A book you should read

In his new book The Global War on Christians: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution, John L. Allen, Jr. discusses what he says "is in many ways the greatest story never told" (243).  This is, he admits, a bit of an exaggeration because the real "problem in the global war on Christians is not that no one is reporting what's happening.  It's rather that far too few people are paying attention" (27).

Despite various news outlets reporting on instances of Christian persecution, most people in the West (and throughout the world) are unaware that:

• 100,000,000 Christians "worldwide presently face interrogation, arrest, torture, or even death" (4);
• 100,000 Christians were killed per year between 2000 and 2010 (4);
• since the death of Jesus, 70,000,000 Christians have been killed for their faith in Christ;
• of those, 45,000,000 - 50% - were killed in the 20th century [the 1900s] (32-33); 
• between 2006 and 2010, Christians were persecuted in 139 countries (34);
• 80% of religious persecution today is against Christians (9); and,
• in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Christian persecution has increased 309% since 2003 (36).

Throughout The Global War on Christians Allen relates individual instances of such persecution and provides an overview of the current situation in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, often even breaking down his overview by country.

As I read the book I knew many of the stories already because I had either written about them on this blog or at Persecution Watch.  I felt conflicted, both because I knew so many of the stories and because there were many more I did not know.  He is right to describe this war as "the world's best-kept secret" (15).

Longtime readers of his column in the National Catholic Reporter will be aware of Allen's ability to cut to the heart of an issue, to separate and distinguish with clarity and objectivity.  He brings this same skill to The Global War on Christians, repeatedly examining questions to determine where the war is being fought:

The mere fact that Christians are harmed someplace does not ipso facto mean they were harmed because they are Christian.  It's equally fallacious both to dismiss religion as a casual factor and to privilege it over to others.

At the same time, a one-sided focus on the motives of the perpetrators of violence can also produce a badly skewed picture.  When someone is threatened or harmed, there are usually two questions to ask: First, what are the motives of the attackers?  Second, did the victim make choices that placed himself or herself at risk, and if so, why (13)?

These two questions must be asked in examining this war because, as Allen rightly notes, "to ignore threats against Christians because they're not explicitly is, therefore, to miss the forest for the trees" (14).  It is clarity of thought that has gained Allen the respect of many.

Throughout the book, Allen discusses why the war on Christians is so little known, what it is and what it isn't, and what forms it takes in various places.

We might well ask why he decided to write this book when so many others have not written on this important reality.  The answer is quite simple: "there's something so precious about faith in Christ and membership in the church that, when push comes to shove, ordinary people will pay in blood rather than let go" (21).  Allen has told their stories well.

Why should you read this book?  Because the truth is always important to investigate and because "the stories of the martyrs have a deep spiritual resonance, and when people are exposed to them, they often come away changed" (266).

Spanish priest murdered in Panama "in broad daylight"

The sixty-seven year old Father Aníbal Gómez was murdered Wednesday outside the home of the retired Bishop of Colon:

According to police reports, the priest’s body was found bound with plastic ties, beaten and stabbed. The housekeeper said that she tried to call for help but that the aggressors knocked her unconscious.

Gómez had been living in Panama for 20 years. He officiated mass at the María Madre de Dios parish in the former Fort Davis and was the director of the Academia Santa Maria in Colon for many years [more].

His Excellency the Most Reverend José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, O.S.A. lamented the murder:

It happened in broad daylight, we all have to reflect and we must all work together to stop the violence and murders that are taking place [more].

After massacre of Syrian Christians, Archbishop calls for prayers and begs for help

The Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, has called for prayers for the Syrian Christians following an attack on the city of Sadad in which 45 Christians were killed and half of the city destroyed by "armed men and terrorists."

On the blog of The Orthodox Church on which he gave the above summary of the destruction, he pleads:

3000 people were held hostage, and we cried out to world, and no-one heard us, except for the minority which came to our aid, and stood in solidarity with us.  Where is the Christian conscience?  Where, the Syriac conscience?  Where is the human conscience?  Where are my brothers, the metropolitans, priests, and friends? Where… where? And no-one answers… except for a few.  There is a lump in the throat and burning in the heart for all that’s happened in my metropolitanate and its poor suffering people which no sooner did it flee to a place of refuge, then left from there empty-handed, and after all this, to where, I don’t know…

The attack is the "largest massacre of Christians" in the Syrian civil war thus far.  Speaking with Fides News Agency, the Archbishop said:

45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women. Some of them fled on foot travelling 8 km from Sadad to Al-Hafer to find refuge. About 2,500 families fled from Sadad, taking only their clothes, due to the irruption of armed groups and today they are refugees scattered between Damascus, Homs, Fayrouza, Zaydal, Maskane, and Al-Fhayle.

