Sad Happenings...and Odd

The slaughter of Christians in the Middle East and Africa continues, but at least our president openly addressed this ongoing tragedy when he spoke to the gathering of the leaders of Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia. He didn't parrot the foolish political correctness of the previous administration, but identified the enemy as Islamist terrorists.

President Trump in Saudi Arabia

It was also refreshing to hear him scold those leaders for their halfhearted, at best, efforts to rid Islam of this cancer. Now we'll see if they actually do anything. I'm not holding my breath because in far too many of these nations a sizable percentage of the population actually support some of the terrorists' goals, specifically the universal imposition of sharia law. (See Pew Research Center's polling results.)

I also applaud President Trump's strong support for our ally, Israel, perhaps the only nation in that part of the world that doesn't hope for our destruction.

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Yesterday's slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt provided an interesting juxtaposition alongside the recent terrorist attack in the UK. While the UK attack has almost monopolized the news for several days,  I suspect we'll hear much less about the wholesale murder of a larger number of Egyptian Christians, many of whom were also children. I'm not belittling the tragedy in Manchester, far from it, but what happened in Egypt is no less tragic.

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In a related story Thomas Mair, the mayor of Greater Manchester, speaking about the horrific terrorist bombing in his city, stated: “This is an extremist act and the person who did it no more represents the Muslim community than the person who killed Jo Cox represents the white Christian community.” Jo Cox, you might recall, was the Labour MP who was stabbed to death a week before the "Brexit" referendum. The problem with the mayor's statement is that I'm pretty certain the vast majority of the UK's white Christian community doesn't support the indiscriminate killing of Muslims and would report such plots to the authorities. Sadly, a recent poll indicated that a majority of the UK's Mulims would not report suspected Jihadist activity to the police.
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I found it interesting that Nancy Pelosi, now perhaps the most irrelevant of left-coast politicians, for some unknown reason chided the president for visiting Saudi Arabia on his first international trip. She seems to think he instead should have visited Canada, or perhaps one of those needy foreign people's republics like San Francisco. I expect some in her party are urging her to retire before she does even more damage to their collective credibility.
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Greg Gianforte, Body-Slammer

And speaking of the credibility of the Democrat Party...Things must be very bad indeed when a Montana Republican, Greg Gianforte, wins a special election for a U.S. Congressional seat the day after he's charged with misdemeanor assault for body-slamming a pesky reporter. The Democrats had expected the election to result in an anti-Trump win for their party, an expectation considered a certainty after the Wednesday assault. Last-minute radio and tv ads by the Democrats focused almost exclusively on the assault, and three Montana newspapers pulled their endorsements of Gianforte. But the Repblican still won, and by a decent margin. I certainly don't support assualting reporters, even those who are purveyors of fake news, but the incident certainly says something about the mood of the country. Mr. Gianforte has since publicly apologized for his ill-considered aggression toward the media.
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Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's Finance Minister, another of Europe's brighter lights, suggests that Germany's Christians can learn from its growing Muslim population. What can they learn? In the minister's words, “Many human values are very strongly realised in Islam. Think of hospitality, and other things like, what is there… And also tolerance, I believe, for example.” Hospitality and tolerance were certainly in evidence in Manchester and Nice and Paris and San Bernardino and Egypt and...the list goes on. Of course many, perhaps most, Muslims are hospitable and tolerant, but to deny the religious basis of Islamist terrorism is not just foolish in the short term, but suicidal in the long term. 
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I have to admit, I've pretty much written off all career politicians, a class of people epitomized primarily by their inability to tell the truth. It's no wonder people are rejecting the liars and increasingly voting for politically inexperienced men and women. It's a trend I suspect (and hope) will continue. 

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One of my heroes, the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, believed strongly that the Islamic world would eventually convert to Christianity through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. He expected that Mary, because she occupies an especially exalted position in Islamic theology, would draw the Islamic world to her Son and Christianity. She will bring this about as Our Lady of Fatima, a title that has some fascinating Islamic roots.

