Catholic bishop of Hyderabad, Bishop Samson Shukardin, said other faith minorities were using different names too, to prevent them from being subjected to abuse.

He told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need: “Many minorities give their children Islamic names so they will not be singled out as Christians and become potential targets for discrimination.

“In many cases, minority students do suffer abuse in public schools.”

Bishop Shukardin explained that the textbooks in state-run schools were a problem, saying: “The minorities are considered infidels and they are depicted negatively in textbooks, which promote prejudices against minorities.

“The fundamentalists believe that Islam is the only complete religion – that salvation is only found in the Qur’an as the last holy book.”

Kidnappings and forced marriages are also common in rural areas where people have little education.

Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore archdiocese and Bishop Shukardin stressed the importance of education to limit kidnappings and to provide Church-run schools and colleges in Pakistan.

Bishop Shukardin said: “We also need resources to help needy families send their children to college, which many cannot afford to do – let along enabling them to pursue advanced degrees.

“Education is key for every nation trying to transform society.”

One of the fears many Islamic extremists have in Pakistan is…

Francis celebrated an opening Mass in St Peter’s Basilica with global attention newly focused on the wildfires that are devouring the Amazon rainforest, which scientists say is a crucial bulwark against global warming.

On hand for the service were indigenous people, some with their faces painted and wearing feathered headdresses, as well as more than 180 cardinals, bishops and priests, who donned green vestments like the Pope.

They travelled to Rome from the region for three weeks of debate at a special synod which has become one of the most controversial of Francis’s papacy.

Among the most contentious proposals on the agenda is whether married elders could be ordained priests to address the chronic priest shortages in the region. Currently indigenous Catholics in remote parts of the Amazon can go months without seeing a priest or having a proper Mass.

Another proposal calls for the Catholic Church to identify new “official ministries” for women, though organisers have made it clear that priestly ordination is off the table.

Francis’s conservative critics, including a handful of cardinals, have called the proposals “heretical” and an invitation to a “pagan” religion that idolises nature rather than God.

They have mounted an opposition campaign, issuing petitions and holding conferences to raise their voices.

In many ways, Francis opened the synod last year, when he…

‘You Say’, written by Daigle, Paul Mabury and Jason Ingramon, is on her third album ‘Look Up Child’ and was released in July 2018.

It peaked at 29 in the secular listings, the Billbaord Hot 100, and has been no.1 in the Christian song chart for over a year, having gone to no. 33 in the first week and jumped up to no.1 the next week. 

The previous record was held by Hillsong song ‘Oceans (Where Feet May Fall)’, which was at no.1 for 61 weeks.

Daigle told Billboard: “I really pondered the journey of the song ‘Oceans,’ and I remember seeing the impact that song made on so many people. It was just so beautiful to me,”

“I hoped that I could be a part of something that shakes the earth like that song. I didn’t know that would ever happen and I had no idea that ‘You Say’ would be something that would parallel the life of ‘Oceans.'”

Daigle won a Grammy for ‘You Say’ this year, winning the award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song 2019.

In the UK official downloads chart it also reached no. 21.

Daigle started in Christian music and has appealed to a wider audience with her latest album.

American singer and actress Selena Gomez recently posted a video of Daigle’s concert on instagram, saying: “This girl is a ball of sun. She has an anointing that bursts out ferociously in her voice, words, and music. You and your music are a blessing”

 

 

Stay up to date with the…

Police were called to St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Fort Dodge, a city in Iowa, at 5:45pm on Wednesday.

Allen Henderson, the senior pastor, 64, was unresponsive and medics began trying life-saving medical treatment before he was transported to Unity Point Trinity Regional Medical Centre.

He was later pronounced dead with injuries that seemed to have resulted from assault.

A 36 year old man from Fort Dodge was then taken into custody accused of murder and robbery.

