World Religions News

ISTANBUL (RNS) — After a 12-day war between Israel and Iran and a persisting ceasefire, more than 700 people have been arrested in Iran on accusations of spying for Israel, Iranian state media reported. Watchdog groups such as the Iran Human Rights nongovernmental organization have estimated the number is closer to 900. 

Among those detained are Jewish and Baha’i leaders in Iran, including rabbis and community leaders. According to Human Rights Activists News Agency, a watchdog group focused on Iran, at least 35 Jews from Tehran and Shiraz have been interrogated by security forces since June 23. At least three Baha’is have also been arrested or disappeared since the war began, and nearly 20 Baha’i homes were raided by authorities, according to Iran Press Watch, an NGO that documents the rights of the Baha’i community in Iran. 

Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, the sole Jewish member of Iran’s Parliament, denied the Jews detained were charged with spying for Israel. Instead, he said they were arrested for “unlicensed family celebrations” and were to be released. 

However, the arrests come in the wake of a new law quickly pushed through the Iranian Parliament last week, which classifies cooperation with hostile states such as Israel and the United States as “efsad-fil-arz” or “corrupting on the earth,” leaving those convicted eligible for the death penalty. At least six people have already been executed by hanging since the June 24 ceasefire. 

“The new parliamentary bill and widespread arrests under the pretext of espionage are part of efforts to intensify the repressive atmosphere in society to prevent protests,” Iran Human Rights director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement. “Islamic Republic authorities know that the real threat to the regime’s survival is not Israeli spies, but the discontented Iranian citizens who reject an incompetent, corrupt and repressive government.”

Iran is believed to have a Jewish population of about 10,000, making it the largest Jewish center in the Middle East after Israel. Centered mostly in Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, the community maintains over 100 synagogues, dozens of kosher restaurants and several Jewish schools — frequently pointed to by the ayatollah’s regime to stress the state’s conflict is with the Israeli state, not Jews or Judaism. However, the Jewish population is a fraction of the nearly 100,000 Jews who lived in the country before the 1979 revolution, when it became an Islamic republic. Jews also have a history in Iran stretching back to biblical times.

Among the Iranian-Jewish diaspora, which has large communities in both the U.S. and Israel, experiences with antisemitism and antisemitic violence are a common part in many stories of emigration from Iran. 

“The unfortunate reality for Iranian Jewry is that, on the surface, all appears well,” Rabbi Isaac Choua, a scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world and a former liaison to Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities for the World Jewish Congress, told RNS. “However, the diaspora community — based in Israel, the U.S., Europe and beyond — tells a different story. Even in conversations with family still in Iran, certain topics remain off limits.”

Iranian law is heavily based in Islamic jurisprudence and frequently distinguishes between Muslims, the recognized religious majority in the country, and unrecognized minorities such as the Baha’i. Many have argued that this dynamic has led to discrimination against Iran’s Jews, and ultimately, the execution of a Jewish man this past fall. 

Expressing loyalty to Iran, Sameyah urged Jewish community members to avoid any form of private or public celebration, such as weddings and b’nai mitzvahs, in the immediate aftermath of the war.

“We are Iranians before we are Jews, and our Iranianness is more important than our Jewishness,” he told Iranian media last week.

“ … In these sensitive times, refrain from holding any kind of celebration, even in private homes or kindergartens,” he wrote, according to Israeli media. “I strongly advise you to take this final warning very seriously. We must not forget that any one of us — or our loved ones — could have been targeted.”

Sameyah also told Iranian media that in the nearly 50 years since the Islamic revolution, no member of the Jewish community had been arrested on espionage charges.

“Since the beginning of the revolution, not a single person from the Iranian Jewish community has been arrested for spying for any foreign country,” he said. “Since the beginning of the revolution, the position of the Jewish community has been to condemn the crimes of the Zionist regime.”

However, he ignored the 1999 arrest and imprisonment of 13 Jews in Shiraz, including a rabbi, Hebrew school teachers and a kosher butcher, on accusations of espionage.

Sameyah went on to equate Zionism’s relationship to Judaism with that of the Taliban or the Islamic State group to Islam. 