I've always thought that Archbishop Sheen was likely correct about all this and that our politicians, as usual, will follow a much less productive course. This, of course, is just another good reason for all Catholics to pray the Rosary daily, not just for the conversion of Russia, but for the conversion of the entire world. After all, as St. Paul reminds us: 

"This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" [1 Tim 2:3-4].

"All men to be saved..." Why not? With God all things are possible.

And how fitting that we should turn to Our Lady of Fatima this year, the 100th anniversary of her apparition to the three children of Fatima. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Persecution Update

I haven't done one of these updates in a while, but it's not been from a lack of news. Indeed, the persecution of Christians throughout the world has only increased. In some parts of the world it has become nothing less than genocide. The source of persecution hasn't really changed, and the usual suspects are responsible for most of it. The communist governments of North Korea, Beijing, Hanoi, and even Cuba, continue to persecute Christians. But the most wide-spread persecution, on a scale not seen in recent years, is being carried out by Islamic extremists.

I suspect that most American Christians believe this persecution is limited to that by groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and other Islamist terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab. When the persecution of Christians manages to make its way into the mainstream media, it's usually to cover persecution by one of these groups. And while it's true that these terrorist organizations are responsible for much of the most severe persecution of Christians in Asia and Africa, it's important to realize that the governments of many of our so-called allies are just as guilty.

Open Doors is an organization that publishes its annual watch list of the nations in which Christian persecution is worst. At the top of the list for 2016 is North Korea, the communist nation run by the barbaric Kim Jong-un. He has imprisoned close to 100,000 Christians in labor camps where the conditions are beyond despicable. But North Korea is a kind of aberration. Because it is ruled by one man with total power, it is also a nation in which a change of leadership could bring about radical change in its treatment of Christians. That isn't true of many of the other nations on the Open Doors list.

Once we move past North Korea, the next nine nations among the top ten are all Islamic. See the image below:

To view the complete list of 50 nations, click here, then scroll down: Open Doors World Watch List

Open Doors has also prepared a full report, world map, and reports on the individual countries included on its list. The map -- which you can download as a PDF file -- provides a nice visual of places throughout the world where Christians are most unwelcome. Click here. to see the list of  all downloadable files.

One of our supposed closest allies, Saudi Arabia, is #14 on the list. Famous (or infamous) for its religious police, the Kingdom prohibits any form of public Christian worship, and many Christian immigrant workers, imported from places such as the Philippines, suffer greatly under the heavy hand of sharia law. Interestingly, conversions to Christianity, particularly among the youth, are growing in Saudi Arabia due largely to the Internet.

#11 on the list is Yemen, a country where Christians suffer great persecution. Just this past week four of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity nuns were murdered, along with 12 others, in Aden where they ran a nursing home for the elderly. Speaking of this tragedy, Pope Francis said:

“These are the martyrs of today! They are not on the front page of newspapers; they are not news. They are the people who give blood for the Church. These people are the victims of those who have murdered them but also of the indifference, of this global indifference of those who do not care.”

Such is the level of hatred by the persecutors, and the level of indifference by the once-Christian nations of the West.

Some Western Christians might be surprised to find India relatively high on the list (#17), but the persecution of Christians has increased dramatically since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power a few years ago. The party actively supports the radical Hindus who have been responsible for the severe persecution of Christians. No longer can India bill itself as the world's largest democracy when its government openly sanctions the persecution of religious minorities.

The Knights of Columbus, working in partnership with the group, In Defense of Christians, has prepared a comprehensive report on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. You can download a copy of this report here: Genocide Against Christians in the Middle East.

Just to give you a sense of the nature of this persecution, read the words of Mark Arabo, a California businessman and Chaldean-American leader. Speaking to CNN's Jonathan Mann, Arabo called what's happening in Iraq a "Christian genocide" and said "children are being beheaded, mothers are being raped and killed, and fathers are being hanged."

