From her home, Samia Ramsis holds a key chain bearing the face of the Virgin Mary as visitors outside come to look upon the spot where Egypt’s Coptic Christians believe Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus found refuge after fleeing Bethlehem.

Once crowded with Christians, Cairo’s Coptic quarter where she lives with her husband, Mounir, and two children is now home to fewer than 50 Christian families.

“We know many Christians have left,” said Mounir Ramsis, speaking not only about this quarter but about all of Egypt. “But we love this country and will stay until death.”

The Arab Spring uprisings that toppled secular dictatorships have unleashed long-suppressed freedoms that have allowed Islamic parties to gain a share of political power they have been denied for decades. Their rise is creating near-panic among ancient Christian communities that dot the Muslim world and predate Islam by centuries.

Christians in the Middle East, such as those who practice Coptic Christianity like the person pictured, are wary of the revolutions taking place in the region because of increased intolerance to their beliefs.

In Libya, Christians are uneasy as the powerful head of the Tripoli Military Council, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who once led an Islamic militia with links to al-Qaida, has said he plans to run for office in elections scheduled for April.

In Afghanistan, no new building permits have been issued for churches, and the last church open to the public was demolished over the summer. In Iraq, the Christian community has decreased by two-thirds since 2003 amid bombings of churches and assassinations of priests.

And Christians in Syria, where Muslims have risen up against President Bashar Assad, have been subjected to murder, rape and kidnappings in Damascus and rebellious towns, according to Christian rights groups, including Open Doors, which helps Christians facing persecution.

Many had hoped for better in an Arab movement that proponents said was about replacing tyrannies with democracies.

“The outlook is grim,” said John Eibner, CEO of the California-based human rights group Christian Solidarity International.

“If the current trajectory continues, it’s reasonable to think that within a generation these (Christian) communities will not look like functioning communities,” Eibner said. “They’ll look more like the once-flourishing Jewish communities” across the Arab world that are all but gone.

Nowhere is the irony more profound than in Egypt, where an estimated 8 million Christians live with more than 70 million Muslims.

Christians demonstrated alongside Muslims early last year to oust Hosni Mubarak. Before Mubarak’s overthrow, Christians had suffered from years of church burnings and murders at the hands of radical Muslims who want an Islamic state free of religious minorities. After the ouster, the military regime that has been running the country has refused to make any arrests in attacks on Christians.

Mina Bouls, 25, a Copt who fled to Philadelphia, recalls cowering with his mother in 1997 as a mob stoned the family home and chanted anti-Christian slogans. But the difference then was that Mubarak ordered the military to protect Christian communities and jailed extremists, Bouls said.

In October, Copts organized a protest in downtown Cairo over the authorities’ failure to investigate attacks, including the bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day 2011 that killed 20 people. The military attacked the demonstrators and 17 Christians were run down and killed by military vehicles, according to Human Rights Watch.

Bouls wants to bring his family to the U.S. because he says he is petrified by the new society forming in Egypt. The first free elections in decades held in the past two months handed power not to moderates but to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafi candidates, who combined took nearly 70 percent of seats.

“If people try to rule the country with the Quran, with Shariah law, that means they look to us as second-class people,” Bouls said.

Christianity has existed in Egypt since the second century. The Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that seeks a nation run according to Quranic law, has said Egypt would respect the rights of religious minorities.

The Salafis, Muslim fundamentalists who want a complete application of Shariah law that generally denies equal rights to women and religious minorities, also say Copts are safe in Egypt.

“Even if there are Salafi leaders who proclaim Copts to be heretics, this does not mean that (the Copts) must be subjected to any religious or (legal) sanctions,” said Emad Abdel-Ghafour, head of the al-Nour party that won 25 percent so far in parliamentary elections.

Abanob Magdi lives near Egypt’s largest pyramid and says he is not optimistic about what lies ahead.

“I saw on TV the other day a Salafi saying that if they get in power, beaches will be divided for men and women and women will have to be veiled,” Magdi said as he walked through Coptic Cairo with friends.

