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The Vatican’s charity office is holding a drive to collect thermal shirts for people in Ukraine as they face an energy emergency amid the war. Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s almoner, said December 5 that the charity office of the Vatican is “already stocking up” on thermal shirts for men, women, and children. Others are encouraged to join the initiative by bringing or shipping shirts to the Dicastery for the Service of Charity by the beginning of January, when the shipment of shirts will be brought to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, by truck. Systematic bombing by Russia has damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and the country’s government has warned that the networks will not withstand winter’s increased demands. People in Ukraine are facing freezing weather without electricity, heat, or water, as January, the country’s coldest month of the year, approaches. Temperatures in Kyiv are already below freezing, with a mixture of rain and snow in the near forecast.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252995/vatican-holds-thermal-shirt-drive-for-ukraine
For the second year in a row, Nigeria has been left off of the US State Department’s list of countries that engage in or tolerate the world’s worst religious freedom violations, despite regular reports of kidnappings and killings of Christians, sparking outcry from members of a bipartisan government watchdog group. In Nigeria as a whole, at least 60,000 Christians have been killed, many by their Muslim countrymen, over the past two decades. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said in a statement that its leaders were “outraged” by Nigeria’s exclusion from the list as well as the exclusion of India, where reports of Hindu nationalism and violence against Christians have emerged in recent years. Nigeria was included in the State Department’s list in 2020 but not in the 2021 or 2022 lists, despite Christians reporting little to no improvement in their situations.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252992/observers-decry-exclusion-of-nigeria-india-from-religious-freedom-watchlist
Today, the Church celebrates Saint Nicholas of Myra. Saint Nicholas was a bishop in the early church who was known for generosity and love of children. One of the most famous stories of the generosity of Saint Nicholas says that he threw bags of gold through an open window in the house of a poor man to serve as dowry for the man’s daughters, who otherwise would have been forced into prostitution. The gold is said to have landed in the family’s shoes, which were drying near the fire. This is why children leave their shoes out by the door, or hang their stockings by the fireplace in the hopes of receiving a gift on the eve of his feast.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-nicholas-of-myra-75