Almost three martyrs a day

Almost 940 died for their faith. The year is not 302 AD but 2002! This is a statistic that most of our readers never thought could be true.

Most probably several would still find it very difficult to believe it. But true it surely is.

A report published recently by the organisation known as "Aid to the Church in Need" says that in 2002, 938 died for their faith, 629 were injured and 100,345 were arrested.

The report of Aid to the Church in Need is not some flimsy report based on hearsay. Its 2003 Report on Religious Liberty in the World is a work of 455 pages that analyses the situation of this fundamental right with country studies, tables and maps.

According to the report, the most critical situation for religious liberty is, perhaps, in Nigeria, Sudan, China and Cuba.

In Europe, the most difficult situations are in Belarus, with one of the most restrictive laws on religious liberty, and Romania, where Eastern rite Catholic communities are deprived of their churches, confiscated by the Communist regime in 1948.

The report dedicates 30 pages to Russia, emphasising that "respect for religious liberty has met with new difficulties, especially for the Catholic Church". The Russian administration has engaged in hostile gestures, including the expulsion of some priests, in response to the "alleged Catholic expansionism".

The American picture begins with a reference to Mexico, pointing out that "relations between the Church and state are increasingly serene", and Colombia, which holds the tragic record of 127 Christians killed during 2002.

In Cuba, 86 Christians are imprisoned for the sole reason of having witnessed to their faith. Permissions to build or repair churches are hard to obtain.

In Venezuela, "the Church has been the object of controls and threats on the part of the police" and "insults at the highest institutional level". In an address on February 24, President Hugo Chávez described the Catholic Church as the cancer of his "revolution".

In India, Hindu radical nationalism promotes "anti-conversion" laws that worry Christians, ACN said. Problems also persist in Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos. In North Korea, there are 100,000 Christians detained in concentration camps, the group said.

The ACN report said that most Muslim countries practice discrimination against non-Muslims. In Africa there are two very serious cases: Sudan and Nigeria where there is a radicalisation of intransigent Muslim positions, as proved by the approval of Islamic law.

It is a pity that in an era where so many believe in freedom there is still so much religious intolerance and persecution. The silver lining is that Church experience always showed that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of greater number of Christians.