News

• 24 February 2015
  AFRICA/GUINEA – Drug to cure Ebola: positive effects on a few patients but research must continue Guéckédou (Agenzia Fides) – The first results of clinical tests with the experimental anti-viral drug Favipiravir to fight Ebola reveal that the drug can reduce mortality in patients with low levels of the virus in t ...
• 24 February 2015
  ASIA/PHILIPPINES - Bishops issue “Oratio imperata” for peace in Mindanao Manila (Agenzia Fides) – The Bishops of the Philippines have launched an Oratio Imperata for peace in Mindanao. Aware of the difficult moment the country is living following the massacre on 25 January in Mamasapano, o ...
• 24 February 2015
  AMERICA/BOLIVIA - Campaign to help children in Tipnis suffering from malnutrition and poverty Cochabamba (Agenzia Fides) – With the slogan "Bread shared for the life of the world", the Catholic Church in Cochabamba proposes to collect funds on the 5th Sunday of Lent, 22 March, to purchase medicines and food sup ...
• 24 February 2015
  AFRICA/CENTRAL AFRICA - “Our country can be compared to a desert, where we must combat the temptations of the devil” says Archbishop Nzapalainga Bangui (Agenzia Fides) - “The crisis which grips our country is a consequence of human weakness and human incapacity to open our hearts to the Lord’s multiple calls to conversion” Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga ...
• 24 February 2015
  ASIA/IRAQ – Courses to start soon at Erbil Catholic University Erbil (agenzia Fides) – The year 2015 is to be the year when the first courses start at the Catholic University in Erbil, a college strongly desired by the Chaldean Catholic Church also as a form of tangible assistanc ...
• 24 February 2015
  ASIA/INDONESIA – Lay volunteers experience Mission on the Island of Flores Maumere (Agenzia Fides) – From 13 January to 9 February “Volunteers of West Lessinia” lived an important experience of missionary work on the remote Island of Flores in Indonesia. “The charisma were many and dive ...
• 23 February 2015
  ASIA/AFGHANISTAN - Release of Indian Jesuit held hostage for eight months Kabul (Agenzia Fides) – Fr. Alexis Prem Kumar, Indian Jesuit taken hostage in Afghanistan (see Fides 3/6/2014), has been released after eight months in captivity : Fides was informed by the JRS , Jesuit Refugee Servic ...
• 23 February 2015
  AMERICA/CHILE - Rudimental bomb explodes near a parish in the capital Santiago (Agenzia Fides) – “We live in a democratic society, where every individual is free to express his or her own ideas, violence cannot be a valid path for Chileans”: says a statement issued by the archdioces ...
• 23 February 2015
  AMERICA/PUERTO RICO - Fishing competition for boys and girls with disabilities San Juan (Agenzia Fides) – Boys and girls with Down syndrome, autism or whose physical conditions confine them to a wheel chair, recently took part with their respective families, in the Fifth Children’s Fishing Comp ...
• 23 February 2015
  ASIA/LEBANON - Syrian-Catholic Patriarch opens centenary commemoration of the Assyrian genocide Beirut (Agenzia Fides) – Syrian-Catholic Patriarch Mar Ignace Youssef III opened commemorations to mark the centenary of the Assyrian Genocide, presiding in the evening of Saturday 21 February a liturgical celebration ...
• 23 February 2015
  AMERICA/PANAMA - “We must work for the poor”: Cardinal Lacunza says on the feast of Cristo de Atalaya Veraguas (Agenzia Fides) – In Panama, the first Sunday of Lent is marked as the feast of Cristo de Atalaya, and Bishop Audilio Aguilar of the diocese of Santiago de Veraguas invited the newly created Cardinal José Lui ...
• 23 February 2015
  ASIA/PAKISTAN - Robbery and kidnapping in a Catholic church Kasur (Agenzia Fides) – Three armed men openly entered Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic church in Bhai Pheru, Kasur district, in Punjab, taking church personnel including the assistant parish priest Fr. Ijaz Bashir a ...
• 23 February 2015
  AFRICA/EGYPT - Copt Church forms committee to evacuate Egyptians from Libya Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - A “crisis unit” has been instituted at the request of the Synod of the Copt Orthodox Church to collect data and information regarding all Egyptians still present in Libya, in order to facilita ...
• 23 February 2015
  AFRICA/DR CONGO - “Government must guarantee freedom of press”: appeal following closure of several broadcasters including Kinshasa’s Catholic TV Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - “Guarantee freedom of press on the eve of important electoral commitments”. This appeal was launched by the Congo National Press Association (Union Nationale de la Presse du Congo), in a s ...
• 23 February 2015
  AFRICA/CAMEROON - Cameroonian press questions French policy to fight Boko Haram Yaounde (Agenzia Fides) – The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius confirmed, during a visit 21 and 22 February to Chad, Cameroon and Niger, that France is ready to support African countries threatened by the Islam ...