Sadie Robertson learned to overcome Anxiety by finding trust in God: My belief is 'unshakable'

Sadie Robertson spent many years of her life grappling with fear and anxiety and the 20-year-old came face-to-face with her greatest struggle during a recent trip to Mogadishu, Somalia.

The former "Duck Dynasty" star and her mother, Korie Robertson, traveled to Somalia in October 2017.

"It is the most dangerous place in the world, and I'm sitting [there] and there's a bomb threat, there's shooting all around and there's a terrorist attack happening and yet I have peace. How do I have peace?" Robertson recalled.

The 20-year-old and her mother were lucky enough to have left Somalia just one hour before the country suffered its worst terror attack in history.

"I was faced with literally everything I had ever been afraid of," the star said.

However, instead of letting fear take over, the event made her "become more confident in my journey to becoming fearless."

Robertson had just wrapped up writing her new book "Live Fearless" when she visited Somalia. She called the timing kismet.

"I think that I always thought that being fearless would be an absence of fear, but in Somalia, I realized that wasn't actually the case," she told us. "Because being fearless is actually being in the presence of where fear is but yet having peace."

The Louisiana native credits her strong faith and complete trust in God for the reason she was able to conquer her fear.

"It's being in the face of fear and yet you have peace," she explained. "And you say, 'Although I see what's in front of me, I choose to believe that my God's bigger, my God's better."

Since her family's hit reality show "Duck Dynasty" ended last year, the young star has chosen her career moves carefully to ensure they reflect her faith and values.

In addition to "Live Fearless," Robertson tours the country preaching her message of "Live Original."

"There's a lot of opportunities that look great on paper...it can be tempting in some ways, but to me, I think always knowing what my ultimate goal is...if [an opportunity] contradicts the Word or, if it contradicts 'Live Original' or 'Live Fearless,' or what I'm trying to speak into people, then I just don't do it."

Robertson explained that once she gave into God, her life changed forever.

"What I found in that is freedom over fear, I found joy in the most bizarre places, peace that surpasses all understanding," she explained. "A confidence that I never thought I would have when I was in the most insecure place. And so for me, that's just unshakable."

Donald Trump is Retweeting Anti-Muslim videos posted by UK First deputy leader

Donald Trump has retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by far-right group Britain First.


The group's deputy leader Jayda Fransen, who posted the unverified clips, claims one of them shows a Muslim destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary.

She claims the other two videos show attacks carried out by other Muslims.

The 31-year-old from Penge, southeast London, reacted with delight to the retweets, posting: "God bless you Trump! God bless America!"

Image:Mr Trump has been accused of 'spreading hate'

After sharing the posts with his 43.6m Twitter followers, Mr Trump fired off three other tweets praising the US stock market, suggesting a boycott of "fake news CNN" and commenting on the sacking of NBC presenter Matt Lauer.

Britain First has attracted a sizeable online following by posting incendiary videos and staging a number of protests.


The group's leader, Paul Golding, was jailed for eight weeks in December 2016 for breaching a court order telling him not to enter a mosque or encourage others to do so.

He and his deputy were due to appear at Folkestone Magistrates' Court on Wednesday for a hearing ahead of a trial scheduled for 29 January over allegations of religiously aggravated abuse in Canterbury and Ramsgate, Kent.

She is also due in court in Northern Ireland in December charged with using threatening and abusive language in connection with a speech she made at an anti-terrorism demonstration in Belfast on 6 August.

Image:MP Jo Cox's widower says Mr Trump 'should be ashamed of himself'

Image:The US President shared the posts with his 43.6m Twitter followers

Last year, MPs called for Britain First to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation after the murder of MP Jo Cox, who was killed by a right-wing extremist shouting "Britain first".

Ms Cox's widower Brendan said Mr Trump "should be ashamed of himself" for retweeting the Britain First videos.

He tweeted: "Trump has legitimised the far-right in his own country, now he's trying to do it in ours."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the Government to respond to the posts.

He said: "I hope our Government will condemn far-right retweets by Donald Trump. They are abhorrent, dangerous and a threat to our society."

Image:Jayda Fransen pictured with Britain First leader Paul Golding

MP David Lammy said the US President had "gone beyond the pale", adding that he was "promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted".

Former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna described the retweets as "quite shocking".

He told Sky News: "Words do not do justice to this, he is normalising hatred. I think that takes us down a very dangerous road and you have got to call it out."

