DEAR READERS, recent events call for deep prayer for our sisters and brothers in Nigeria who are under pressure to flee from Islamic terrorism. Shocked by the sheer brutality of the violence, they are leaving their homes by the hundreds in the north of the country, where a string of attacks against Christians is underway, organised by Boko Haram, a Muslim sect whose goal it is to impose Sharia law on the whole of Nigeria.
Since 2009 Boko Haram, which translates ‘Western education is a sin’, has been responsible for the deaths of 935 people. More specifically, since last year’s Christmas Day attack at the Church of St Teresa of Madalla, which killed at least 32 people, there has been no peace at all for Christians in the north of Nigeria. Boko Haran has launched an ultimatum: all Christians out of northern Nigeria by January 4! And, true to their word, a string of attacks in various places by the ultra-violent sect has caused the deaths of at least 185 people since December 25. These episodes bear witness to a painful chapter in the history of the Church in our times: the great number of people around the world who are paying their faithfulness to Christ with their blood.
In January 9 this year, Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, said that religious freedom is “the first of human rights, for it expresses the most fundamental reality of the person.” The Pope was compelled by recent events to highlight how “all too often, for various reasons, this right remains limited or is flouted.”
“Sadly, we are not speaking of an isolated case,” Pope Benedict told the diplomats gathered in a formal, frescoed hall of the Apostolic Palace. “In many countries Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life; in other countries they endure violent attacks against their churches and their homes. At times they are forced to leave the countries they have helped to build because of persistent tensions and policies which frequently relegate them to being second-class spectators of national life. In other parts of the world, we see policies aimed at marginalizing the role of religion in the life of society, as if it were a cause of intolerance rather than a valued contribution to education in respect for human dignity, justice and peace. In the past year religiously motivated terrorism has also reaped numerous victims, especially in Asia and in Africa; for this reason, as I stated in Assisi, religious leaders need to repeat firmly and forcefully that ‘this is not the true nature of religion. It is the antithesis of religion and contributes to its destruction’”.
Nigeria’s government must make its voice heard and take immediate and effective action to stop the violence. This may not be an easy thing to do in such a religiously and ethnically diverse nation as Nigeria, yet it remains the essential duty of any government worthy of the name.
However, we in the West must also pitch in and help. Though we are presently struggling with an unprecedented economic crisis, we must keep our hearts and minds focused on the fate of those men and women who are suffering more than we are, who are living under the threat of this blind brutality. What can we do to help our persecuted brothers and sisters? This question should be posed both at the individual and communal level.
One of the things we can do is to keep these people in mind during the day. We should think of them as presences that request our prayers. In such cases St Paul advises us to “fight together with them in prayer”. Along with this we should enact an active solidarity that searches for all possible ways to help and sustain them, both morally and materially.
Hatred against Christianity is clear evidence of the power of evil in the world, especially when it hides itself under the name of God or Allah. This hatred is also, however, clear evidence that a Christian life modelled on Gospel values is perceived as an alternative to evil. The persecution itself reveals to all of us, including the persecutors themselves, the power for goodness inherent in Christianity.
Updated on October 06 2016