Father Benedict Kiely is the founder of Nasarean.org, which provides aid and advocacy to persecuted Christians.
It is 43˚C in Erbil, which a friend here describes as ‘cool’. Unlike my first visit in 2015, when Isis was just a few miles from the airport, the flight in was smooth. The plane this time was full of Iraqis and Kurds, mainly those who have emigrated, returning to visit their families. Ten years
28 min listen
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many people voiced fears that the religious minorities in the country could face increased persecution. This could be at the hands of the new government’s supporters, or simply because the new regime can’t protect them. Now those fears appear to have been realised. There is rising sectarian
20 min listen
From Rome Fr Benedict Kiely and Damian Thompson react to the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as the successor to Pope Francis. The first American Pope, Prevost is also a citizen of Peru, having spent years working as first a parish pastor and teacher, and later as a bishop. The 267th Bishop of Rome is
37 min listen
This week: sectarian persecution returns Paul Wood, Colin Freeman and Father Benedict Kiely write in the magazine this week about the religious persecution that minorities are facing across the world from Syria to the Congo. In Syria, there have been reports of massacres with hundreds of civilians from the Alawite Muslim minority targeted, in part
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, and Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, had rather tellingly different responses to the latest wave of violence in Syria. Lammy deplored the ‘horrific violence’ but failed to address where that violence was coming from. Rubio, by contrast, stated clearly that ‘radical Islamist terrorists’ were targeting minorities in Syria, including
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Beijing’s new rules for clergy of all religions in China have been published in English – and, disastrously for the Vatican, they make no mention of any role for Pope Francis in approving the appointment of Chinese Catholic bishops. So it looks as if the Vatican’s secret deal with China, which gave the Pope nominal
24 min listen
Next month, the Vatican will talk to Beijing about renewing its 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party that effectively allowed President Xi to choose the country’s Catholic bishops. He has used this power to force Catholics loyal to Rome to join the puppet Catholic church set up by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. They