Citing sources close to the Jewish community in Iran, Israeli media reported that those arrested were detained over interactions with family in Israel and online activities. Religious members of the Iranian Jewish diaspora have called for a prayer campaign on their behalf.

“We call on all Jews around the world to pray for our brothers and sisters in Iran,” read a message relayed by the Israeli ultra-Orthodox outlet Behadrei Haredim. “In the midst of the arrests, the Jewish community there needs much mercy from God.

“The detainees are being held in difficult conditions, completely cut off from their families, and are not allowed to make contact,” Iranian Jews reportedly told the outlet. 

Iranian Jews aren’t the only minority group feeling the pressure. Another human rights group, Hengaw, reported last week that in Isfahan, neighbors and acquaintances of Baha’is were facing pressure to launch legal complaints against them — a tactic that Iran security forces began in 2023. 

Unlike Iranian Jews, who have some official status under Iranian law, Baha’is — whose religion was founded in Iran in the 19th century — have no such protections. The community’s leadership has consistently been the target of repression, with successive Baha’i national council members arrested, executed or exiled. 

Last year, Human Rights Watch released a report on the state of the Baha’i community in Iran, declaring the religious group’s repression and persecution a crime against humanity.

“The Islamic Republic’s repression of Baha’is, particularly after 1979, is enshrined in Iranian law and is official government policy. The country’s repressive laws and policies are zealously enforced by the country’s notorious security forces and judicial authorities,” the HRW report stated. “Human Rights Watch believes that the cumulative impact of authorities’ decades-long systematic repression is an intentional and severe deprivation of Baha’is’ fundamental rights and amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution.”

Lectures from Oxford by the late Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, has received the Catholic Media Association Book Awards’ first place in the “Religious Book Series” category.

Fairfax, Va. – Eastern Christian Publications is honored to announce that its acclaimed series, Lectures from Oxford by the late Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, has received the Catholic Media Association Book Awards’ First Place in the “Religious Book Series” category.

This momentous recognition celebrates a landmark contribution to contemporary Eastern Christian thought—an extraordinary series of lectures that, until now, were only heard by Oxford theological students. Thanks to Jack Figel’s (ECP Publisher) exclusive video recording and transcriptions, Lectures from Oxford now takes that rich academic and spiritual experience beyond the university walls. With profound insight into Patristics, Theology, Ecumenism, Liturgy, Spirituality, and Church History, this series invites readers into the depth and warmth of the Eastern Christian tradition—just as if they were students in one of his unforgettable Oxford classes.

“Kallistos had a natural gift of weaving together the writing of many sources into a single tapestry and was both engaging and educational,” according to the Preface of Volume II: Theology by John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and close personal advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Presented in a beautifully produced, multi-volume set with photos, the series captures the warmth, wit, and profound wisdom that made Metropolitan Kallistos a delight in the classroom and a bridge-builder between East and West, tradition and modernity. These lectures serve as an essential resource for clergy, catechists, seminarians, scholars, and all Christians eager to deepen their understanding of the riches of the Eastern tradition.

In the same spirit of theological depth and liturgical insight, Eastern Christian Publications has also released Lectures from Rome—an extraordinary archive of 3 complete books and 30 transcribed video lectures by the legendary liturgist Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, recorded over the last two decades. It also includes 15 transcribed plenary sessions delivered by him at Orientale Lumen Conferences around the world. The collection contains ecumenical Forewords by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches. This powerful companion series illuminates the living tradition of Byzantine worship through the lens of one of the most respected voices in modern liturgical scholarship. 

Don’t miss this opportunity to own two historic collections of Eastern Christian thought—recognized and revered by both East and West.

Click here to order your copy of Lectures from Oxford by Metropolitan Kallistos now.

Click here to order your copy of Lectures from Rome by Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ.

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Contact:
Jack Figel
Eastern Christian Publications
(703) 691-8862
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RNS or Religion News Foundation.

Ultimately, Cloobeck is positioning himself as someone who won’t take criticism personally, but also isn’t afraid to call out problems when he sees them.