Christians account for 4 percent of the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Despite being the birthplace of Christianity, the region now has the fewest number of Christians (13 million) and the smallest share of its population that is Christian of any other major geographic region, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The future of minorities in the emerging democracies of the Middle East “is a huge issue most vividly seen in Egypt and the Copts,” said California Rep. Howard Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It’s on our agenda as we figure out how to help these countries,” and their treatment of Christians and other minorities is a “red line” that will affect future aid.

(Oren Dorell and Sarah Lynch write for USA Today.)

A 67-year-old woman with a criminal record for theft has been charged with siphoning $1 million in donations while working in a finance office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, church officials announced Monday (Jan. 30).

The archdiocese said it did not conduct a criminal background check when the employee, Anita Collins, was hired in 2003. Collins’ complex scheme drained money from an education fund at the same time the church was closing Catholic schools.

Church and law enforcement officials said that over seven years Collins sent fake invoices to the archdiocese, then issued some 450 checks to accounts she controlled, all in amounts just under the $2,500 threshold that would have required a supervisor’s approval.

Most of the money was apparently siphoned from the accounts payable system in the archdiocesan Department of Education Finance Office, according to a statement from archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling.

In a 2010 article in the archdiocese newspaper Catholic New York, Collins was lauded for volunteering at St. Patrick’s Cathedral when Archbishop Timothy Dolan presided over a Mass welcoming 600 people to Catholicism.

Collins was described as an “unassuming” person; in a 2010 article in the archdiocesan newspaper she said, “My faith has always been a steadfast part of my life.”

Most of the money Collins allegedly embezzled was spent on mortgage payments and on “a lifestyle that was not extravagant but was far beyond her lawful means,” Adam Kaufmann, the chief of investigations for the Manhattan District Attorney, told The New York Times.

Outside auditors implementing enhanced financial safeguards in late 2011 initially found $350,000 in missing funds, Zwilling said. After law enforcement officials were called in, the full extent of the theft was uncovered. Collins was confronted with the evidence and was fired on Dec. 6, 2011.

“Sadly, there will always be individuals who seek to exploit and circumvent whatever system is established, but we will remain vigilant in our oversight,” Zwilling said.

There have been a rash of large-scale embezzlement cases in the Catholic Church in recent years, ranging from lay people embezzling from dioceses to pastors pilfering from their parishes. Many of these cases occurred despite warnings to church officials in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandals that they needed to tighten financial oversight as well.

Collins had previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges in fraud schemes at other New York employers in 1986 and 1999. The archdiocese says it now conducts criminal background checks on all employees and is reviewing its financial oversight policies.

South Sudanese rebel militia loyal to the Sudanese government have kidnapped two Catholic priests in Rabak, Christian sources said.

A large truck smashed through the gates of the St. Josephine Bakhita’s Catholic Church compound in Rabak, 260 kilometers (162 miles) south of Khartoum, on Jan. 15 at 10 p.m., and the assailants broke down the rectory door, the sources said. The Rev. Joseph Makwey and the Rev. Sylvester Mogga were kidnapped at gunpoint.

Four days later, on Jan. 19, the kidnappers forced the two priests to call their bishop with a ransom demand of 500,000 Sudanese pounds (US$185,530), 250,000 Sudanese pounds each.

Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Adwok told Compass by phone that there was no direct communication between the bishop and the kidnappers, though the priests managed to convey that they were being mistreated.

“We are worried about the two priests,” he said. “They are not treating them well.”

The kidnappers have attempted no communication with church leaders since then, Adwok said. Neither Makwey, in his 40s, nor Mogga, in his mid-30s, are supporters of southern Sudan military forces in territorial conflict with Sudan over border areas, added.

Eyewitnesses told Compass that they saw the assailants severely beating the priests while abducting them. The kidnappers also looted the priests’ living quarters, stealing two vehicles, two laptops and a safe.

The incident caused panic and terror among Christians in Rabak, with church leaders saying they fear for their lives as they become targets of the Islamic government and its allied militias.

Sudan has seen a steep increase in persecution against Christians, according to an annual ranking by Christian support organization Open Doors. Sudan – where northern Christians experienced greater vulnerability after southern Sudan seceded in a July referendum, and where Christians were targeted amid isolated military conflicts – jumped 19 places last year from its 2010 ranking, from 35^th to 16^th, according to Open Doors’ 2012 World Watch List.

Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced. The government has never carried out a death sentence for apostasy, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan following the July 9, 2011 secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution holds up sharia (Islamic law) as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the state department report. Christian leaders said they fear the government is tightening controls on churches in Sudan and planning to force compliance with Islamic law as part of a strategy to eliminate Christianity.

As he has several times in the past year, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Jan. 3 once again warned that Sudan’s constitution will be more firmly entrenched in sharia.

“We are an Islamic nation with sharia as the basis of our constitution,” he told crowds in Kosti, south of Khartoum. “We will base our constitution on Islamic laws.”

His government subsequently issued a decree ordering church leaders to provide names and contact information of church leaders in Sudan, sources said. Christian leaders said the government is retaliating for churches’ perceived pro-West position.

Muslim scholars have urged heavy-handed measures against Christians to Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information, Christian sources said.

The warning in a Jan. 3 letter to church leaders of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) arrived a few days after Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told cheering crowds on Jan. 3 that, following the secession of largely non-Islamic south Sudan last July, the country’s constitution will be more deeply entrenched in sharia (Islamic law).

“We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities,” Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, wrote to the church leaders. “We have all legal rights to take them to court.”

Sources said the order was aimed at oppressing Christians amid growing hostilities toward Christianity.

“This is a critical situation faced by our church in Sudan,” said the Rev. Yousif Matar, secretary general of the SPEC.

Another church leader said the order was another in a series of measures by the government to control churches.

“They do not want pastors from South Sudan to carry on any church activities or mission work in Sudan,” he said.

Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced. The government has never carried out a death sentence for apostasy, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan following the July 9, 2011 secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution (INC) holds up sharia as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the state department report. Christian leaders said they fear the government is tightening controls on churches in Sudan and planning to force compliance with Islamic law as part of a strategy to eliminate Christianity.

As he has several times in the past year, Al-Bashir on Jan. 3 once again warned that Sudan’s constitution will be more firmly entrenched in sharia.

“We are an Islamic nation with sharia as the basis of our constitution,” he told crowds in Kosti, south of Khartoum. “We will base our constitution on Islamic laws.”

His government subsequently issued the decree ordering church leaders to provide names and contact information of church leaders in Sudan, sources said. Christian leaders said the government is retaliating for churches’ perceived pro-West position.

Muslim scholars have urged heavy-handed measures against Christians to Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Hostilities

Christians in (north) Sudan celebrated last Christmas amid several threats from officials in Khartoum, and some followers of Christ were arrested for their faith, sources said.

Yasir Musa of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) was arrested along with two other church members by national security agents in Khartoum on Dec. 23; they were detained because they were Christians and therefore suspected supporters of southern military forces. Released shortly afterward, they said authorities threatened to arrest them again if they did not comply with orders not to carry out Christian activities in the Islamic nation.

SCOC leaders said they have complained to the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments and were told that the three were arrested for security reasons.

In another case, sources said that Islamic militias loyal to the government in civilian uniform abducted a church leader and two church members as they were returning from a worship service and demanded $1,000 in ransom. They were released after two days, according to Christian sources in Khartoum.

Christians in Khartoum increasingly fear arrests by militias loyal to the Islamic government, the sources said.

Security agencies in Khartoum have also ordered local Christians not to organize Bible exhibitions, as some churches have done annually, the sources said.

The pressures on Christians come as war in Sudan’s South Kordofan state has led leaders there and in North Kordofan to incite hatred against Christians, with officials in both states calling for holy war against the predominantly Christian Nuba people.

Oklahoma’s referendum against state judges considering Islamic law is unconstitutional, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday (Jan. 10), upholding a lower court ruling that had blocked the measure.

The ruling could affect more than 20 other states where laws against Shariah are under consideration.

In a 37-page ruling, the 10th Circuit’s three-judge panel dismissed assertions by lawyers for Oklahoma that the law did not discriminate against Muslims.

“That argument conflicts with the amendment’s plain language, which mentions Shariah law in two places,” wrote 10th Circuit Judge Scott Matheson.

The Denver-based judges said that courts should be wary of meddling in voter referendums, but that minorities’ constitutional rights must be protected.

