Christianity under duress

In 1987, it was estimated that Christians in Iraq amounted to about 1.4 million. Today, the number has dwindled to about 600,000. Persecution by Saddam Hussein of Christians in Iraq led to an exodus to neighbouring countries, principally to Syria, Turkey and Jordan. A few hundred found themselves on Malta's shores during the 1990s. Despite the elimination of the Saddam regime the persecution has not diminished. In some cases it has even increased.

On February 28 of this year a small group of Christians in Mosul marched in protest to urge the Iraqi government to defend Christians who were being killed by Muslim fanatics. In the 16th century, Christians were half the population of Iraq. Today, they are a persecuted minority and no Iraqi government will come forward to defend them as it would be exposing itself to extreme unpopularity in a country mired in unrest and fanaticism. UNHCR estimates that Iraqi Christians represent about 40 per cent of the refugees now living in nearby countries.

In the early hours of Sunday, March 7, 2010, a three-hour long killing spree of Christian villagers in Plateau State in Nigeria took place. More than 500 people, mostly women and children, were left dead when members of the Muslim Fulani ethnic group butchered their victims from the Christian Berom clan in three villages. In his weekly general audience, Pope Benedict offered condolences to the victims and urged the authorities in Nigeria to work towards security and peaceful co-existence. "Violence does not resolve conflicts but only increases the tragic consequences," he said.

One of the most atrocious episodes of religious barbarity happened last August in a village in the South Sudan. Groups of Islamic fanatics crucified seven Christians during a series of attacks on small Christian communities. One man was tied to a tree and mutilated and six others were nailed to pieces of wood and killed.

In Pakistan, violence against Christian erupts periodically. On July 30 of last year thousands of Islamic fundamentalists burned 51 Christians in a village called Koriyan. On August 1, thousands of extremists attacked the Christian community of Gojra and burned seven people alive and wounded another 19, including women and children.

In Egypt, the government does not have a policy to persecute Christians. It, however, discriminates against them and hampers their freedom of worship. Its agencies periodically persecute Muslim converts to Christians. The government has restricted Christians from occupying senior positions in the public sector and the military and subsidised media attacks on Christians. The police often turn a blind eye on violent attacks on Christian Copts and Coptic churches. Hundreds of Coptic girls have been kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam as well as being victims of rape and forced marriages to Muslims.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, told the General Assembly that, in recent months, Christian communities in some African, Asian and Middle East countries have been attacked. "Christians are the religious group most discriminated against as there may well be over 200 million of them of different confessions who are in situations of difficulty and even direct persecution," he warned. There is real danger that Christianity, once so flourishing in the countries of the Middle East and nearby regions, will become extinct in the not too distant future.

Persecution is not new to Christianity. What is new is the indifference with which the governments and the public in the West, especially Europe, are treating it. The media is also disregarding it. Related news items are rarely reported or sidelined. Why is this happening? Europe, which has turned its back on God and its great Christian heritage, has become apathetic and indifferent to religious matters. Persecution against Christians is often not classified as a breach of human rights, nor is it a matter worth bothering too much about, especially in a world caught up as it is in great political, social and economic difficulties. Religion is very much in the lower scale of peoples' concern in the West.

On the other hand, history has shown that when the Church is at its most vulnerable it is also enters into its most meaningful period. In his book Paul - The Mind Of The Apostle, author A.N. Wilson writes with calculated cynicism: "But Nero had given the Christian movement two vitally important privileges: a public name and a number of dead, who could be seen instantaneously as martyrs.

Any obscure group poised to play an important part in the world stage must thank, in retrospect, the ruling power that first bans, or drives to exile, or murders, some member of the sect."

Although this remark by the author was meant as a critical assessment of the historical rise of the Church in its early times, it also implies that sacrifice and suffering have an important role in the rejuvenation of the Church, something which is already very evident in many Third World countries, especially the Africans, where the rise in vocations is a registered reality, as against what is happening in de-Christianised West.