The post ‘Facing Hard Truths’ — Stephen Cloobeck Shares Plan to Become California’s Next Governor in New Book appeared first on Jewish Journal.

(RNS) — In the heart of Mormon Utah, a Hare Krishna temple has stood as a beloved cultural landmark for more than three decades. Tens of thousands of locals flock to the ISKCON Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork each spring for its annual Holi color festival, and children from diverse backgrounds enjoy field trips to the 15-acre property — which includes an AM radio station and an animal park with llamas, cows, peacocks and parrots — throughout the year.

“We’re trying to do good and enrich the community pretty much 24 hours a day,” said Caru Das Adhikari, the temple’s founder and head priest, who once distributed copies of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, in the 1970s on the campus of Brigham Young University, the flagship university of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

But over the past month, three attacks on the temple’s building have left Utah’s Hare Krishna devotees concerned about the presence of hatred amid their otherwise peaceful coexistence.

On June 18, Adhikari’s wife and temple co-founder, Vaibhavi Warden, heard a loud noise and observed smoke coming from the temple’s radio station roof. The next day, several bullet holes were discovered on various parts of the temple’s main structure, including on its hand-carved arches and through a second-story window that opens into the main worship hall.

More gunfire followed later that night, and again on June 20, based on security footage reviewed by temple staff. No one was injured in the attacks.

About 20 shell casings were recovered by Utah County police, who said in a statement that the shots were likely fired from over 100 yards away. Surveillance video from the three days captured a pickup truck approaching the temple grounds, stopping near its fence and someone opening fire from the vehicle before speeding away.

Though the assailants were not able to get through the temple’s electronic gate and onto the property itself, Adhikari said, “God knows what they would have done if they had been able to do that.”

Repairs are estimated to be in the thousands of dollars, he said, and if the main dome was punctured, there is a chance the whole building could experience water pipe damage.

“I’m a missionary, you know. I’ve been at this for 54 years, so nothing really surprises me or deters me,” he said. “But there’s such an atmosphere of hatred in the country now. Ignorance is more prized than knowledge and discretion.”

For years, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have established a positive relationship in the state, with members of both faiths participating freely in each other’s religious celebrations. ISKCON devotees, who worship Lord Krishna as the Supreme God, are known throughout the world for their energetic kirtans, or chants, vegetarian food distribution programs and eco-friendly initiatives.

Yet a few “nasty Facebook comments” here and there have indicated to Adhikari that there’s a “corps of people who would rather we not be here,” adding that he believes it is “not religious or church people” who carried out the attack.

Adhikari said he hopes the perpetrators will be found and charged with a hate crime or domestic terrorism.

The Utah County Sheriff’s Department said it has not ruled out the possibility of the attack being motivated by hate and is asking the public to come forward with any information. 

“I don’t think it is vandalism, and I also don’t think it’s just random teenagers, because they came back on two successive nights,” Adhikari said. “I think it’s something more sinister. To call it vandalism is a disservice.”

After the incidents, temple leaders have added new lighting, security cameras, taller fencing and overnight patrols. Hindu temples across the country have similarly ramped up security measures due to an influx of vandalism incidents over last year, heightening the minority community’s concerns about anti-Hindu violence in the United States.

“The atmosphere in the country is not a healthy one,” Adhikari said. “Life is about rising up to the next level, not sinking down to the lowest. It may take a little effort, little culture, a little humility. But with portions of each of those, you can enrich and improve your life rather than slip into degradation.”

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Warning of “irreversible impacts” if the world stays on its current course, three influential cardinals from the Global South presented a document at the Vatican on Tuesday (July 1) calling for bold international action on climate change ahead of COP30, the 30th United Nations summit, scheduled for November in Brazil.

“Our message today is not diplomatic — it is pastoral,” said Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, archbishop of Goa, India, and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, who was one of the presenters. “It is a call to conscience in the face of a system that threatens to devour creation.”

The other prelates at Tuesday’s event were Cardinal Jaime Spengler, archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and president of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference, and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, and president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.

