News and Prophecy Staff

“Pope Francis told a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople that the restoration of ‘full, visible communion’ between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches ‘represents one of my main concerns, for which I do not cease to pray to God’” (CatholicCulture.org, June 29, 2015).

“The United States is now the world’s second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico, according to a new study published by the prestigious Instituto Cervantes… there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the US plus a further 11.6 million who are bilingual, mainly the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants. This puts the US ahead of Colombia (48 million) and Spain (46 million) and second only to Mexico (121 million)” (The Guardian, June 29, 2015).

“A violent video game that encourages players to perform gruesome killings on a ‘genocide crusade’ has been approved for sale in Britain. Hatred, believed to be the most violent game ever produced, was awarded an 18 certificate by the Games Rating Authority yesterday” (The Times, May 23, 2015).

German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert recently commented to the Israeli Knesset, “The intensive friendship between our two countries is a historic miracle. This miracle happened mostly thanks to the abilities of two veteran and experienced leaders—David Ben-Gurion and Konrad Adenauer—to make a decision,” said Mr. Lammert (Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2015).

Violence is spreading in the Middle East. “Egypt’s military killed 241 militants in the Sinai from July 1-5, the army said Monday, including militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) who launched spectacular attacks last week” (Al Arabiya, July 6, 2015).