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(Vatican Radio)  More than 830,000 Middle Eastern migrants and refugees entered Europe through Greece in 2015, according to the country’s border police.  That figure tallies with the estimate of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Listen to John Carr's report:

It’s a tenfold rise over 2014, which has seriously strained Greece’s infrastructure, especially in the eastern Aegean islands, in a time of severe economic recession. 

This week Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German Finance Minister, criticized Greece for being ineffectual in processing and controlling the constant stream of boat people from the Turkish coast.

The flimsy craft kept coming over the Christmas holiday, encouraged by the mild weather in the Aegean.  Yet scores of migrants, half of them children, perished when the overloaded boats broke apart on several occasions.

Next week the weather in Greece is forecast to take a sharp turn for the worse, as a blast of cold wind from Russia sweeps down the Balkans, and we can expect snow here in Athens as well.  Which does not augur well for the migrants who still see Greece as their gateway to Europe.

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Santiago, Chile, Dec 29, 2015 / 12:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A psychologist who cares for post-abortive women has emphasized the need to help women who have had abortions heal – and that these women have their own stories to tell.

Peruvian psychologist Luz Marina Araoz Chavez said post-abortive women endure “difficulty in healing the wound caused by the loss of the baby.” They also face difficulty in “being at peace with God, oneself or others that were involved in her decision to abort.”

Chavez is a Peruvian psychologist and coordinator of Project Hope, which accompanies women who have aborted and are suffering from abortion’s harms.

Her comments follow a statement from the committee on gender and sexual diversity at the Chilean Psychological Association which said that post-abortion syndrome does not exist.

The statement came out at a time when the country is debating a bill backed by President Michelle Bachelet that would decriminalize abortion.

“Post-abortion syndrome” is a phrase often used to refer to the emotional state of people involved in abortions. It refers to the inability of a woman or man to process their anguish, fear, anger, sadness and guilt stemming from their experience of one or several abortions.

Two women who have had abortions and were helped by Project Hope spoke to CNA anonymously.

One of them, 59-year-old “A.A.,” recalled that after her abortion she went through “nights of crying, days of not wanting to get out of bed.”

For her part, “C.G.,” a 52-year-old psychologist, told of the difficult situation she went through when she was young and her mother forced her to have an abortion.

“I cried a lot and experienced a lot of sadness for years,” she said. She also showed “very aggressive behavior.”

“I didn’t understand where it was coming from,” she said. “The most profound consequence was an anxious, depressed frame of mind I carried around with me for years.”

The Chilean Psychological Association’s committee said that post-abortion syndrome has nothing to do with the practice itself, but rather the social “criminalization” of the act.

But A.A. challenged this.

“I suffered from the need to see and caress my child. No one ever judged me. I’m the one who judged myself, feeling I was the worst of mothers,” she said.

The reason she was suffering, she said, was that she knew “I had been capable of killing my child who couldn’t even defend himself. My other children were able to play, cry and laugh, but their brother could not. That was the source of my pain.”

C.G. also rejected claims abortion grief is a result of social conditioning.

“What I went through had to do with the relationship I formed with the presence of that child that was developing within me, whether wanted or not. He was a child, not a ‘something’.”

“Not protecting that child and not having had the courage to resist having the abortion, developed into a profound sense of sadness that accompanied me for many years.”

Despite the many problems and sufferings the abortions caused, both women said they were able to go forward and rebuild their lives with much spiritual and psychological support.

“I spoke with a priest when I hit rock bottom because of the pain and regret. He counseled me to make reparation and said that the death of my child had a meaning for the other children in danger of being aborted,” A.A related.

“It was very difficult and exhausting. I had to travel a long and painful journey, full of regret and grief. I was only able to do it with the help of Project Hope, in the person of someone who accompanied me for three years,” C.G. said. “Thanks to their dedication and the care provided by the project’s professionals I was able to overcome.”

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HONG KONG (CNS) -- When Chinese Minister of Housing Chen Zhenggao traveled to bustling Yiwu in mid-October, news reports said he told housing and law enforcement officials to "battle against illegal constructions" by learning from Zhejiang.

Zhejiang has used the pretext of illegal building to bulldoze churches and remove their crosses. By Christmas 2014, reports said 500 churches had been targeted in the province. By this past Christmas, the number had exploded to more than 1,500, reported ucanews.com.

After claiming 2014 to be the worst year for religious persecution in China since the Cultural Revolution, observers in and outside the country say this year saw the situation deteriorate further. Relations between China's faithful and the Communist Party have not been this strained since the days of Chairman Mao.

In Tibetan monasteries, monks and nuns complained the Communist Party is interfering more in daily life than it has for years. In Xinjiang, burqas were banned; so too was "terrorist clothing."

"Authorities have lost the hearts of the people after the cross-removal campaign," said a former Catholic journalist in Zhejiang who gave only her Christian name, Clare.

Although authorities succeeded in forcing churches to display less-conspicuous crosses in Zhejiang, few doubt the provincial government's campaign has achieved anything except harden Christian resolve, let alone curb an appetite for evangelism.

"It helped unite all the clergy to fight for their rights," said John, a catechist in Wenzhou.

As the cross-removal campaign reached a crescendo midyear, ordinary Christians and priests took to social media to announce a campaign making minicrosses, and bishops took the rare step of publicly denouncing authorities.