Some 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved the referendum in November, 2010. Muneer Awad, head of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, sued to block the measure, saying it discriminates against Islam and violates church-state separation.

“This is an important reminder that the Constitution is the last line of defense against a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry in our society,” Awad said in a statement, according to The Denver Post.

Last year, a U.S. District Court Judge in Oklahoma City also found the ban unconstitutional, and issued a temporary injunction preventing it from taking effect.

The case now returns to the district court in Oklahoma, which is expected to issue a permanent injunction against the law.

If Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt decides to appeal that case, it would return to the appeals court, and could eventually be heard by the Supreme Court.

A teaching hospital will hire additional staff to help perform abortions after a group of nurses claimed they were forced to participate in the procedures despite religious objections.

“No nurse is compelled to have direct involvement in a procedure to which she or he objects based on his/her cultural values, ethics and/or religious beliefs,” Jeffrey Tolvin, a spokesman for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey said in a statement on Friday (Dec. 2).

“At the same time, we needed to find a solution that is in the best interest of the patients we serve. We are therefore hiring additional staff who will provide care to our full complement of patients.”

In November, 12 nurses at UMDNJ filed suit, saying the hospital was forcing them to assist in the operations despite declared religious objections.

Aside from aiding doctors in the procedures, the nurses argued that post-operative patient care and administrative duties surrounding the procedures constituted involvement.

If upheld in court, the nurses’ claims could mean UMDNJ violated federal law, which bars institutions receiving federal dollars from forcing their staff members to assist in abortions.

“The university is in full compliance with all applicable state and federal laws,” the school said when the nurses brought suit. “Its position will be vindicated when the court gives this matter a full hearing.”

A hearing in federal district court was scheduled for Monday (Dec. 5). The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the nurses, said only a court-approved agreement would mean the school “might finally be interested in following the law.”

The standoff between the White House and the nation’s Catholic bishops over gay marriage and other hot-button issues may be easing after a quiet Oval Office meeting between President Obama and the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Still, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and other prelates made it clear at their annual meeting on Monday (Nov. 14) that they still see an array of threats that pose an imminent danger to the church’s freedom unless sufficient religious exemptions are granted.

Dolan, president of the bishops’ conference, described his Nov. 8 meeting with Obama — first reported on Saturday by the National Catholic Reporter — as “extraordinarily friendly.”

“It was very candid. I would say there were areas of agreement and disagreement,” Dolan told reporters at the bishops’ gathering.

“But I would say this: that I found the president of the United States to be very open to the sensitivities of the Catholic community that were worried about an intrusion into religious liberty.”

Dolan said Obama was “very sensitive” to the bishops’ concerns over gay marriage and insurance mandates to provide artificial birth control coverage as part of the new health care reform law.

“He was very ardent in his desire to assure me that this is something he will look long and hard at. And I left there feeling a bit more at peace about this issue than when I entered.”

That sentiment, coming after Dolan’s first face-to-face meeting with Obama since he was elected to lead the bishops last year, marks a sea change from tense relations between the U.S. hierarchy and the administration.

Beyond the administration’s decision not to enforce a federal ban against gay marriage, the bishops are worried that state efforts to legalize gay marriage or allow civil unions will force them to choose between the law and their moral beliefs.

That conflict grew deeper in August when the Department of Health and Human Services announced regulations that would require all health insurance policies to provide contraception at no extra cost. Catholic bishops and others say an exemption for religious groups is so narrow as to be meaningless.

The bishops say the decisions represent a pervasive hostility to religious groups, and they’ve established a new Committee for Religious Liberty to defend the church’s interests in Washington.

The policy jousting has been matched by escalating rhetorical broadsides from the bishops. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Dolan’s immediate predecessor as head of the bishops’ conference, has called Obama’s White House “the most secularist administration in history.”

Last week, Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley of Denver told an anti-abortion group in Dallas that he believes the U.S. “is becoming what I would call an ‘atheocracy’ — a society that is actively hostile to religious faith and religious believers.”

The fight over religious freedom is a central theme of the bishops’ fall meeting. On Monday, Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., head of the new religious liberty committee, told the bishops that “both law and culture are indeed establishing un-religion as the religion of the land.”

“This and more have led to dramatic and immediate threats to religious liberty across our land,” Lori warned.