Meanwhile, TV presenter Piers Morgan, who has called himself a friend of Mr Trump, urged the President to "stop this madness and undo your retweets".

END-TIMES: Meet Siberia's Jesus Who Is A Former Traffic Cop Turned Cult Leader

Thousands of Russians have flocked to southern Siberia to follow a man who claims to be Jesus Christ reincarnated.

Sergey Anatolyevitch Toro, 56, was once a traffic policeman and a Red Army soldier before the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is not that man anymore. Now, the man formally known as Sergey calls himself "Vissarion," and says he's the founder of the Church of the Last Testament, The Guardian reported.


Vissarion, seen here in 2007, was a traffic policeman before finding the Church of the Last Testament in the early 1990’s. (Reuters)

Vissarion, who normally dons a long white cloak and sports long hair and a beard, lives with his followers in Petropavlovka, or what he calls his “Siberian utopia,” The Guardian reported. Since the early 1990’s, Vissarion has been able to attract some 5,000 followers who live by strict rules. They are not allowed to drink, smoke or possess money.

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The leader teaches his followers about the apocalypse, reincarnation and vegetarianism, the Mirror reported. Vissarion says his goal is to join every religion on the globe together.

Watch tomorrow at 9pm as @simon_reeve meets former traffic policeman Vissarion whose followers believe him to be the reincarnation of Jesus. pic.twitter.com/JW2eJlwRaS

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) October 4, 2017

The BBC’s Simon Reeve interviewed Vissarion and a teacher who lived in Petropavlovka as part of a documentary slated to air Thursday, the Mirror reported.  

The leader, who reportedly has two wives and six kids, teaches a “great flood is coming and he promises salvation and spiritual perfection to his followers,” the Mirror reported.

Newsweek reported Vissarion’s first wife left him after he wed a 19-year-old woman, who posed nude for his paintings. 

A teacher who lives in Minusinsk told Reeve: "We have a school of noble maidens here. We’re preparing girls to become future wives, future brides for worthy men. She has to understand not to rise above the man, not to be proud of her independence but to be shy, inconspicuous and weak."

Vissarion’s religion has about 5,000 followers.  (Reuters)

Reeve called the revelation “scary stuff.”

“I genuinely felt like I should be calling social services. They’re teaching Vissarion’s ten-volume sequel to The Bible," Reeve said.

Reeve asked Vissarion about his critics' accusations that the leader is “brainwashing and embezzling” his followers. Vissarion said the accusations made him feel “sad.”

“Sad, what else can I feel? This is unavoidable. I’ll put down the basis that will change all humanity,” Vissarion said.

Reeve noted at the end of the interview Vissarion requested his followers “donate money and provide labor for his profit-making businesses.”  

How I Got My Freedom After Being In Bondage Of A Polygamist Cult

"I couldn't live another day in the Order, so the only options were suicide or out," Jessica, 27, says of her old life. "We love our family and it was so hard to leave them, but we just couldn't survive in that oppression anymore."






The "we" she's referring to is her sister Andrea, 24, and her half-sister Shanell, 24, who are the subject of new LMN docuseries Escaping Polygamy. Despite a horrific past, the three consider themselves lucky—they were able to break out of a life of constant beatings and forced marriage to their uncles and cousins, and are now trying to help the other women they left behind.
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All three were raised in the Order, or the Kingston Group, a secretive, polygamous splinter organization of Mormon fundamentalists. They split off from the church around the 1920s, and in 2004, the Salt Lake Tribune reported it as a "$150 million business empire" with some 1,200 members.

"The Church has nothing whatever to do with those practicing polygamy," said Gordon B. Hinckley, then-president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a statement in 1998. "If any of our members are found to be practicing plural marriage, they are excommunicated, the most serious penalty the Church can impose." Such is the official word from the Mormon church, as it has been since 1890. Of course, that doesn't mean polygamy doesn't exist—or that its practitioners don't go rogue in even more drastic ways.


At 14, Jessica was in the process of becoming a third wife to her 42-year-old uncle. But during their engagement, another family member helped her and little sister Andrea escape. She may have eluded the marriage, but not the "inappropriate relationship" she says her uncle had with her.

"They love their blood. They think they're direct descendants of Christ," Jessica says of the Kingston family. "And they think their blood is pure. It's almost like they want to have purebred Kingstons. They're trying to get that, so they're having Kingstons marry Kingstons." One of her relatives is currently training to become a geneticist, she says, to test for recessive genes and avoid the birth defects that occur in the group.



