A northern Nigeria Muslim leader who promised to pursue a nonreligious agenda as president will now have to deal with an Islamic terrorist insurgency that has wreaked chaos in the country’s north.

“Bless you for playing Jesus, peace be upon him.”

A country that deems it progressive to kill your grandmother but conservative for the state to dictate your choice of hat might be going, in a technical sense, nuts.

TORONTO - As of March 10 2,942 people had hit the “like” button on Pegida Canada’s Facebook page. Another 97 people had signed up to attend Pegida Quebec’s planned March 28 rally in Montreal.

BEIRUT - Maronite Catholic bishops urged Arab and Muslim countries to combat terrorism in order to preserve the Christian presence in the Middle East.

A friend who attended a commemoration Mass at a church in Montreal’s Villeray neighbourhood at the end of February e-mailed me this compelling observation shortly afterward.

NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said Islamic State militants terrorizing the Middle East are a distortion of “genuine” Islam much as the Irish Republican Army was a “perversion” of Catholicism.

LONDON - A Chaldean Catholic archbishop called for the redeployment of American and British troops in Iraq to prevent the “genocide” of Christians and other minorities by Islamic State militants.

As world attention shifts to the growing influence of Muslim militant groups on the African continent, few have paid any attention to the ongoing bloody conflict in South Sudan.

OTTAWA - A Canadian bishop who travelled to Gaza with the annual Holy Land Co-ordination visit to the Middle East Jan. 11-12 says fear is the biggest obstacle to mutual recognition of human dignity in the region.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis condemned the killings of at least 12 people at the Paris offices of a satirical weekly newspaper Jan. 7 and denounced all "physical and moral" obstacles to the peaceful co-existence of nations, religions and cultures.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The government of Sierra Leone banned public Christmas and New Year’s celebrations because they may exacerbate efforts to eradicate the Ebola virus.

CANTERBURY, England - As a 17-year-old convert to Christianity living in Pakistan, Ali (not his real name) was stabbed in the chest and left for dead by Muslims upset he had rejected their faith.

A new and bigger Muslim prayer room at Western University has triggered resignations from the entire Catholic chaplaincy team, led by Fr. Michael Bechard.

VIENNA - Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad implored moderate Muslims to reject "terrorism in the name of religion" and step up to challenge the actions of Islamic State militants against minority communities in Iraq.