But Lori and Dolan both pointed out that they believe the church is facing strong cultural headwinds, not just a hostile administration.

“We see in our culture a drive to neuter religion,” Dolan said, warning of a campaign backed by “well-financed, well-oiled sectors, to push religion back into the sacristy.”

And, referring to the church’s own flock, he added, “We have to realize that a whole chunk of our people are not with us.”

In his opening speech Monday, Dolan issued a “mea culpa” of sorts for the church’s own contribution to their recent decline.

“With contrition and deep regret, we acknowledge that the members of the church — starting with us — are sinners, indeed,” Dolan told the 300 bishops. “One thing both sides of the Catholic ideological spectrum at last agree upon is the answer to this question: just who is to blame for people getting mad at or leaving the church?”

“Their unanimous answer?” He looked out at the gathering and spread his arms with a smile, saying, “Nice to meet you!”

Sherwood Pictures, the studio that also brought  Fireproof and Facing the Giants to the big screen, is challenging people to do more than they thought they could with its new movie, Courageous.

Written and directed by Stephen and  Alex Kendrick, the film revolves around four law enforcement officers who are used to going through danger almost every day of their working lives.

Each of these officers has his own “family” issues at home. Adam Mitchell (Alex Kendrick) has an estranged teenage son, but loves his young daughter whole-heartedly.

Nathan Hayes (Ken Bevel) would do anything to protect his own children, even if it means giving his own life. Unfortunately, his teenage daughter pretty much loathes him with all her heart because of his unbelievable rules for dating.

Javier Martinez (Robert Amaya) has an intact family, but financial problems cause problems at home.

David Thomson (Ben Davies), got a girl pregnant back in college and wanted to have the child aborted. The girl refused and ended up being a single mother. Then there’s Shane Fuller (Kevin Downes), who is divorced, just like his own parents.

The life-changing tragedy at the center of the film takes place when Mitchell loses his beloved daughter in an accident. Desperate and guilty at the same time, he goes through the Bible and ends up with a new resolution for his life – he will honor the Lord through his family, by being a better father to his teenage son.

Upon this inspiring desire to change, Hayes, Martinez, Thomson and Fuller start to mend their broken relationships with their families as well.

What I  admire about this movie is that it does not encourage men to be “macho” or “men’s men”– The courageous aspect in the film is not about physical strength, but inner strength. It’s already pretty obvious that these four men are physically strong – they’re law enforcement officers, but being physically strong on the outside does not equal having inner strength or being a better person, father, family man or anything like that.

Though there are a few violent scenes in the movie, as a whole, it is still a good movie for the whole family to watch. It is also definitely a movie that you can suggest to a non-Christian friend who seems to be going through some struggles with his or her family. It is touching, emotional, heart-warming and even funny in some scenes.

The Pakistani judge who imposed a death sentence on the assassin of Punjab governor Salman Taseer has gone underground due to threats from Islamic fundamentalists, Pakistani church officials have confirmed.

“It is true that the judge has vanished. Nobody knows where is now,” Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP), told ENInews on Oct. 14 from his office in Lahore.

Justice Syed Pervez Ali Shah of the Anti Terrorism court had sentenced to death on Oct. 1 policeman Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri for shooting Taseer on Jan. 4. The governor had criticized a Pakistani blasphemy law that makes it a crime to insult Islam.

With Islamic groups continuing protests against the verdict, Shah has not been seen in his Rawalpindi office since Oct. 4, according to Malik Khalid Jawad, president of the bar association.

Michele Chaudhry, a Catholic and spokesperson of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), also confirmed to ENInews that the judge Shah has gone “on long leave without any clue to his whereabouts,” adding “this is the danger faced by anyone who is seen as opposing the blasphemy law.”

Azariah said that Islamic groups are still continuing the protests against the death sentence to Qadri with demonstrations being held across Pakistan on Oct. 14.

Meanwhile the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), visited Pakistan from Oct. 8-10 and called for protection of religious minorities and the need for measures against religious intolerance.

“The Pakistani government should not turn a blind eye to the culture of violence perpetrated through the use and abuse of the blasphemy law, which intensify communal hatred, intolerance and persecution … particularly of religious minorities,” Tveit said.