Living as we do in this nation where true religious freedom was once celebrated by the vast majority of Americans, we can easily overlook the attacks believers must endure throughout the world. Religious persecution here in the United States certainly exists but, at least until recently, it has been somewhat subtle, typified by verbal attacks and social exclusion, or what we now call "cancellation." Times are changing, though, and even here the enemy tries to exercise judicial and governmental power to eliminate any reference to religious values in the public square, and to belittle those who espouse them. Yes, the persecution of Christians is far worse in many parts of the world, where the martyrdom of the faithful has become an almost everyday occurrence. Sadly, though, the purveyors of hatred have become more adept at selling their product to the uninformed and spiritually indifferent here in the USA and in once-Christian Western Europe. I've included below just a few subtle and not-so-subtle examples pulled from recent news stories.
- St. Brigid Cancelled. Ireland, no longer the Catholic land of my ancestors, has seemingly regressed into a new form of paganism. St. Brigid, Ireland's traditional #2 saint, has apparently been cancelled. At first, it seemed the beloved fifth-century saint, whose feast day is February 1, would be commemorated by the creation of an annual "bank holiday" on the first Monday of February. But the Dublin City Council altered the celebration a bit. Forgetting the saint, they made the holiday a celebration honoring Irish women and the arrival of spring, all "inspired by the Celtic goddess, Brigit." They have, therefore, cancelled St. Brigid, replacing her with a virtually unknown Celtic goddess. The Dominican priest, Fr. Conor McDonough, who has researched both the saint and the goddess recently stated:
"It's really quite incredible how this paper-thin theory became so widely accepted. We know almost nothing about the pagan divinity identified as Brigit in the 10th-century text, Sanas Cormaic. Brigit there is described as a goddess worshipped by poets, while her sister, also Brigit, is a goddess of medics, and another sister, Brigit again, is a goddess of blacksmiths. That's it; that's all we know. We don't know whether there was really a cult of Brigit(s) in pre-Christian Ireland. All we have is this very late report, written at a time Irish intellectuals were actively fabricating elements of the pagan Irish past."
I include this story just to demonstrate how Christian, and especially Catholic, traditions and beliefs have been undermined even in the least likely places. Thankfully, there remains in Ireland a "holy remnant" that will keep the faith alive and resist religious indifference or the return to paganism. Pray for them, that they will mirror the earlier evangelizing efforts and success of St. Patrick and St. Brigid. (Oh, yes, in the above image of St. Brigid, you'll notice her holding the St. Brigid Cross. One of those hangs just inside our front door.)
A brief postscript: It seems celebrating St. Patrick in Ireland will also be subject to wokeness. According to Ireland’s Arts Minister, Catherine Martin, this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival will celebrate diversity and inclusivity by highlighting LGBT entertainment, including parades of drag queens. The intent, of course, is to eradicate anything religious from the feast day of Ireland’s patron saint. We can only hope at least some Irish will have the courage to object.
- Iran and Lebanese Christianity. Thanks to the Islamic Republic of Iran, hundreds of thousands of Christians in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East, are being killed and displaced. Iran uses its Shiite puppet, Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group, to sabotage the nation’s physical, economic, and cultural infrastructure while also working to eliminate Lebanon’s Christians.
Habib Malik, of the Philos Project, states that Lebanon faces a “new and unprecedented threat unlike previous scourges — it is the difference between what I would term the ‘dumb evil’ of the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh) and the ‘cunning evil’ of Hezbollah and its Iranian Mullah overlords.” Hezbollah, he says, is determined to destroy Lebanon as a nation and replace it with a terror state. Malik added that Hezbollah’s goal is “to alter Lebanon’s identity as a country and a society: from a free and open society with both solid Arab and Western connections to one with stronger if not exclusive ties with Iran, Assad’s Syria, China, and other anti-Western states.”