"They are systematically beheading children, and mothers and fathers. The world hasn't seen an evil like this for generations. There's a park in Mosul where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick...this is a crime against humanity. They are doing the most horrendous, the most heartbreaking crimes that you can think of."

Take a moment to sign the Knights of Columbus' petition which will be sent to Secretary of State John Kerry. The petition asks that the United States government declare what's happening to Christians in the Middle East a genocide. Here's a direct link to the petition: Stop the Christian Genocide.

Pray for our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world who suffer persecution simply because they keep the faith.

Islam Destroys Its Own Heritage...and Ours

There have been more than a few news stories in recent years describing the destruction of ancient sites and artifacts by so-called fundamentalist Muslim groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS, whatever...). I suppose the first to make actual headlines was the Taliban's 2001 destruction of two giant statues of Buddha that had been carved into an Afghan mountainside 1,500 years ago, before the advent of Islam. Taliban soldiers spent an entire day pulverizing the statues with dynamite, rockets, artillery and tank fire. This was, of course just the beginning of a far more widespread destruction ordered by Mullah Mohammed Omar, then the Taliban's spiritual leader. It was recently learned that the good mullah died of TB In Pakistan a couple of years ago. Anyway, while he was still alive he stated that he really didn't want to destroy the Buddhas, but eventually went along with it because the West was more concerned about saving the ancient statues than feeding the starving Afghan people. The fact that he and his followers were largely responsible for that starvation seemed to escape him. Of course he also came to believe he was simply following Islamic teaching that declared all images to be nothing less than idolatry and, therefore, worthy of complete destruction. Presumably, his decision also gave the Taliban troops some needed target practice in the absence of women, children and infidels.

One of the Bamiyan Buddhas - 1963 (left), after destruction (right)

Shortly after the destruction of the Buddhas was confirmed, Unesco's director-general, Koichiro Matsuura, was all aflutter and stated: "Words fail me to describe adequately my feelings of consternation and powerlessness as I see reports of the irreversible damage that is being done to Afghanistan's exceptional cultural heritage." Boy, did he nail it: "consternation and powerlessness" -- the perfect description of the United Nations at work.

The Taliban, who make the Byzantine iconoclasts look like rank amateurs, continued their frantic work of idol destruction until our response to the 9-11 attack forced them to realign their priorities...at least for a time. Allowed by the Pakistanis -- another of our helpful and loyal Middle Eastern allies -- to operate in Afghanistan from bases across the border, the Taliban are making a comeback of sorts. Should they succeed and once again rule Afghanistan, one can only assume they will pick up where they left off and find other Buddhas to erase.

The Taliban are not unique. Since our departure from Iraq, the Islamic State now controls a large hunk of Iraqi territory, not to mention its expanding presence in Syria. Actually the Islamic State has a presence in much of the Middle East and North Africa. See the map (below) to get a sense of the reach of this growing threat, one that our president labeled the J. V. team. 

Islamic State control and influence

The Islamic State has become infamous largely for its televised beheadings of Christians and others whose beliefs conflict with their own. It's enough to say that the warriors of the Islamic State behead those they consider infidels in direct obedience to Quran 8:12 witch is pretty explicit:

"When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them."

Like the Taliban, the Islamic State doesn't stop with murder and mayhem. It also considers all shrines, monuments, temples and churches -- any relic of infidel idolatry -- to be worthy of only one thing: complete destruction. They even destroy mosques if they happen to reflect religious thinking contrary to their understanding of shariah. In Iraq the Islamic State has been bulldozing or blowing up countless Muslim shrines and tombs. For example, last year in Mosul ISIS destroyed what Muslims believe to be the tomb of the prophet Daniel along with the tomb and mosque of the prophet Jonah. They haven't limited their destruction to Iraq, but have obliterated many ancient Muslim tombs and mosques in Syria, Libya and wherever else the Islamic State exerts control. They have also murdered any Muslims, including even Imams, who might object.

