It took me a while to figure out what exactly is the Holy Land. I mean, most people probably think of the modern country Israel as “the Holy Land,” but is it? Arriving in Jordan, we quickly figured out that the term “Holy Land” applies to an area much larger than what is modern-day Israel. ...read more

It is Saturday and we arrive to a house in a middle-class neighbourhood of west Amman. There is quite a crowd gathering for the day’s events. Inside, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary have a full-morning planned. In the back room there are dozens of children participating in an activity. They are all Iraqis displaced because ...read more

As the Pope landed in Scotland today, he might have said a prayer of thanksgiving that, on top of all the other issues he will deal with, the smoldering ashes of a Quran is not among them. At the local, diocesan and Vatican levels, Catholics loudly condemned the planned burning of the Muslim holy book ...read more