All those wives and children make up a large workforce for the order's businesses, which include farming, construction, cleaning, and more. "I started working when I was about eight years old," says Jessica. She has a needle embedded in her finger from an industrial sewing machine, a memento of one job. She then moved on to butchery. "I wasn't living at home, I was sent away to live somewhere else, and I was slaughtering cows. I was 15 at the time," Jessica says. Andrea, who is now pursuing a degree in public-service law, started working at age nine, cleaning an office building after school.

"You don't make minimum wage, you make whatever your dad says you're going to make," Andrea says. "And this is for everybody, not just the eight-year-olds. The money that you make working at the businesses does not come to you in the form of a paycheck. It comes to you each month in the form of a bank statement that says you have certain units. So it's not even U.S. dollars." If you wanted to spend that money, you better give a reason. "You have to explain why you need to take this money out of the group. You can use units for any of their business and they have a gas station, a grocery store, a clothing store—they have the basic things you would need, and one of their teachings is, 'If the Order doesn't have it, we don't need it.'" She adds, "I did not realize how abusive and controlling it was until I escaped and opened up my own bank account. When I go get money from my bank, I don't have to say, 'I would really like to buy lunch today.'"

Isolation from the outside world means no one sees the children's bruises, says Andrea. If an Order adult sees one, they tell the child to cover them up. "It was obvious to me how bad some of it was—hitting a child with a board," she says, which Jessica experienced. But with other treatment, she says, "You don't even realize it's abusive because that's all you know."



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The Order's fathers keep a low profile, showing up when it's time to impregnate their wives. Jessica, Andrea, and Shanell claim that there is very little financial support from them, leaving their many wives and kids living in squalor. "Within the group, at church, you can say that they're your dad, but you can't in public," says Jessica. "You never call him Dad, you call him Daniel."

It's shocking to realize this lifestyle is occurring right here in the United States—and shocking that, for the most part, the group's illegal activity is not stopped by authorities. "The Kingston group tries to blend in with normal society. They look like everybody else, they blend in, and they cannot be identified. And nobody really knows how big this group is," Jessica says. "They put fake names on their birth certificate, and so how are they ever going to link them to each other?"


In one episode of the docuseries, Jessica meets with a woman who has texted her anonymously asking for help. When Jessica sees her, she knows that they're sisters. But since she has as many as 200 siblings, she can't quite remember her name.

Their goal is to repopulate the earth, the sisters say. "They think they're going to have so many kids that eventually, they're going to take over the world," Jessica says. "Their population has increased—like doubled—in one year because the children are having children."

Andrea sees this expansion as an opportunity, that it might attract attention from the legal powers that be. "I'm hopeful it's getting so big they can't control it anymore," she says.

If this group is so huge and powerful—and has so much to lose by exposure—are the three women afraid of retaliation? "They intimidate and harass," says Jessica, who has had to change her name several times already. "At this point, my case is so public...so if something were to happen to me, the first place they're going to look is the Order." On the show's pilot, the trio bring a burly security guard along as they help a woman sneak into her own home to grab belongings for herself and her two young daughters.



The sisters don't want anyone else to go through what they did, so they've dedicated themselves to responding to every anonymous phone call and random text for help. To watch their rescues, tune into Escaping Polygamy on Tuesdays at 10/9c.

How A Church Almost Ruined My Life And How I escaped From Their Polygamous LifeStyle

Married at 19 to the 85-year-old Prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rebecca Musser thought she was free after his death seven years later—until she was told she must remarry. So she escaped from her faith, family, and the only way of life she had ever known.

I had one week to choose a new husband. In absolute agony, I felt as if I were already falling to my death—all roads seemed to lead to a hopeless future. Four days before the deadline, I glanced into the mirror before bed—my eyes were sunken and colorless, surrounded by graying, sallow skin. Months of righteous fasting for the failing health of my late husband, Rulon Jeffs, had played havoc on my body, but it was my spirit that felt broken. After years of striving to be a good church member and a good wife—one of 65—to a man chosen for me, I was tired. Trying to look at my options with less fear, I kept coming up against a door I didn't dare open. If I did, I would have to rely on the kindness of the outside world. That thought petrified me, nearly as much as marrying again. I couldn't begin to think of how to live among the wicked, corrupt, ignorant, and unkind people of this world, as outsiders had been described to us since birth.