Islamic State destroyed the Mosque of the Prophet Jirjis in 2014

Of course, the Islamic State has focused most of its destructive energy on the Christian churches of Syria and Iraq. Many of these churches date as far back as the 6th and 7th centuries. They are now gone, completely destroyed. In too many instances worshipers were inside these churches and perished when their spiritual homes were blown up or burned.

Islamic State destroying artifacts at the Mosul Museum

The Islamic State has also targeted many of the most ancient sites in the Middle East. Nimrud, a 13th -century B.C. Assyrian city, has been leveled as have a number of other equally ancient cities, virtually all of them World Heritage Sites.

Mosul Christian Church destroyed; four children murdered

As a result of all this, Secretary of State John Kerry has threatened "to comprehensively document the condition of, and threats to, cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Syria to assess their future restoration, preservation, and protection needs." But that's not all. UNESCO has labeled the destruction of Nimrud a war crime and the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Islamic State's destruction of cultural heritage. Wow! If these actions by the global community don't put a stop to the destruction, nothing will. I wonder if the State Department and the UN will also document the widespread murder of Christians, so widespread it borders on genocide, by the Islamic State wherever it holds sway. After all, there's nothing like a document or two to strike fear in the hearts of barbarians.

Of course, none of this is new in the Islamic world, neither is it limited to destruction carried out by the Taliban and Islamic State. In 2011 Egyptian Muslim mobs attacked the L'Institut de l'Egypte, a truly venerable institution of learning in Cairo. It contained a 200,000 volume library that focused on all aspects of Egyptian history and life. The mob attacked it with Molotov cocktails and burned its entire contents while soldiers of the regime (then strongly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood) stood by laughing.

The mob outside the Burnded-out Shell of L'Institute de l'Egypte

These same mobs, again abetted by the police and the military, have destroyed Coptic Christian churches regularly throughout Egypt.

Interestingly, Muslims not only object to the shrines and churches, historic and modern, of other faiths, but they also seem to enjoy destroying their own heritage. For example, over the past 30 years the Saudi government has destroyed over 98% of the Kingdom's historic and religious sites -- this according to the UK's Islamic Heritage Research Foundation. This would be similar to the Catholic Church demolishing every Gothic and Romanesque Cathedral in Europe. Even the most secular of atheists would object, if only on aesthetic and historical grounds.

I can recall, back in my high school years (over 50 years ago), reading a book that described the destructive nature of Islam as it spread across the Middle East and North Africa. It would seem very little has changed.

Of course, while we bemoan the loss of so many churches and ancient historic sites, we must focus first on the genocide being carried out throughout the Islamic world. The Christian communities, that have been a vibrant part of the Middle East since the time of Christ, are being systematically destroyed while we sit back and do little or nothing. Oh, yes, we have been doing something: we've been enabling the Iranians, in effect giving them billions which they will happily funnel into any number of terrorist organizations. 

Pray for the brave and faithful Christians of the Middle east.

Sweet Sharia

Although I am not an expert on either Islam or Sharia Law, I have taken the time to read the Qur'an. In fact, I've struggled through it twice in its entirety using two different translations. The Qur'an, along with the example and teaching of Muhammad that make up the Sunnah (and the Hadith), are the primary sources of Islamic Law, or sharia. Sharia is interpreted by scholars of the law and by judges and imams, and some of these interpretations are truly unbelievable...unbelievable, that is, unless you stay informed on this stuff.

Keep in mind that most Muslim men actually want to live under sharia law. Indeed, Islam teaches that everyone, not just Muslims, should accept and live under sharia. Of course, if you're not a Muslim living under sharia is not very pleasant. Just ask a Coptic Christian in Egypt, or better yet, any non-Muslim working in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, living under sharia is not particularly pleasant even for many Muslims, especially for Muslim women.

