The monastery of Mar Elian, destroyed by ISIS, was a beacon of inter-faith cooperation.

When I first moved to Dayr Mar Elian in the summer of 2001 I was slightly disconcerted when the Qurwani, as the people of Qaryatayn are known, kept asking me if I had met Mar Elian yet. Since he is believed to have died more than 1,500 years ago, I thought that they meant had I seen the sarcophagus, which of course I had. When I said this I was somewhat perplexed to realise that I had misunderstood the question.

With the sun rising on Wednesday, August 27, 2015, marking the birth of a new day, the abouna.org site celebrates its 12th anniversary--with this site taking a prominent place among numerous electronic websites that post thousands of pieces of news, reports, articles and analyses on daily bases.

Over the past two years, countless stories of church demolitions and cross removals have come out of China. Estimates vary, but the total figure of churches affected is believed to be somewhere between 1,500 and 1,700 – a move that campaigners have branded unprecedented, or at least not seen since the harrowing days of the Cultural Revolution.

On August 25, Christians celebrate the “Day of Remembrance”, in commemoration of the ethnic cleansing that was carried out by Hindu extremists in Orissa in 2008. And they express their gratitude to those who hid Christian faithful in their homes.

She put her life on the line to save Christians. Satyabhama Nayak is a Hindu woman who opened her doors to a group of nuns and hid them in the midst of the anti-Christian pogroms that raged across the Indian state of Orissa in August 2008.

From pastoral care in prisons to the courtroom: this is the story of Sister Teresia Joyce, who combines two vocations: consecrated life and legal defence. In ten years of service she has helped 350 people.

She alternates between her violet-coloured sari and black lawyer’s blazer. And her daily prayer is followed by skilful oratory in the courtroom. Sister Teresia Joyce is a nun from the congregation of St Anne's Sisters of Madras in southern India but she is also a criminal defence lawyer.

The United Arab Emirates has entered a new phase aimed at full achievement of “religious freedom” by enacting a new legislation that prohibits and criminalizes the defamation of religions and discourses that emit hatred everywhere, namely public forums, media outlets (particularly the electronic ones). This legislation was met with honorable worldwide acclamation. At the Arab level, it received low-level approval fearing that the “virus” would be transmitted to other countries.

The church and the religious structure as a whole dated back to the 5th century. The destructive rage of the Caliphate’s men is part of a wider strategy: the destruction of Christian symbols forms part of a sort of pornography of violence, which the world is subjected to. The demolition comes after the kidnapping of Fr. Mourad, the monastery’s prior last May.

“It is so obvious that the first victims of divorce are always the children,” notes the cardinal in his page-one interview. When the father and mother separate, “something is always broken in the life of the child.”

At today’s General Audience, on Wednesday, August 19, 2015, Pope Francis stressed that the responsibility of managing work cannot be left in the hands of the few or dumped on a deified market”.

Mark Riedemann has interviewed Jesuit Fr. Samir Khali about the increasing radicalization of Islam and the implications for Western policy.This interview was conducted for “Where God Weeps,” a weekly TV and radio show produced by Catholic Radio and Television Network in conjunction with the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. Following is the text of the interview

Q: Unfortunately we start to see an increasing radicalization in Islam. Why is this radicalization occurring and where is this leading us?