Fort Dodge Police are investigating the death of Pastor Allen Henderson at St. Paul Lutheran’s Church. Police arrested a suspect Wednesday evening and have charged him with 1st Degree Murder and 1st Degree Robbery. Hear from Capt. Ryan Gruenberg with FDPD. pic.twitter.com/zK9shss1Mg

— We Are Iowa Local 5 (@weareiowa5news) October 3, 2019

The mayor of the city has asked residents to fly flags at half-mast, saying: “Pastor Henderson was a faithful servant of the Lord and to his community, including his congregation at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Dodge, Iowa and in his capacity as the Chaplain for the Webster County Sheriff’s Office, the Fort Dodge Police Department, the Fort Dodge Fire Department and several other public safety and first responder agencies.

“Pastor Henderson’s creation of and dedication to Serving Our Servants, or S.O.S., a program providing emotional, spiritual and material…

The caser received international attention when Botham’s brother told the police officer that God would forgive her if she was truly sorry and gave her a hug. 

Prosecutors had asked jurors to sentence Amber Guyger to 28 years, which was how old her neighbour Botham Jean would have been if he was still alive.

Guyger said she mistook Mr Jean’s apartment for her own and fatally shot him in his living room in September 2018.

One of the two jurors – a white man who was not named by ABC News – said the jury was moved by testimony from Mr Jean’s family and friends, who described his deep faith and caring nature.

“We all agree that (the shooting) was a mistake, and I don’t think Bo would want to take harsh vengeance,” the juror said, referring to Jean by his nickname.

“I think he would want to forgive her.”

After convicting Guyger of murder, the jury could have sentenced her to anywhere from two years to life in prison.

When the jury’s 10-year sentence was handed down on Wednesday, a crowd outside the courtroom reacted angrily, believing it was too short.

A black woman on the jury told ABC News that her reaction when hearing prosecutors’ sentencing request was “I can’t give her 28 years”.

“I know a lot of people are not happy about the 10 years,” she said. “But I felt like… this case was not like any other case.”

She drew distinctions between the death of Mr Jean and those…

The former footballer, who became a Christian at 18, is now a pastor at Calvary Grace Church in Calgary in Canada, having been to seminary in Alberta after studying tehology at Ridley Hall in Cambridge.

He wrote a book in 2006 about complimentarian views on gender called The Grand Design and is now releasing guides to the three difficult topics for Christians.

They will be short books of about 100 pages, co-authored with Dr. Owen Strachan, who also co-authored Peacock’s previous book.

Mr Peacock told Premier he was just highlighting what the Bible says: “It’s giving clarity because you find clarity in the scriptures and the scriptures have to be our foundation.

“We root our understanding in our creation identity, created male and female, and if you go back to the book of Genesis in the first two chapters, it’s very clearly laid out that we were created male and female in the image of God and that marriage is between one man and one woman in covenant for a lifetime and that sexual union is to take place within the covenant of marriage alone.

“If you stick to that, then all kinds of lust, heterosexual or homosexual, is sin if it’s outside of marriage, of course it is sin. Heterosexual relationship in marriage is good, homosexual relationship is not good, it is sinful and transgenderism is another step further away from a departure from the binary sexes created in…

A silence will be held to mark the time of the accident at the crash memorial site high above the railway line at Ladbroke Grove in west London on Saturday.

It will be followed by a service at St Helen’s Church in North Kensington, where 31 candles – each bearing the name of one of the deceased – will be lit alongside a 32nd candle for all the survivors.

Just before 8.10am on October 5 1999, a rush-hour train collided almost head on with a London-bound high-speed train which was heading for Paddington station.

The Thames Trains driver, Michael Hodder, 31, and the First Great Western (FGW) driver, Brian Cooper, 52, were among those killed as the collision led to a fireball in which coach H was burnt out.

As well as the fatalities, more than 220 other people were injured, including Paddington Survivors Group chairman Jonathan Duckworth, now 61, from Stroud in Gloucestershire.

Travelling on the FGW train, Mr Duckworth said he was left “battered and bruised” after being thrown around the carriage during the crash, and later he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The former shopping centre manager told the PA news agency that the crash had changed the lives of so many people caught up in the disaster and its aftermath.

He added: “It is a desperately sad day for the bereaved because it is such an unnecessary day – the crash should not have happened.

“There…