Religious Freedom

In what is billed as a first in history, India’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal seeking to end discrimination against socially poor Dalit Catholics in a parish in southern India.

A “silent genocide” — mimicking the Rwandan one of 1994 — is occurring eastern Congo, said some Catholic Church sources, as shock greeted the killing of 70 people in a Protestant church in the North Kivu Province.

The British army veteran prosecuted for silently praying in front of an abortion clinic was, to his own surprise, caught in the global spotlight when his case was cited by U.S. Vice President JD Vance in a Feb. 14 speech at a landmark security conference in Munich.

After the M23 Rwanda-backed rebels Feb. 16 occupied Bukavu, a second major city in mineral-rich eastern Congo, Catholic bishops and experts are warning this offensive in the provinces of North and South Kivu signals a clear intent to establish a permanent foreign country presence in the region.

A new report calls for the Russian Federation to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, finding that Russia is weaponizing Orthodox Christianity as part of a genocidal attack on Ukraine — persecuting Catholics, other Christians and other faith communities in the besieged nation.