Addressing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Mgr Antoine Camilleri, the Maltese-born Vatican UnderSecretary for Relations with States, said: “To act and speak out publicly as a committed Christian in one’s professional life has never been more threatened. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere.”
Camilleri added that the public celebration of Christian holy days, such as Christmas, are more and more often discouraged if not forbidden. Echoing the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, he said that religious faith “is not a problem for legislators to solve”. Religious beliefs should be welcomed into public discussions, he said, and faith should play its natural role in forming public opinions.
Anti-Christian ideology on the rise in Europe
Mgr Janusz Urbanczyk, the Holy See’s representative to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said: “Our region [Europe] is still not free from cases of discrimination against Christians, and ultimately even their security can be at risk. As a matter of fact, manifestations of intolerance, hate crimes and episodes of violence or vandalism against religious places or objects continue to increase. Moreover, offending, insulting or attacking Christians because of their beliefs and their values, including in the media and in public debate, based on a distorted and misinterpreted concept of freedom of expression, often goes uncontested.
“We have to acknowledge some aggressively orchestrated actions, especially in the media and in public discourse, against Christians and all others who express peacefully their religious views, traditions and values.
“ This seems to be true in particular for those who defend human nature from being reduced to mere matter, and from the new ideological colonisation that invades human thought, under the pretence of virtue, modernity and new attitudes, and which is contemptuous of reality as God has created it.
“Freedom of expression on these issues seems to be threatened, and believers who share publicly their convictions are often labelled as intolerant or accused of bigotry.”
‘Government actions aggravate economic crisis’
In a document released on December 17 the Catholic bishops of Venezuela said the country’s economic crisis has been made worse by the emergency actions taken by the government. The bishops said those suffering most are the disadvantaged and the vulnerable people.
The bishops called attention to the severe shortages of basic necessities, the long lines of people waiting for bread and milk and the prevailing uncertainty caused by the hyperinflation of Venezuela’s currency.They appealed to government to recognise the people’s problems and acknowledge that the will of the people should govern a democratic nation.
Weapons of mass destruction
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s representative to the UN Security Council, said the involvement of non-State actors in wars and conflicts has been increasing lately and this has had horrendous effects on civilian populations. He stressed the need to make strong efforts to curb the trade in weapons to “preventing non-State actors from possessing and using weapons of mass destruction, and thereby to preventing the atrocities they will use those arms to commit”.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)