Wicked … Unkind … Was that really my experience? Memories flooded my mind: neighbors offering sympathy and supplies after my childhood house burned down; a former violin teacher who nurtured my talent; the owner of a stringed-instrument shop who encouraged me to play—I took a long, hard look at all the things that new church leader Warren Jeffs had said were absolutely true that I knew were not. If I was going to leave, I would have to take a chance on that outside world, whatever it held for me.

In the predawn hours of a Sunday morning in 2002, I put a note on my bed for my mom and my sisters. Taking an exit to avoid the cameras and security patrol on the Jeffs' sprawling estate, I pushed the heavy oak door of the mansion quietly behind me until I heard the latch click shut. My heart pounding, I walked as casually as if I were out for a stroll. I made my way around the side, then turned toward the fence. The gates were locked, as I knew they would be. I scaled the tall fence that protected the Jeffs family from "outsiders and wicked apostates." In doing so, I became one of them.

The spikes at the top of the 6-foot-high wrought-iron gate I had to slip over were tricky to manage in my long skirt, yet nothing compared to the half-mile walk I had to trek to meet Ben, who would meet me in his brother's truck. Technically, he was my grandson, as he was the 19-year-old grandson of Rulon and one of my sister-wives. He had shown kindness to me, telling me not to be forced into doing anything I didn't want to do. Without him, all was lost. I had no escape route and no time for a new plan. Between the horror stories I knew from the inside, and with the police in Warren's pocket (God's law was above man's law, we were told, and law enforcement in our area was either the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or affiliated with the FLDS), I could not win on my own.


My heart pumped wildly as we passed our neighbors' homes on the way to Highway 59, which would draw us away from Utah toward Las Vegas. In the silence of the growing light, I stole furtive glances at Ben, whom I barely knew. I had just left everything and nearly everyone I'd ever known, and so had he. We were headed to Oregon, where my brother Cole lived. He had been kicked out of the FLDS six years earlier when he tried to shield our younger siblings from a beating.

Matt Spencer

For the two days before the escape, I had attended every meal and class so it wouldn't occur to Warren that anything was different. It had been agonizing deciding what to pack besides my violin. Carefully, I had selected only a few favorite long dresses, my photos and scrapbooks, and my sewing machine and boxes of material—besides music lessons, sewing would be my only way to make a living on the outside. I'd had to sneak the most important items out without being seen, then hide them somewhere off the Jeffs' estate. Though neither a liar nor a thief, I'd had to steal my own belongings away to claim my very life.

I had worked for so many years to be an example to my family and my community, and that thought made me want to stop and go back. But the knowledge of my destiny under Warren brought reason. When my letter of explanation was discovered in the light of day, Warren was adamant in the order he issued to the community: Find us before nightfall "to save that girl's soul before she commits adultery." Many of Warren's brothers and several members of the God Squad were sent on a massive manhunt for us, scouring Colorado City, St. George, Cedar City, and environs. As the former Prophet's widow, I knew far too much about the inner workings of the Jeffs family and the true undertakings of the FLDS. I was a dangerous liability to the new Prophet.

People at rest stops and restaurants stared curiously at our attire and my hairstyle. A woman's hair, usually worn piled high atop her head, was her crowning glory. As Mary and another woman did to Christ in Luke in the New Testament, a wife will wash her husband's feet, anoint them with oil, then dry them with her long hair. That's why an FLDS woman is never to cut her hair. The FLDS bought hairspray by the caseful.

Once in Oregon, I was paralyzed by fear of the outside world. I had no idea how to do my hair, how to dress, and what social rituals to follow. The only clothes I owned were the long prairie dresses of the FLDS dress code, and I continued poufing my hair. When Cole took me shopping, with literally no idea what to choose, I ended up with a jogging suit and a shirt in the shocking and once-forbidden shade of red. (Rulon said it signaled a proud and immoral woman.) Afterward, at a hair salon, I blanched as yards and yards of my rich brown hair hit the ground. Even though it felt so foreign and naked, I thought perhaps I could live with short hair. The next day, it didn't look anything like it had the day before. Not only was my hair gone, it now looked ugly and made me feel that way inside. For days, I cried in private, feeling homesick and missing my mother and sisters and friends desperately.

