WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that atrocities carried out by the Islamic State group against Yezidis, Christians and other minorities were genocide, the first U.S. declaration of genocide since Sudanese actions in Darfur in 2004.

The Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians contend that Christians in Libya, Iraq and Syria are victims of genocide carried out by the Islamic State in a new report.

Speaking on Ash Wednesday Cardinal Thomas Collins said the start of Lent was not a day that Christians in Syria could line up for the blessing of ashes. Instead, the ashes in their lives are what remains of the churches and homes they fled at gunpoint.

OTTAWA - The Canadian government should join the European Union in labelling the persecution of Christians by Islamic State jihadists a genocide, said Aid to the Church in Need.

MANCHESTER, England - A European bishops' commission has welcomed a move by the European Parliament to classify atrocities and religious cleansing by the Islamic State as genocide.

KIGALI, Rwanda - A Rwandan government commission has criticized the dismissal of genocide charges against a Catholic priest who fled to France after the 1994 mass killing of the African country's Tutsi inhabitants.

BUKAVU, Congo - Bishops from eastern Congo criticized the failure of their government and the United Nations to act against "genocide, jihadist fundamentalism and Balkanization" in the country, which is widely considered Africa's most Catholic.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' concern for those suffering on the margins and for small Catholic communities that have kept the faith alive through war or repression will take him to Bosnia-Herzegovina in early June.

YUKARI BAKRACLI, Turkey - This tiny Kurdish village outside the city of Van in Turkey’s southeast is home to the ruins of a once-famous 11th-century Armenian Christian monastery.

TORONTO - Not only is the Islamic State causing catastrophic human tragedy throughout Syria and Iraq, it is engaged in a “cultural genocide” as it destroys anything in its way that is not part of its idea of Islam, said Sascha Priewe.

VATICAN CITY - Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Pope Francis said atrocities from the past have to be recognized — not hidden or denied — for true reconciliation and healing to come to the world.

VATICAN CITY - In the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Pope Francis decried humanity's ability to systematically exterminate its own brothers and sisters.

AMMAN, Jordan - A call for an area to protect Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq is gathering pace even as April marks the centenary of the 1915 genocide of Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians.

BEIRUT - Returning from a visit to the Kurdish region of Iraq, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan called the Islamic State invasion "pure and simple religious cleansing and attempted genocide."

TORONTO - Nobody disputes that forgiveness is the right thing to do, or that it might sometimes be difficult. Immaculée Ilibagiza has much more than that to say about forgiveness.

The Rwandan genocide survivor and best-selling author believes forgiveness can be the basis of our society — the foundation for a different kind of politics, a better sort of media, a more purposeful economy, higher ideals in education, stronger families and a new world order.

“It’s about understanding that forgiveness is peace. Peace starts in the heart. It starts in the family. It comes to the country,” Ilibagiza told The Catholic Register.

Ilibagiza will be at the Marylake Our Lady of Grace Shrine in King City, Ont., Sept. 28-29 to tell her story and nudge the audience into a deeper understanding of forgiveness.

Ilibagiza’s story of survival in the midst of the 1994 Rwandan genocide is as raw and inspiring as any. She and seven other women spent 91 days in silence hiding in a bathroom at the church rectory. She began those 91 days as a 52-kliogram (115-pound) 24-year-old surrounded by family everywhere she went. She emerged just 30 kilograms (65 pounds) as one of the last surviving Ilibagizas. Only one brother, who happened to be abroad during the orchestrated massacre of 900,000 Rwandan Tutsi and Hutus judged too friendly with Tutsi, survived.

In the cramped bathroom, Ilibagiza had a Bible, a dictionary and a rosary her father had given her. With the Bible and the dictionary she learned English. With the rosary she deepened her relationship with Mary.

Outside the church yard she confronted a man armed with a machete — the same man who killed her mother and a brother. She said to him, “I forgive you.”

In the aftermath of the genocide, Ilibagiza worked for the United Nations and eventually moved to New York to work at United Nations headquarters. She would quietly tell her story to co-workers and friends, but it wasn’t the sort of story that could stay quiet.

Eventually she wrote Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. No ordinary venture into religious publishing, Left To Tell became a New York Times best seller, has been translated into 15 languages and has been added to the curriculum for thousands of high school and university students around the globe.

By now, Ilibagiza has told her story hundreds of times. DVDs of her retreat talks sell online and she’s signed a contract with MPower Pictures to transform her story into a feature film. But the 42-year-old mother of two continues to be surprised by the effect her story has on audiences.

“I’m really more amazed by what people take from my story,” she said. “What people take is that forgiveness, in such a magnificent way, is in their hearts.”

Ilibagiza has been confronted with many audience members who, either at the end of her talk or weeks later, discover a capacity to forgive husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers and sisters. But Ilibagiza also emphasizes how personal and intimate acts of forgiveness within families and among friends can begin a process that reaches beyond that immediate circle.

The touchstone of Ilibagiza’s talks is the spirituality of the rosary. She has written a book about the apparition of Our Lady of Kibeho, a recognized Marian apparition from the early 1980s in a small town in Rwanda. The apparition included a vision of men with machetes and a warning about the dire consequences of turning away from God.

The economic and social implications of reconciliation and forgiveness are on display to the world in Rwanda today, Ilibagiza said. The number of universities and university enrollment have skyrocketed since the genocide. The economy is growing at eight per cent yearly and Africa’s most densely populated and deeply divided nation is discovering a new sense of citizenship that transcends ethnic identity, she said.

“People are building now more than ever, because they learned a lesson,” said Ilibagiza. “My reason to forgive is that I finally came to understand that people can change, people can learn, people are smart.”

Ilibagiza has taken her gospel of forgiveness to the Vatican and an audience with Pope Benectict XVI. She met with the Pope at the end of his Angelus address Sept. 4. She found the experience overwhelming.

Tickets to Ilibagiza’s talk at Marylake are $50 for general admission or $100 for reserved seating, a reception with her and a signed copy of Left To Tell. Call (905) 833-5368 or visit www.luvn4gve.ca.