Our Takes Daily

Let them go
Breitbart.com
Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for the release of Korean hostages held in Afghanistan, saying their abduction represented "a grave violation of human dignity." The 23 Koreans were seized by Taliban militants on July 19. One was fatally shot by his captors. "I issue my appeal so that the perpetrators of such criminal acts desist from the evil they have carried out and give back their victims unharmed," the pope said, speaking from Castel Gandolfo, his summer retreat in the hills south of Rome.

American values, Muslim values
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
There is new evidence this week of increasingly moderate attitudes in much of the Muslim world. There is still overwhelming disapproval of the United States, but at the same time there is more and more disapproval of Muslim violence and extremism.

Continue to pray for religious freedom in China
Fox News
Four priests from China's underground Catholic Church have been detained by police, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Sunday. Three priests were detained Tuesday in the northern region of Inner Mongolia after fleeing their hometown to avoid arrest for refusing to join the state-sanctioned Church, the Cardinal Kung Foundation announced. It said the fourth priest was detained in early July in the northern province of Hebei following a motorcycle accident. It gave no details of what charges the priests might face. China's Catholics are permitted to worship only in churches run by a government-monitored group with no ties to the Vatican. But millions who remain loyal to the pope worship in secret "house churches."