The document, “A call for Climate Justice and the Common Home: Ecological Conversion, Transformation and Resistance to False Solutions,” was written by bishops, activists and climate experts from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and addressed to all world leaders. It marks the 10th anniversary of both Pope Francis’ “green” encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” and the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change by 195 nations.

Its release suggests that Pope Leo XIV, who approved the document and met with its authors, signals his intent to carry forward his predecessor’s legacy on the environment.

The document calls the climate crisis “an existential issue of justice, dignity, and care for our common home” and lays out the Global South’s demands for equity, justice and protection of the most vulnerable.

“There is no climate justice without ecological conversion,” said Spengler. “We need to move from consumption to sacrifice, from greed to generosity, from waste to sharing — from ‘I want’ to what God’s world needs.”

The churches of the Global South pledged to educate Catholics on the environment and cooperate with nations at the local and international levels, but called for the creation of a “historic coalition” between the Global South and North to address debt and promote justice.

“It is necessary for the advanced countries to recognize their historical and ecological debt as perpetrators of greenhouse emissions and resource extraction,” Ferrão said.

The document cites studies showing that North America and Europe are projected to amass $192 trillion in ecological debt — an estimate of the value of past exploitation of resources and the historic difference in emissions released — by 2050, while extracting an estimated $2 trillion each year in current Global South resources. The U.N. has warned that significant funds will be required for the climate adaptation, and the document warned that “countries in the Global South, which have contri­buted the least to the problem, face the worst consequences.”

Ambongo made an impassioned appeal for the many Africans afflicted by the consequences of climate change. “Africa wants to live. Africa wants to breathe — and to contribute to justice for all humanity,” he said.

As pope, Francis put forward a vision for “happy sobriety,” a model that asks wealthier countries to give up the excesses of wealth and adopt shared responsibility for the climate. Francis saw the indigenous values of “buen vivir” — good living — as an inspiration for how to live in harmony with the environment. The idea was embraced by many climate activists and institutions. 

“If the Global North is not willing to make sacrifices, we will not advance in this matter. There is a price to pay,” Spengler said on Tuesday, warning that if wealthy countries are not willing to make “bold decisions,” the next generations will pay the price.

The document condemned “elites of power” who take an “openly denialist and apathetic stance” on climate change. Spengler emphasized that despite opposition from world leaders who “deny the data of science,” Catholics are called “to promote conscience, education and have the courage of prophetically declaring what we can and must do and not have fear.”

It also rejected the inequality of “green capitalism,” which it asserted promises economic growth through environmental policies but only enriches the few. The churches of the Global South proposed a system that decentralizes renewable energy policies to benefit local communities and especially the poor.

The cardinals urged Leo to attend the COP30 gathering in Brazil but said that in their meeting with the pope on Tuesday he would not commit to a visit. “We want the forthcoming COP30 to be not just another event, but a moral turning point,” Ferrão said.

Leo is expected to travel to Nicea, Turkey, in November to mark the 1,700^th anniversary since the first ecumenical council.

Father Héctor Alejandro Pérez. / Credit: St. Francis of Assisi Parish, South Gaviotas

Puebla, Mexico, Jul 1, 2025 / 17:19 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Tabasco in Mexico reported June 30 that one of its priests was wounded by gunfire while on his way to visit a sick parishioner. The attack was apparently a case of mistaken identity.

The bishop of the diocese, Gerardo de Jesús Rojas López, shared a statement explaining that at approximately 5:45 a.m. local time, Father Héctor Alejandro Pérez, a parish priest at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco state, was shot.

The assailant apparently mistook the priest “for someone else. Father Héctor was leaving the rectory to visit a sick person at home,” Rojas stated.

Following the attack, the priest underwent surgery. According to the bishop, Pérez is reported to be in critical condition, “with a guarded prognosis due to blood loss and the complexity of his internal injuries.”

Rojas also made an urgent appeal to the community to donate blood for the priest, who is being treated at the Dr. Gustavo A. Rovirosa Pérez Regional Highly Specialized Hospital in Villahermosa.

The bishop also expressed the Catholic Church in Tabasco’s “total repudiation” of “this barbaric act” and asked God to “move the hearts of the unjust aggressors to conversion and repentance, and that all the faithful and people of goodwill unite in the search for peace for our beloved Tabasco.”