Malik stresses that Iran is waging war on Christians throughout the Middle East and not just in Lebanon. Iran’s war, he states, “has been deliberate as part of a larger objective of creating the Shiite Crescent stretching from Iran to Lebanon through both Iraq and Syria.” Malik adds that the Iranian terrorist regime hates freedom and “sees the native Christians, especially those of Lebanon who have resisted dhimmitude over the centuries at enormous cost to them in terms of lives and resources, as the great obstacle in the face of their domination of the region.”
The Iranian strategy appears to be working since huge number of Lebanese Christians, particularly young Christians, are leaving the country to live in the relative freedom available elsewhere in the West. How sad that Christians, who have lived throughout the Middle East since the time of the apostles, are being forced to leave their homelands.
- Worldwide Persecution of Christians Increasing. Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, largely because of Islamic extremism and repressive governments. The ever-increasing persecution has led Pope Francis to call it a "form of genocide" and "religio-ethnic cleansing." Keeping up with the news on the persecution of Christians is no easy task since the mainstream media tends to ignore it. You really have to dig deep to find stories on the subject. One good source, however, is Aid to the Church in Need International, a Catholic organization that is serious about keeping track of persecution throughout the world. (By the way, there are few organizations more worthy of donations than AID. I highly recommend throwing a few dollars in their direction every so often.) Just a brief scan of the news section of AID’s website provides a quick review of the persecution of Christians in many countries, including:
Democratic Republic of the Congo where armed militias attack villages in the eastern provinces and often slaughter the inhabitants. Fr. Marcelo Oliveira, a missionary who serves the people in this dangerous region, stated that “Terror is widespread…It’s one village here today, another there tomorrow, and all this in silence. And this is what gets to us, as missionaries, seeing the silence of the international community, the deafening silence, while human lives are massacred.” Fr. Oliveira spoke right after terrorists used explosives to attack a Protestant church, an attack the killed at least 15 worshippers and wounded dozens of others. This is just one example of ongoing terror attacks aimed largely at Christian communities and churches.Christians Massacred in Nigeria
Nigeria has undergone perhaps more persecution of Christians than any other African state. Between January 2021 and June 2022, more than 7,600 Christians have been killed in terror attacks. The terrorists have focused much of their attention on killing and kidnapping Catholic priests. In just the past year, four priests have been murdered and 28 kidnapped. Then in mid-January, two Catholic priests were attacked in their presbytery by terrorists. One, Fr. Isaac Achi, was burned alive when the building was set afire, and the other, Fr. Collins Omeh, was shot but survived the attack. On the same day another priest was kidnapped. Unfortunately, the Nigerian government has been less than enthusiastic protecting Christians or pursuing the terrorists. Speaking to the UK Houses of Parliament, Nigeria’s Bishop Jude Arogundade stated: “I strongly appeal to this important body and all people of goodwill to compel the Nigerian government to stop the genocide.” I suspect that the UK, the nations of Western Europe, and the USA will probably just wipe their hands of it all, saying, “Really, what can we do?” And when Christians are massacred by Muslim extremists, the Western media keeps silent. Of course, the unspoken sentiment that drives so much of the liberal, woke West’s attitudes and actions relates to Christianity’s unwillingness to stop “making disciples of all nations…baptizing…and teaching all that I have commanded you” [See Mt 28:19-20]. As one liberal, agnostic acquaintance said to me a few years ago, "All your proselytizing does is anger the Muslims. In a sense you Christians are the root cause of terrorism." How can you argue with logic like that? Another unstated motivation? The systemic racism of the atheistic left. Hey, it’s in Africa, not really worth our trouble.
I simply don’t have the time today to address all the other nations of the world where Christian persecution is widespread, but if you visit the AID website and click on their “News” section, you can read these stories yourself. The Christians in Africa are among the most courageous and their courage is the reason Christianity is growing so rapidly on that continent. Read about persecution and anti-Christian terrorism in Mozambique, Mali, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and other nations. But Africa’s not unique. The same kind of persecution, much of it conducted by governments, takes place today in Asian nations such as Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, and too many others.
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