With the campaign winding down in Zhejiang, Christians say they now face something even worse: the cross-removal campaign was all about controlling the church facades, but in recent weeks authorities have interfered inside churches.

In Wenzhou, Christians reported state officials attending church on Sundays to silence critical voices. In other areas of Zhejiang, authorities put up propaganda notices on church pin-boards, according to state media. This is all part of a new campaign called "five entries and transformations," which aims to make churches more Chinese -- and by default less foreign -- while picking and choosing Bible verses that correlate to party doctrine.

Ucanews.com reported that some estimates put the number of Christians in China at more than 100 million, and the Communist Party is attempting to co-opt Christianity to its own political ends. But it remains unclear whether its policy comes from the very center of the party, and therefore whether it will endure, said Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

High-ranking party officials appear to disagree about whether Christianity should adapt to China, or the other way round, he added, and a firm direction won't be made until a delayed religious meeting led by President Xi Jinping takes place.

Fenggang told ucanews.com the fact that the meeting had been postponed multiple times "is a sign of Xi's dissatisfaction with the work and direction of religious affairs, and probably a sign of an impasse of internal debates and disagreements."

For China's diverse religious communities, the future remains less certain than it has been for many years.

Whatever happens, few Chinese Christians appear hopeful of a reprieve from Xi's strict, rule-of-law handling of the communist government in 2016. On China's periphery, minority Tibetan Buddhists and ethnic Uighur Muslims appear even less optimistic.

This year started with an official ban on burqas in Xinjiang, then in May Beijing extended what is in effect a state of emergency following a series of attacks.

Stricter measures have seen the first mass trials in China in 20 years and thousands of additional troops deployed in cities, including Urumqi.

Alarmed by a series of attacks blamed on Uighurs and recent violence overseas by the Islamic State group, which released its first call to arms in Mandarin in December, the Chinese government has pushed ahead with drafting a new, controversial anti-terror law.

International rights groups acknowledged China needs to tackle a surge in violence in the west of the country, but also warned repeatedly that the draft risks enshrining a vague catch-all to help Beijing target opponents, real and imagined.

In January, authorities in Tibet posted public notices offering rewards of up to 300,000 yuan to informants who tip off police ahead of "violent terror attacks."

The main targets were vaguely described as "overseas terrorist organizations and their members' activities inside China and those spreading religious extremism."

In July, police in a Tibetan region of Sichuan province opened fire on protesters demanding the return of the body of spiritual leader Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died after nearly 13 years in prison. His conviction and 20-year sentence for a series of bombings in Chengdu in 2002 remains disputed by most Tibetans.

Although his represents the most high-profile case this year, overall more Tibetan monks and nuns were confirmed detained -- 31 in 2015 compared to 21 the previous year, according to a tally by London-based Free Tibet.

As Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, turned 80 in July, Beijing seemed to turn up criticism denouncing his "Middle Way" approach of greater Tibetan autonomy. Then, two weeks after his birthday, a Tibetan delegation returned from Beijing saying more dialogue would soon follow. It had been five years since the previous official talks.

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TRENTON, N.J. (CNS) -- New Jersey's Catholic bishops called on people of faith and "of goodwill" to "go beyond their comfort zone" and renew their commitment to caring for immigrants, refugees and the poor.

Expressing concern that the newcomers to the United States have been largely overlooked and have been the subject of callous words, the 10 bishops said in a pre-Christmas statement that biblical values provide the impetus to act with compassion and care toward migrating people.

The bishops also called for an end to the "harsh rhetoric that spawns hatred and fear."

"This year in the face of international violence and hatred, let us be heralds of hope and peace," the bishops wrote.

The Catholic leaders compared the plight of contemporary immigrants and refugees to the flight of Mary, Joseph and Jesus to Egypt as refugees themselves in the face of threatened violence more than 2,000 years ago.

"In recent years, millions of our neighbors from Latin America, suffering from poverty and violence, have been seeking safe haven in America. We need to ask: How are they being met? Any analysis would indicate that we the people have not met the scriptural standard for welcoming these strangers," the bishops wrote.

Welcoming strangers can be "risky and inconvenient," the statement said, "and our national leaders always must act with regard for the safety and well-being of the citizens of this great land."

"But safe and convenient lives are not the narrow gate to which Jesus calls us. Jesus calls us to go beyond our comfort zone, and when we do, he always will provide for us," the bishops said.

The bishops noted that 60 million people are on the move around the world during the Christmas season and that they represent the largest number of displaced men, women and children since World War II. They particularly pointed to the millions of Syrian families that have fled their homeland the in the face of five-year-old civil war.

The statement references biblical passages as well as the words of Pope Francis during a November visit to Kenya in calling people to act on behalf of their brothers and sisters in transit.

"By calling us to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect, Pope Francis challenges us to move from feel good thoughts to real action -- action that has the potential to show our nation how to welcome strangers, while still protecting our families and communities," the bishops wrote.

As the new year approached, the bishops urged people to resolve in 2016 to "help our communities to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect."

"This year, let each of us echo the words of Jesus by telling our families and friends: 'Be not afraid,'" they said.

Signing the statement were Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark; Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda, coadjutor of Newark; Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski of Metuchen; Bishop Yousif B. Habash of Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Diocese; Bishop David M. O'Connell of Trenton; Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson; Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan of Camden; and Auxiliary bishops Manuel A. Cruz and John W. Flesey, both of Newark.

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Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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