define man only in terms of his existential nature, his capacity for evil. An adequate understanding of man is found neither in the thesis of liberalism nor in the antithesis of neo-orthodoxy, but in a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both.

Read it all.

Martin Luther King Jr. in Denver, Colorado on May 19 in 1967. Photo: AP. #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/x0RPS59VIn

— Dr. Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) January 16, 2023

The eight teenage girls, some as young as 13, made contact with one another on social media and may have never met before. But last Saturday night they gathered in downtown Toronto and after getting into one altercation wound up surrounding and fatally stabbing a man in an apparent attack over a bottle of liquor, the police said.

The killing, near the main transportation nexus in Canada’s largest city, was the latest and one of the most brazen episodes in the region in which people have been randomly targeted by groups of young attackers.

The 59-year-old victim was yet to be identified by the authorities. He had been staying in homeless shelters since the fall, the police said, and on Saturday night he was outside a shelter in the Financial District when the suspects set their eyes on him.

The suspects — including three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds and two 16-year-olds — appeared to have stabbed him after attempting to steal a liquor bottle from him, Sgt. Terry Browne of the Toronto Police Service told the CBC on Wednesday. All have been charged with second-degree murder.

Read it all.

Eight teenage girls, who ranged from 13 to 16 years old, have been charged with murder in the stabbing death of a 59-year-old man in downtown Toronto. Police said the girls connected on social media before meeting up, possibly for the first time. https://t.co/JPs2Vyshci

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 22, 2022

The Archbishop of Canterbury has pledged solidarity with Ukrainians during a three-day visit to Kyiv, in which he deplored the suffering inflicted on them during the war, now in its tenth month.

“The people of Ukraine have shown extraordinary courage in the face of Russia’s illegal, unjust, and brutal invasion,” Archbishop Welby said on Wednesday.

“This visit is about showing solidarity with them as they face a profoundly difficult winter.” He said that he was looking forward to meeting church leaders and Christians in Kyiv, “and learning how we can continue to support them amidst the ongoing devastation, loss and destruction of this war”.

The Archbishop spoke after arriving in the Ukrainian capital from Poland, where he said that he had been “deeply moved” by stories told to him by refugees at a crisis centre in Warsaw.

He said: “In this season of Advent, we remember that Jesus was born into conflict and persecution — and became a refugee when his parents fled violence and persecution to seek safety in Egypt.

“I urge Christians in the Church of England and around the world to keep praying for the people of Ukraine in this Advent season — and all people around the world caught up in conflict. Let us keep offering our solidarity and support in every way we can”.

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“The people of Ukraine have shown extraordinary courage in the face of Russia’s illegal, unjust, and brutal invasion. This visit is about showing solidarity with them as they face a profoundly difficult winter" – @JustinWelby https://t.co/XYbwwAJ8KO

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 2, 2022

After two of its clergy were detained by Russian forces last week, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Exarchate of Donetsk has warned they could be victims of torture and has called for their immediate release.

In a Nov. 30 statement labeled as “urgent,” the exarchate voiced their solidarity with the clerics, who serve in the city of Berdyansk, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

The priests are Father Ivan Levytskyi, who serves as abbot of the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos parish, and Father Bohdan Geleta, who assists at the parish.

They were detained several days ago for allegedly housing explosives with the intention to commit “guerilla” activities against the Russian army.

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After two of its clergy were detained by Russian forces last week, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Exarchate of Donetsk has warned they could be victims of torture and has called for their immediate release.https://t.co/dkKTFu9vxr

— Crux (@Crux) December 1, 2022

The rate of gun deaths in the U.S. reached a 28-year high in 2021 after sharp increases in homicides of Black men and suicides among white men, an analysis of federal data showed.

A record 48,953 deaths in the U.S., or about 15 fatalities per 100,000 people, were caused by guns last year, said the analysis published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Gun deaths declined in the 1990s, but have been rising steadily over the past decade and skyrocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic, said researchers who conducted the analysis.

Gun-related deaths of women and children have risen, the analysis said, but men remain far more likely to die from guns.

“The disparities are so marked,” said Chris Rees, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Rees and his colleagues analyzed U.S. firearm fatality rates from 1990 to 2021 using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. have died from guns since 1990, the analysis showed.

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A record 48,953 deaths in the U.S., or about 15 fatalities per 100,000 people, were caused by guns last year, according to a new study https://t.co/8FH7hxRuhy

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 29, 2022

The purpose of PCR2 was to identify both good practice and institutional failings in relation to how allegations of abuse have been handled, assess any identified risks and respond to these where appropriate, and to provide recommendations to the Church that will lead to improvements in its safeguarding work.

PCR2, believed to be the most extensive file review undertaken by the Church, was commissioned after an independent scrutiny team concluded that the original Past Cases Review (PCR) in 2007 was not a thorough process with particular criticism of lack of survivor engagement. PCR2 was carried out by independent reviewers across all 42 dioceses, as well as Lambeth and Bishopthorpe Palaces and the National Safeguarding Team (NST).

The review has found 383 new cases which are now all being actively managed by local safeguarding leads under the House of Bishops guidance. These are cases that were identified by independent reviewers as requiring further assessment by today’s safeguarding standards and, where necessary, further action.

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The Church of England's Past Cases Review 2 (PCR2) national report has been published.

Read the report on our website at https://t.co/w5XsKr0zOI.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) October 5, 2022

Law enforcement across the country rescued more than 200 sex trafficking victims, including 84 children, in a nationwide sweep dubbed “Operation Cross Country,” the FBI announced Monday. The youngest victim was 11 years old.

Authorities located 84 victims of child sex trafficking, as well as 37 children that were actively missing during the campaign, the FBI said. Law enforcement officers also located 141 adult victims of human trafficking.

In 2021, more than half of all trafficking victims in the U.S. were minors, according to the Human Trafficking Institute. In a news release Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray called sex trafficking “among the most heinous crimes” the agency encounters.

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More than 200 state, local, and federal partners and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conducted 391 operations over a two-week period in August. https://t.co/8AjYmMbbtO

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 16, 2022