In the meantime, Ben and I needed to start earning money immediately. Two weeks and countless applications later, we both got jobs at restaurants. Everything was new, thrilling, and sobering to me. Excitedly, I called my mother, anxious to share with her what I was learning in life and through books. While she was glad to know I was safe, she told me I was trading my salvation for material goods. Warren had warned that anyone who associated with either of us would be considered traitorous and deeply immoral. Our families were not to contact us—their eternal salvation was at stake—so she was risking everything by the very act of communicating with me.

Courtesy of Rebecca Musser

When I watched television, I was surprised and often scandalized by how different it was from when we were kids and allowed only certain programs (Little House on the Prairie, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and Sesame Street until it, like cartoons, was deemed idolatrous for imitating God's creations). One day, Cole insisted that I watch a movie called The Truman Show. The main character, Truman Burbank, was adopted as a baby by a television studio. Every important person in his life is an actor, every part of his life a set—but he doesn't know it. Whenever he wants something the production team can't provide, he's told that it's just not available. He has inklings things aren't right and finally realizes that his life is a total lie—set up for the camera. When Truman finally makes it to the edge of a painted canvas and recognizes it for what it is, he walks off the set and into his new life.

The movie was a mirror of my own life. Before every decision I'd ever made, I'd asked myself, "What would the Prophet have me say? What would the Prophet have me do?" For every question, there had been an appropriate, programmed answer. I was never allowed my own opinion; I had never developed the ability to choose. All of my people were like that, too. I gave myself permission to look deeply at polygamy in a way I never had before. Nothing seemed holy about the structure that must be in place for polygamy to work. Why would God put a roughly equal number of males and females on the earth if He wanted a polygamous society? This structure meant that women don't get the time, affection, and validation they so crave. And because only a select number of male leaders are righteous enough to receive multiple wives, not only do an extraordinarily high number of young men get kicked out, but the marriageable girls become increasingly younger as demand intensifies.

Throw all of these factors into a climate in which the leaders make the people feel as if they can never question those leaders because that means questioning God Himself, then one has a recipe for spiritual abuse. Every way that I examined it, it was neither healthy nor holy. Why could no one see it? Because they would not—unless, like me, they were denied the good graces of Warren Jeffs. All I knew was that I did not want that perverse dictator running my show ever again.

POSTSCRIPT: Rebecca Musser, now 37, was the key state witness in the 2008 trials of Warren Jeffs and several FLDS leaders. In 2011 Jeffs, who counted a 12- and 15-year-old among his reported 80 wives, was convicted of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault of a minor and is serving a life sentence plus 20 years in a Texas prison. Musser, a motivational speaker and the founder of Claim Red Foundation, which supports victims of human trafficking, lives in Idaho with her two children. The FLDS, based in Arizona and Utah, maintains a membership estimated between 6,000 and 10,000.

Excerpted from The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice by Rebecca Musser with M. Bridget Cook. Copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Musser. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.

Bomb Explosion At an Egyptian Christian cathedral kills 25

A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 49 during Sunday Mass, one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory and a grim reminder of Egypt's difficult struggle to restore security and stability after nearly six years of turmoil.





The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. That group — called "Hasm," or "Decisiveness" — distanced itself from the attack in a statement issued Sunday night, saying it does not as a principle kill women, children, the elderly or worshippers.

The statement, at least in theory, leaves the extremist Islamic State group or like-minded independent militants as the chief suspects.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's attack. However, Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year's Day bombing at a church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. More recently, churches and Christian property in southern Egypt were targeted in the aftermath of the military's July 2013 ouster of an Islamist president. Those were blamed on Brotherhood supporters and ultraorthodox Salafi Muslims.

Christian Artists Could Be Punish for Refusing to Make Same-Sex Wedding Invitations

Two Arizona-based Christian artists face fines and the possibility of being jailed after they refused to make invitations for same-sex weddings.






Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski own Brush & Nib Studio, a stationery company that makes invitations for different events, including weddings.

Following their refusal to create invitations for a gay wedding because of their religious beliefs, they are accused of violating an ordinance in the city of Phoenix that protects homosexuals from discrimination.

The city ordinance also prohibits Duka and Koski "from explaining to customers and the public why they could only create art consistent with their beliefs about marriage."


Kristen Waggoner, the attorney who's representing Duka, Koski and other area business owners, joined Shannon Bream on "The Kelly File" tonight to discuss the case after losing at the trial level.

"We don't force artists to create artistic expression under threat of jail time," Waggoner argued.

