That the Middle East is the cradle of the worlds three monotheisms is a phrase one encounters in every high-school textbook or tourist brochure about the region.

Two years into his administration, President Barack Obama still has not filled the post of roving US ambassador for religious freedom.

The jihadist war against Christians, religious liberty, democracy, the rule of law and human decency continues.

In the entire history of pathetic gestures, do any top condemning Libya's brutality without expelling it from the Human Rights Council?

Many liberals and conservatives are pushing for elections in Egypt and elsewhere, but democracy without religious liberty will merely lead to a different tyranny.

The New Martyrs are there to remind us that it's not only those "clinging to guns and religion" and shunning "science and facts" who threaten violence. Indeed, we have ample, painful experience in the modern world that the truth can often be exactly the opposite.

Religious freedom cannot be reduced to freedom of worship. Thats the subtle, but essential point at the heart of Pope Benedict XVIs message for the annual World Day of Peace.

Christian populations in Arab lands are too small to defend themselves. Not so in Africa.

The bomb that killed at least 21 Egyptian Christians on New Years morning was packed with sharpened metal, iron balls and razor wire.

Its never too early to close the minds of the young. Thats the thinking of the provincial government here, which recently announced a ban on religion in subsidized daycare centres.