 

Two Georges on Christian Persecution

George J. Marlin has an written a summary of The Persecuted Church in India over The Catholic Thing and George Weigel has an article on The Church Persecuted at First Things.

Islamists in Indonesia block efforts to build church, despite permit

Despite having a permit to build a church to accommodate 11,000 people, some 200 members of the Islamic Defenders Front are blocking efforts to construct St. Barbara's in the Indonesian city of Tangerang on Java Island.

The Fides news agency reports that

among the population in Tangerang, leaflets of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI ) and other Islamic organizations united in the Islamic forum "Sudimara Pinang" that are opposed to the construction of the church, are circulating. According to the forum, "the church is a threat to Islam, and if the construction of the church continues, Christians will convert Muslims in the coming decades". As Fides learns, the Muslim religious leaders in Tangerang have distanced themselves from this position, stating that " it is wrong to stir up religious tensions" and appeal to tolerance and peaceful religious coexistence, essential trait of Indonesia.

The permit itself took twenty-three years to obtain and, according to reports from the Jakarta Globe, this is not the first time the parish has met with similar persecution:

The parish has faced intolerance before. In 2004, protestors forced the church to relocate from the Sang Timur school in Ciledug. Protestors built a wall across a road, blocking access to the school. The wall still stands.

Persecution: The unreported catastrophe of our time

The persecution of Christians throughout the world is occurring with greater frequency every day, though you may not know if from what you see in the much of the media today.  Writing for The Spectator, John L. Allen, Jr. recently wrote on what he calls "the unreported catastrophe of our time":

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

Throughout the remained of the article, Allen, who is one of the few reporters actually paying attention to this tragedy, provides a country-by-country in various parts of the world, which is well worth reading.  After providing these accounts of an increasing global persecution over the past several years, Allen asks why this remains largely  unreported:

Why are the dimensions of this global war so often overlooked? Aside from the root fact that the victims are largely non-white and poor, and thus not considered ‘newsmakers’ in the classic sense, and that they tend to live and die well off the radar screen of western attention, the global war also runs up against the outdated stereotype of Christianity as the oppressor rather than the oppressed.

Say ‘religious persecution’ to most makers of cultured secular opinion, and they will think of the Crusades, the Inquisition, Bruno and Galileo, the Wars of Religion and the Salem witch trials. Today, however, we do not live on the pages of a Dan Brown potboiler, in which Christians are dispatching mad assassins to settle historical scores. Instead, they’re the ones fleeing assassins others have dispatched.

If you've ever attempted to alert others to the reality of what is happening to our brothers and sisters in so much of the world, you'll know he's correct.

Please, read the entire article, fast and pray for the persecuted, and help to spread the news.

The article is written in connection to the publication of Allen's latest book, The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution, which I hope to be able to find in Rome.

Islamists attack Christian village in northern Syria

A new wave of difficulties has befallen Christians living in the ancient city of Sednaya in northern Syria followed a raid by Islamists that left one man dead:

In yesterday’s raid a person died and one person was wounded among the local Christians. A religious from Sednaya , who requested anonymity, told Fides that "this is banditry but it is also a vendetta against Christians. We would not want to give a meaning to these acts of religious persecution, but they are targeted attacks that have the effect of creating confusion and fear among civilians". The tactic of armed gangs now is sudden raids that create terror among the civilian population, resulting in an exodus [more].

The Christians who have fled to Damascus have formed a "Committee" and lament the fact that most of the world pays them little attention: "We appeal strongly to the international community. Nobody helps us," said a representative to the Fides News Agency.  "Islamic radicalism is becoming more discriminatory. We feel unprotected. No one does anything to prevent these human right abuses: we ask the UN Commission in Geneva to intervene."

What is more, the situation for Christians in Syria is becoming increasingly difficult: