130 kidnapped children and teachers from Nigerian Catholic school, are freed
The Nigerian government has announced that all 130 remaining schoolchildren and teachers kidnapped from a Catholic boarding school in the Niger state, have been released. In a statement on Twitter / X, the government said the release was a “moment of triumph and relief”. More than 250 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri on 21 November. Earlier this month about 100 of the children were released, the ones who remained will be reunited with their families at the school today. Yesterday, President Trump announced a $1.6 billion aid package to Nigeria, for healthcare, in exchange for the protection of Christians from Muslim militant attacks. Open Doors charity says 16.2 million Christians have been displaced, kidnapped, sexually assaulted or have had their homes and churches burned. Reuters reports US intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November, following Trump’s threats to militarily intervene in Nigeria over its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.
Turning Point USA’s AmFest conference ‘saturated with religion’
Turning Point USA, the movement founded by Charlie Kirk who was assassinated in September, was out in force at the annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix last week. The Rev Lucas Miles, senior director of an offshoot organisation TPUSA Faith, says its network has risen from 4,200 member churches prior to Kirk’s death, to 9,500, and is now planning a “Make Heaven Crowded Tour”. The Religion News Service has a detailed report on the place of religion at the conference, which was marked by open hostility between key speakers, criticising each other for their positions on Israel, immigration and free speech. Mr Miles and other speakers appealed to the influence of faith to end the infighting seen on the stage. Christian unity, he said, is needed to hold the line “when it comes to Marxism, when it comes to Islam, when it comes to progressivism, when it comes to abortion.” RNS reporter Kathryn Post said “AmFest was saturated with religion”, mentioning that Russell Brand was there, urging the building of a Christian nation, and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, said the idea that God imbued humans with creative capacity and the power to choose, is the “essence of conservatism.”
Church leaders in Jerusalem say hundreds have been killed since the ceasefire
The Patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem have issued a Christmas message saying they are “fully aware that, despite a declared cessation of hostilities, hundreds have continued to be killed or suffer grievous injury. Many more have experienced violent assaults against themselves, their properties, and their freedoms— not only in the Holy Land, but also in neighbouring countries.” They say they stand in solidarity with those who are suffering and downcast, and call on Christians around the world to pray and advocate “for a true and just peace in the homeland of our Lord’s birth—and, indeed, throughout the earth.” They joined in “the message of hope revealed in Christ’s incarnation and Holy Nativity in Bethlehem more than two millennia ago”.
Red candle lights for Palestinian Christians on Christmas Eve
A global movement to light red candles on Christmas Eve, in the cause of “radical peace, justice, and nonviolence of Jesus”, and in solidarity with Palestinian Christians, is being taken up by more than 20 countries. “Red Candle: Light for Palestine” began on 29 November 29 with a ceremony in the Grotto of the Nativity, where two Palestinian children lit the first candle alongside clergy from Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Organisers say Red Candle says it is a movement inviting Christians to reclaim Christmas and Easter as sacred seasons of peace-making: “In Taybeh – Palestine’s last all-Christian village, which has endured six settler attacks since July – all three churches representing the town’s whole population, gathered to light red candles and plant olive trees at a site damaged by settler arson.”
Chief Rabbi calls on ‘silent majority’ to speak out against violence threatening civilisation
The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, Has given an interview to the BBC talking about his “impactful and very traumatic” time with the Jewish commmunity in Bondi Beach, following the killing of 15 people gathered for a Hannukah celebration. He said the scale of the suffering was very deep and widespread but the community had been encouraged by “the outpouring of love, of affection, of support and solidarity” from Australians and around the world. They paid tribute to the heroism, help and self-sacrifice of many people including Ahmed al-Ahmed, the shopkeeper who wrested a gun away from one of the attackers. Sir Ephraim said: “In the midst of our trauma, we know that the silent majority within our societies are definitely with Jews, with Judaism, with the state of Israel. The time, I believe, has actually come for the silent majority to become the audible majority. We need people to call out and to condemn those who are violent, those who are terrorizing the world. This is not just a Jewish problem. It’s a threat against all of our civilization”. He also called for further action against hate speech: “We need to regulate and control all the messages on social media, so many of which are poisonous and which are inspiring horrific crime”.The interview is here
£4.6 million to restore St Mary-le-Strand in central London
The Church Times reports that St Mary-le-Strand, a baroque 1721 building standing on an island in The Strand, London, has been awarded £4.6 million by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It will be used to “support urgent repair and conservation works. Both the 18th-century building and its gardens will be restored and redeveloped, alongside work to transform the Undercroft into a community space and improve accessibility throughout. A research project will also uncover three centuries of stories about the people who worshipped in its pews and are buried in its crypt”. The church is one of four to receive a total of £7.4 million in grant funding alongside St Mary Magdalene’s, Stockland Bristol; St John the Baptist, Nash, in Ludlow; and St Monans Auld Kirk, Fife, in Scotland. The Church Times story is here
Are CofE’s days numbered as clergy leave to join the Catholic church?
Peter Stanford, writing in The Telegraph, considers whether the Church of England’s days may be numbered, as its divisions over same sex blessings and the ordination of women loom into view again, days until the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullaly, formally takes office. He talks to Anglican clergy who left to join the Catholic church and now minister as priests, with the celibacy rule waived. A recent survey said 491 Anglican vicars have joined the Catholic church in the past 30 years. More than a third of all Catholic ordinations since 1992, when the CofE decided to ordain women, have been with former Anglican vicars. The report considers whether the exodus is accelerating after Dame Sarah’s appointment and concludes that the CofE has to adopt an “uneasy consensus on same-sex marriages” to avoid schism – but “that will do nothing to heal the divisions.” Article is here
‘Angelology’ – who they are, what they do and why people believe in them
The story and history of angels in the Biblical tradition is explored in “The Conversation” by Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, at the University of Queensland. He points to a survey from 2023 which suggested that 70 per cent of adults in the United States believe in angels. In Australia, the figure is just over 50 per cent. He says in the theory of angels (angelology) within the Christian traditions, angels were created by God on the first of the six days of creation. From then on, they were immortal. Angels, like those in the Nativity story, are messengers, regarded as “mysterious spiritual creatures, awe-inspiring and terrifying”. He concludes: “Angels offer a glimpse of a realm of the spirit beyond the material and, in so doing, provide a bulwark against a materialist understanding of the world. They continue to be signs of the human desire for transcendence, offering a promise of life in the future – an immortality like theirs, even in a godless universe”. Article is here
