Saint Gemma Galgani

13/08/2026

🇫🇷🇦🇫 A 28-year-old Afghan refugee granted asylum in France has been placed under formal investigation on terrorism-related charges after authorities suspected him of preparing an Islamist terrorist attack.

Awalkhan K. was arrested in Lourdes, the world-famous Catholic pilgrimage town in southwestern France visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

Investigators suspect he secretly returned to Afghanistan in late 2025 despite having received asylum in France after claiming persecution by the Taliban. While there, he associated with Taliban members and received weapons and combat training.

Photos show him carrying a Kalashnikov and ammunition and posing alongside Taliban fighters.

After returning to France, he discussed armed jihad, becoming a “martyr” and “joining paradise,” while taking masked photographs outside landmarks, public buildings and religious sites, including the Eiffel Tower.

His TikTok account, which had more than 16,000 followers, also promoted armed Islamist groups and presented jihad as an “obligation.”

12/08/2026

Terrorists!!!

07/08/2026

Craig Barratt, a British man, was jailed in Qatar after he left a negative Tripadvisor review about his stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Doha.

Craig’s wife was sexually assaulted at the hotel pool and threatened with r**e by two local men while Craig was on a business trip to Riyadh.

After notifying hotel management about what happened, they lied to him, assuring him that the men had checked out and were no longer a threat.

However, Craig’s wife later saw the men staying at the hotel again. The couple immediately checked out, and Craig wrote a comment on Tripadvisor warning other guests that the hotel staff were covering for sexual predators.

Instead of apologizing and investigating their security protocols, the Ritz-Carlton filed a criminal defamation complaint against Craig with the Qatari police.

This should be a warning to Western tourists. It might be wise to think twice before travelling to Qatar with female family members or friends.

06/08/2026

Muslims cannot be trusted

🚨TRAGIC: A French schoolgirl’s lie led to the beheading of her teacher — and she later admitted she made it all up.

On October 16, 2020, history teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was decapitated outside his school near Paris by an Islamist terrorist. The attack followed an online campaign that began with a false claim from one of his students.

The 13-year-old Muslim schoolgirl told her parents that Paty had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class and ordered Muslim students to leave the room. She said she had been punished for protesting.

None of it was true.

She had not even been present in the class that day. She invented the story because she had been suspended for two days for misbehavior and was afraid her parents would be angry.

Her father and others spread the lie online. The teacher’s photo and name were shared. Days later, an 18-year-old jihadist hunted him down and murdered him in the street.

In a 2024 court hearing, the girl finally admitted the truth. She apologized to Paty’s family, saying she was “sincerely sorry” and that without her lie, none of it would have happened.

01/08/2026

In 1480, the Ottoman army under Gedik Ahmed Pasha captured the city of Otranto in southern Italy. After the city fell, around 813 surviving men were reportedly given a choice: convert to Islam or be executed.

According to Christian tradition, an elderly tailor named Antonio Primaldo spoke for them all. He declared that they believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and were prepared to die for Him rather than deny their faith.

On August 14, 1480, the men were taken to the Hill of Minerva and beheaded one by one. Tradition also holds that after Antonio Primaldo was executed first, his body remained standing until every one of his companions had been killed.

Today, their bones are preserved in the Cathedral of Otranto, where they remain a witness to one of Christianity's most well-known stories of martyrdom.

In 2013, Pope Francis canonized all 813 men together. More than five centuries later, their witness continues to be remembered.

Not one of them denied Christ.

✝️

30/06/2026

28/05/2026

27/05/2026

Past popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But no pope had ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, the role that past popes played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”

History’s first US-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” (Magnificent Humanity), which was released Monday.

The sweeping manifesto is about safeguarding humanity in an era of increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. Leo raised the slave trade in relation to what he called the new forms of slavery and colonialism that the digital revolution is fueling.

Black American Catholics, activists and scholars have long called for the Holy See to atone for its role in the colonial-era trade in human beings, beyond generic apologies for the involvement of individual Christians. | via Associated Press