The state governor, Javier May Rodríguez, in a press conference deplored what happened to the priest and expressed his solidarity with the Catholic Church, assuring them that “we are already at work; the attack will not go unpunished, and we will find those responsible.”

The Mexican Bishops’ Conference condemned the attack in a message posted on X, expressing its solidarity “in the face of the cowardly armed attack perpetrated against Father Héctor Pérez.”

The country’s bishops offered their prayers “to the Lord of Life for Father Héctor’s speedy recovery, entrusting him to the protection of the Virgin Mary.” They also pledged their support to the Diocese of Tabasco and the parish community of St. Francis of Assisi as well as his family and friends.

“May Christ, prince of peace, inspire and sustain our efforts to build a society where justice, reconciliation, and respect for life prevail,” the bishops stated.

Mexico has repeatedly been considered one of the most dangerous countries for priestly ministry and for preaching the faith. According to the Catholic Multimedia Center, an organization that records attacks against the Catholic Church in the country, 80 priests, religious, and laypeople have been murdered since 1990. 

During the last six years alone, between 2018 and 2024, 10 priests and one seminarian were murdered. Additionally, according to a study by the center, during the same period six bishops and seven priests were victims of varying degrees of violence — including being stopped at a checkpoint, robbed, or shot by organized crime.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

A 20-foot, 800-pound cross that has traveled to almost 50 European capitals, known as the “Cross of Gratitude,” has recently been welcomed by a Ukrainian Greek Catholic church in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the first parish of the Greek Catholic rite in America. / Courtesy: St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 1, 2025 / 16:17 pm (CNA).

A 20-foot, 800-pound cross that has traveled to almost 50 European capitals, known as the “Cross of Gratitude,” has recently been welcomed by a Ukrainian Greek Catholic church in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the first parish of the Greek Catholic rite in America.

“It is a great honor and a blessing for the Parish of St. Michael the Archangel to host the Cross of Gratitude, a sacred symbol of Christ’s boundless love and sacrifice,” St. Michael’s parish priest Father Bohdan Vasyliv told CNA.

“We warmly invite all to visit, pray, and reflect before this holy cross, giving thanks for the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and uniting in wholehearted devotion.”

Two decades ago the Cross of Gratitude was built for an evangelization mission to unite “the nations of the world.” The goal is for the cross to visit every capital city of the world by 2033 in preparation of the 2,000th anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 

The pilgrimage of the cross “began with a powerful call to action, inspired by the words heard by Vitaliy Sobolivskyy on the day of the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in 2003,” Vasyliv said. 

Sobolivskyy, a Ukrainian architect who designed the cross, reported he was called by the words: “Take my cross and carry it to all the capitals of the world as a sign of gratitude to Almighty God for our salvation, which we receive from Jesus Christ.” 

The 20-foot cross has already journeyed to 46 European capitals. The pilgrimage schedule plans for visits to North and South America, Asia, Africa, Indonesia, and Australia before it completes in 2033. 

The Cross of Gratitude has been celebrated at each place of rest during holy Mass, Eucharistic adoration, prayer vigils, the Way of the Cross, and Eucharistic processions. The cross visited the U.S. Capitol in 2021 when it was displayed at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in downtown Washington, D.C.

“This sacred journey seeks to remind everyone that Jesus Christ offers the gift of eternal life,” Vasyliv said.

Pope John Paul II blessed the Cross of Gratitude in 2004 along with the initiators of the mission in Vatican City. The cross, sometimes also referred to as the Cross of Thanksgiving, was then blessed by Pope Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage in Krakow, Poland. In 2016, Pope Francis blessed the cross and those carrying out the evangelization campaign. 

Since 2003, the cross has visited Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran churches, and has even been present at Buddhist gatherings.

The Cross of Gratitude is currently on display at St. Michael’s and will remain there through July 20. St. Michael’s will hold Akathist, a Greek Orthodox hymn and prayer service, on Mondays at 4 p.m. for those who wish to see the cross and reflect and pray while it is present. Divine Liturgies will also be celebrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the month.