1. In Pakistan, healing for victims of abduction and forced marriage
The number of cases of forced conversion is increasing at a dangerous pace in Pakistan. In a report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in July, the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice reported 78 incidents of forced conversion in 2021. A substantially greater number of cases is never made public, and hence goes unreported.
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One case involves the Christian girl Mehwish Bibi, who was rescued from her abductor, a Muslim neighbor who forcibly converted her to Islam and married her. Bibi has come a long way since October 2021, when a court granted her a divorce from Muhammad Imran, a man in his forties, on grounds of his “harsh and cruel behavior.”
The nightmare of the months spent in captivity still haunts this 14-year-old daughter of a poor Christian couple from Sheikhupura, some 20 miles from Punjab’s provincial capital of Lahore. The father is a laborer, and the mother works as a housemaid. Due to her mother’s poor health, Bibi herself had begun to work as a child maid earning 2,000 rupees, about US$9, per month.
Her parents sought help from Christians’ True Spirit (CTS), an organization based in Lahore, which filed for the dissolution of Bibi’s marriage in family court. Bibi has been living at the CTS shelter for nearly a year. Located in a busy bazaar, the two-story building houses eight rescued girls and women between the ages of 13 and 60. Though she is now safe, she is often troubled by nightmares.
2. Africa’s Leaders Gather in D.C. as religious oersecution in Nigeria is still being ignored
3. Bombs found, defused at churches in the Philippines
4. At ‘Church City,’ a taste of Catholic life in Qatar
The church sits in a “religious complex” housing other Christian denominations. Its building looks non-descript from the outside, with no crosses on its exterior. Sunday Mass is celebrated also on Fridays and Saturdays, the weekend days in the conservative Muslim country.
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The complex known as “Church City,” located on government-owned land, provides worship space for Christian denominations, “with clear government instructions that Christian symbols such as crosses, steeples, and statues were not permitted on the exterior of church buildings,” the report said. Gonzaga said having no crosses outside was out of “respect” for the country and its people.
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Another priest, the Rev. Albert, said there are some differences in marking Christmas here from what he was used to in India.
“There, we can go for carol singing on the streets and we can go door-to-door and we can express our joy,” he said. “But, here, it’s not possible. … We respect the feeling of other religion(s).”
Carol singing and other festivities take place within the complex, he added.
5. Radio Free Liberty: Iran Publishes ‘Confessions’ Of Protesters, Fears Rise Of Heavy Sentences For Athletes
6. Nigerian chess prodigy, 12, granted asylum in the United States
7. Los Angeles Times: Americans still support asylum for immigrants fleeing persecution, poll finds
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9. Alexander Raikin in New Atlantis: No other options: Newly revealed documents depict a Canadian euthanasia regime that efficiently ushers the vulnerable to a “beautiful” death.
in internal meetings, those close to the system have long talked openly about red flags that many people are choosing euthanasia because they’re not getting the “supports and cares” they need. The physicians in charge of the process not only know that this is happening, but they have discussed it in seminars, collected evidence, and then kept it quiet in public.
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11. Toledo city council wants $100K in COVID funds for out-of-state abortions
12. Leor Sapir: The placebo is the point
A new paper highlights the fundamental bias in the world of “gender-affirming” research.
13. American Girl betrays American girls
“American Girl, the company known for wholesome dolls representing American history, has clambered aboard the gender bandwagon,” said Ruth Institute President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
“Parents are reasonably outraged by the company’s new book, A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image, which pushes transgenderism. It’s a betrayal,” she said.
The 96-page book tells children the gender they were born with might not be their “gender identity,” which they need to explore.
Morse remarked: “The company says the target audience for this propaganda is girls 8 to 11. Really, how many 8-year-olds think about changing their gender, unless the idea is put in their heads by an adult?”
The book advises: “Parts of your body may make you feel uncomfortable, and you may want to change the way you look… That’s totally OK!”
“The book tells girls that if they’re not comfortable with the way they look, they can dress and act like a boy, change their names, and demand that they be addressed by different pronouns,” Morse said.
The book also advises: “If you haven’t gone through puberty yet, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body’s changes, giving you more time to think about your gender identity.”
“They’re setting up children for puberty-blocking drugs and eventually surgery to alter their appearance,” Morse said. “In reality, the gender you’re born with is the one you’ll have until the day you die. So-called gender identity is an ideological construct.”
14: Naomi Schaefer Riley: Parents are responsible for their children’s screen use, not the government
“Utterly powerless.” That’s how actress Kate Winslet says parents feel about their children’s social media use.
In an interview before the premiere of her film “I Am Ruth” (which is about a girl who suffers a mental breakdown because of the messages she is getting online), Winslet says she wants the government to get more involved in regulating social media for children.
Winslet is correct, of course, that the experience some kids are having on their phones can be deeply disturbing and even life-altering, but she’s wrong that parents are powerless.
The movie, which also stars Winslet’s real-life daughter, is centered on the single mother of a 17-year-old who is becoming more and more withdrawn.
But that 17-year-old was once a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old, and the question is what was going on before. How did the girl become so dependent on that small screen in her hand? Was anyone restricting her use of that phone? Or teaching her the importance of putting it down occasionally?
Even if the government did more to regulate social media for children, it’s not clear what effect that would have on someone who is almost an adult. The burden here is on parents.
Winslet notes that “we don’t know really what’s going on in their friendship groups anymore because so much of it is actually built on phones, inside phones.” But that in and of itself is a problem that parents let fester.
15. Stephen P. White: On Fatherhood and healthy masculinity
healthy masculinity is just what happens when a man lives virtuously. That’s it. A virtuous man, by the fact of being virtuous, lives his masculinity in a healthy way. (I mean, it’s right there in the root of the word “virtue,” from the Latin virtus, which refers to those qualities proper to a vir, a man.)
16. Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon’s death row
17. Babylon Bee: Canadian Dentist Now Offering Euthanasia As Alternative To Cavity Filling
18. Tevi Troy: Conservatives we lost in 2022 — Terry Teachout, P.J. Rourke, Lucianne Goldberg, among others.
20. Fr. Roger J. Landry: The Greater Testimony to which John the Baptist’s work and witness point
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