Bernardo Cervellera

A summit on religions is planned for later this year to discuss new norms and restrictions governing their activities. The property of religions and their use of internet will also be under scrutiny. This "sinofication" of faiths at all costs threatens to empty communities of their religious and dogmatic content, transforming them into NGOs and puppets in the hands of those in power. The difficulties of dialogue with the Vatican. The CPC wants to eliminate anything that could damage its monopoly of power amid fears it could end up like the Soviet CP. The syndrome of the "USSR style collapse " and that of "suicide" by eliminating religions, is the only value system holding Chinese society together.

The Iranian president begins a visit to Italy and France. Pro-Israel and human rights groups criticise the trip. Iran wants to resume its place in the international community and revive its economy, but the Revolutionary Guards and conservative ayatollahs are holding back. Journalists are arrested for "infiltration" and "spying". Yet, young people are moving away from Islam.

Despite a worldwide increase of ignorance, indifference and superficiality, many signs of love and hope resist even in the most gloomy situations: the Iraqi mother who gives birth to her child in a refugee camp and smiles even though she has nothing; the Indonesian Muslim mother who blesses her son who became a Christian and a priest; the Chinese Christian families that welcome children thrown away because of the one-child law.

The death of a child from a sinking boat off the Turkish coast has moved the whole world, but lest we forget, thousands more have already died in Syria’s war. The refugee problem must be addressed but so must the causes that have led to this tragedy, namely Mideast wars, funding the Islamic State group, and proxies acting on behalf of regional and world powers.

The Chaldean priest met Pope Francis, asking him to keep the world’s focus on Christian refugees from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. His diocese is home to 3500 Christian families and almost half a million Yazidis who fled Islamic State violence. ISIS is not all Islam and there are Muslims who want an Iraq of coexistence. Christians might not emigrate, but remain in their own land. Aid projects for refugees: school for children, work for adults, a home for every family. An appeal to AsiaNews.

The ordination took place today with three bishops loyal to the pope. The bishop and the diocese have always engaged the government in dialogue, but have always set the religious mission as their priority, and rejected the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. The local Church is closely involved in catechesis, health care, and education, building on the tradition of PIME missionaries, who served the diocese for decades.

The influential Sunni university denounces " heinous" violence of the Islamic state and demands the world defeat this group “through every possible means". Vatican: terrorism is a threat to all humanity. France claims to fight terrorism, but then sells weapons, aircraft, helicopter gunships to Saudi Arabia, which supports Islamic fundamentalism. Kuwait tolerates Salafis who support the Nusra Front and the Islamic state. Turkey against the Kurds; the United States against Iran, Russia and China.

"Right-wing” Catholics reject it as "communist"; the "left-wing" applaud it’s novelty, but what Francis writes in his "Laudato sì (Praise be)" is in line with the social doctrine of the Church. In keeping with John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI. Some apocalyptic voices announce "the end," the failure "of the modern era" and its "misguided anthropocentrism". Criticism of the political powers, an invitation to all to work together.

The West’s "resignation”, its retreat from the Middle East, turning a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons and the hegemonic pretensions of small countries in the region are bloodying Syria and Iraq and destabilizing the world. The barbarity of the Islamic state has shortness of breath, but instability remains. Sunni Muslims pay the highest price in victims and suffering. A year after the conquest of Mosul by jihadists, the considerations Saywan Barzani, Iraqi ambassador to Italy.

The "wall of indifference and cynicism" and the silence and apathy so often denounced by Pope Francis have become almost a fortress. Such persecution reflects confessional manipulation, which slams Islam as such, and ideological manipulation, which forgets what is happening in North Korea or China. An increasingly post-Christian Europe seems disinterested in Christians.

About € 1.2 million have been raised so far. It is urgent to find housing and containers for 130,000 Christian refugees who fled from Mosul under the threat of the Islamic State group. Responding to Pope’s Francis’ call to action, we cannot “stand silently by” whilst our brothers and sisters are persecuted.

Violations of religious freedom and the West's hypocricy surrounding this issue are likely to drag the world into an unprecedented chaos. But even in silence - of death accepted for love or death inflicted by power - God is at work. An indestructible hope rises on Easter morning and a small opening of the heart is just enough for it to invade a lifetime. Happy Easter.