"Americans don't give up their constitutional rights because they want to earn a living a feed their children, nor do artists," she added.

Waggoner said the First Amendment protects this sort of religious expression, so they've filed an appeal and she's confident that another judge will see the case differently.

Catholic Church Leaders Want To Capture Young People By Launching A New App Nicknamed 'Sindr' Specially For Confessions

Of the many things I find absurd about the Catholic Church, my alma mater, one of the most unfathomable is that they expect us to go into a dark, usually too-hot booth with an adult dude we don’t even know and tell him everything we’ve done wrong. Confession is a little bit like therapy, but without the benefit of actually helping you avoid future wrongdoings; there’s no analysis, and penance is usually some variation of praying ten Hail Marys or, for the particular baddies, the whole dang rosary.






This week, though, a technologically savvy Archbishop in Scotland figured out a way to help Catholics find a better confessional booth and help the Church cater to millennials, a group it’s been bleeding like the stigmata on a Sunday. Time reports that Edinburgh Archbishop Leo Cushley invented an app which “lets users search for the nearest Holy Mass, confessional or diocesanal statistics”and “guide the faithful from their current location to the nearest Catholic Church.” It is called “The Catholic App,” which is deeply unfortunate. Cleverer people on the internet and in the media have been calling it “Sindr,” though that implies it allows you to confess to your sins, receive your penance, and be absolved all via your phone—frankly, a much better idea and one they should consider implementing. (Confession: who has time for it? Plus sometimes there are lines.)

While the Catholic App seems basically like a religious combo of Google Maps, Yelp, and Push Notifications, it does at least bring the institution into the 21st Century, something it’s been needing to do for literal ages (literal ages), particularly if it’s going to compete with all the casj and chill newfangled party churches and also Pentacostalism. Archbishop Cushley attempted to sweeten the deal to Vatican Radio, calling his invention “a little bit of smart technology that could make a big impact on how the Catholic Church brings the mercy of God and the joy of the Gospel to our contemporary world.” Deus ex machina, little lambs.

Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Declares Iranians are not Muslims

Saudi Arabia's top cleric has declared that Iran's leaders are not Muslims and regard Sunni Muslims as their enemy.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh was responding to Iran's supreme leader, who denounced Saudi Arabia's handling of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Grand Mufti said the claims of the Iranian Ayatollah were "not surprising" and accused Iran's leaders of being Zoroastrians, an ancient pre-Islamic Iranian religion.

Saudi Arabia's population is nearly 90 per cent Sunni and has long been at odds with the 95 per cent Shia Iran - two denominations that have been in conflict since the 7th century.

In remarks published on Wednesday, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh said: "We must understand these are not Muslims.

"They are the son of the Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is an old one, especially with the People of the Tradition [Sunnis]."

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the Saudis on Monday of "murdering" pilgrims caught up in the stampede during last year's Hajj.

Mother Teresa Declared a Saint Today by Pope Francis

Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa in front of a crowd of 120,000 onlookers at the Vatican on Sunday morning. The iconic Albanian nun, now officially St. Teresa of Calcutta, has been venerated for her work caring for those who were sick and poor in India and around the world, with 517 clinics in 100 countries at the time of her death.

Hundreds of handmade signs littered St. Peter’s Square in support of the founder of the Missionaries of Charity order. Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. “Always a saint in our hearts, now a saint for all the world,” read one such tribute. Monday marks the 19th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death, making her canonization one of the fastest in the church’s history—thanks, in part, to the late Pope John II. He expedited the process and approved her first miracle after her 1997 death. (In order to be declared a saint, the Catholic Church must agree the candidate lived virtuously and performed at least two miracles through the intercession of God.)

Pope Francis secured Teresa’s legacy by approving her second miracle late last year and by canonizing her today. "She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity," Pope Francis said. "She made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created."

"We may have some difficulty in calling her 'Saint' Teresa," Pope Francis added. "Her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful, that we continue to spontaneously call her Mother."

But very few legacies are without controversy, and there are other reasons some will find difficulty calling Teresa a "saint." Some have raised questions aboutwhere the money donated to her order by those "powers of the world" came from—and where it went: Several doctors' accounts reported that her clinics for the sick provided inadequate care in "unfit" conditions.

Today, nuns and priests continue her order's work around the world.

“May this tireless worker of mercy help us to increasingly understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race or religion,” the Pope said.