Plight of Iraqi refugees shapes nuns' visit to Middle East
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A family of six Iraqis lives in a unheated, single room in Beirut, Lebanon -- the adults unable to work legally, the teenager with diabetes unable to get medical care or attend school. The family -- an engineer, his wife and three children, and the wife's brother -- fled violence in their homeland two years after they received threats and their home was fired upon. Once out of the country, they quickly burned through their savings. For Mercy Sister Anne Curtis, the refugee family helped define what she described as abhorrent conditions for the millions of Iraqis who have fled their homeland, most taking up residence in Lebanon or Syria. She was one of a group of eight U.S. women religious from different communities who spent more than a week with Catholic Relief Services in mid-January looking into the problems and aid opportunities for Iraqi refugees in Syria and Lebanon. CRS is the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency. "I'm still sorting out my impressions," Sister Curtis told Catholic News Service in a phone interview a few days after the delegation returned to the U.S. Jan. 20. During her first few days in the Middle East, she said she felt "an overwhelming sense of sorrow and shame about a U.S. war and the consequences; such massive human suffering."
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Aid to the Church in Need - 0 views
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An international Catholic charity dependent on the Holy See, providing pastoral relief to needy and oppressed churches.
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Excellent work!
Bangladeshi single mother caned over paternity row - 0 views
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Source: Jihad Watch In Sharia court a woman's testimony is worth half as much as that of a man. Says the Qur'an: "Call in two male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses; so that if either of them commit an error, the other will remember" (2:282). Islamic legal theorists have restricted the validity of a woman's testimony even further by limiting it to, in the words of one Muslim legal manual, "cases involving property, or transactions dealing with property, such as sales" ('Umdat al-Salik, o24.8). Otherwise only men can testify. And in cases of sexual misbehavior, four male witnesses are required. Not just witnesses who can testify that an instance of fornication, adultery, or rape happened: these witnesses must have seen the act itself. This peculiar and destructive stipulation had its genesis in an incident in Muhammad's life, when his wife, Aisha, was accused of infidelity. The accusation particularly distressed Muhammad, since Aisha was his favorite wife. But in this case as in many others, Allah came to the aid of his Prophet: he revealed Aisha's innocence and instituted the stipulation of four witnesses for sexual sins: "Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah" (Qur'an 24:13). Consequently, it is very difficult to convict men of what the Sharia considers to be sexual crimes (zina). As long as they deny the charge and there are no witnesses, they will get off scot-free, because the woman's testimony is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman accuses a man, she may end up incriminating herself. "Bangladeshi single mother caned over paternity row," from AFP, May 26 (thanks to Religion of Peace):
Plight of Iraqi Refugees - 0 views
The people's priest who became a bishop - 0 views
Egan's retirement would be a first - 0 views