This past week, for example, I came across two news stories related to sharia and young girls. In the first an influential Saudi cleric by the name of Sheikh Abdullah Daoud stated on Saudi television that the best way to keep baby girls from being sexually exploited and abused is to have them wear the burqa, the full body veil worn by many Muslim women. It seems the Sheikh learned from medical and security professionals that such abuse is common in the kingdom. The burqa, you see, will apparently help Saudi men resist the temptation to sexually abuse infant girls. Many of the sheikh's colleagues (judges and imams) are upset with his public statements because they seem to reflect unfavorably on Islam and sharia. No kidding! Welcome to the world of sharia law in Saudi Arabia where billions of petrodollars combined with a seriously dysfunctional culture support the continuation of such unspeakable evil.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi, the murderous sheikh

This evil is clearly manifested in the second story. It involves the trial of another Saudi cleric, Sheikh Fayhan al-Ghamdi, a television preacher who tortured and savagely beat to death his five-year-old daughter, Lama, because he suspected her of losing her virginity. Did you get that? His five-year-old daughter? He not only used whips on her tiny body, he also beat and burned her with a hot iron. Not surprisingly, there was also evidence that she was brutally sexually assaulted. Having divorced Lama's mother the sheikh apparently had custody of the girl. Because she was, in his words, "behaving strangely", he concluded that she was no longer a virgin.

During his subsequent trial the court reviewed the applicable Hadith and concluded that a father who kills his daughter cannot be accused of murder and, therefore, cannot be executed. In coming to this interesting decision, the court relied on a couple of sources in which the Prophet Muhammad stated that a father may not be executed for killing his son (or his wife, for that matter). The court concluded that such restrictions apply to daughters as well as to sons and wives. The sheikh's sentence? He was sentenced to time-served (four months) in prison and ordered to pay Lama's mother $50,000 in so-called blood money. Such sentences are not unusual under Saudi enforcement of sharia where there is little codification and judges interpret the "law" pretty much as they like.

Lama

Little Lama's mother comprehends the horrific irony surrounding her daughter's murder far better than the Saudi courts as they enforce the weirdness of sharia. Speaking of Lama's father she said, “The person who committed this heinous crime is the girl’s father, who tells people how to live their lives and encourages them to cultivate the fear of Allah, who used whips and irons on the body of a 5-year-old girl."

Another sad irony stems from the revelation that the sheikh was also employed by the Saudi Ministry of Education where he apparently worked with troubled youth. One can only wonder how the troubles of these young people could possibly be lessened by any involvement with this man.

And so another young Muslim girl is murdered by her father, an act at least partially condoned by sharia. Keep this in mind when you hear people suggesting that sharia isn't all that bad, and that Muslims living in the West should be allowed to live under sharia law rather than our law. Such suggestions seem to be common among those on the left, which might explain why American and European feminists never seem to utter a word in defense of Muslim women who must live under such oppression.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Persecution Update

The most persecuted religious group in the world is...drum roll...Christians! That's right, Christians are persecuted in a grand total of 131 countries. And here's the real surprise: the most barbarous and severe persecution of Christians is state sponsored or state permitted and occurs in Muslim-majority nations and communist nations. And did you know that upwards of 100,000 Christians are murdered every year simply because of their faith? Can you believe it? I know, I know, such statistics are grossly politically incorrect, but they're also true. If you want to read the specifics, check out the results of the study conducted last year by the Pew Forum.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Now this would seem to be a newsworthy story, don't you think? That's what I find most interesting. 200 million Christians live in those 131 countries in which they are persecuted, but you rarely read about it in the mainstream media. Okay, Newsweek recently ran a cover story on global Christian persecution, but that was an anomaly. In fact, I really can't figure out why Newsweek, a magazine run by a hand-wringing, left-leaning editorial staff, actually published that story...but it did, and God bless them for it. The story, "The War of Christians", was actually written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a remarkable woman who is not only a former member of the Dutch parliament and a best-selling author (Infidel), but also a human rights advocate, a survivor of Islamist death threats, and an escapee from a forced marriage in Somalia. Her article, which describes the widespread persecution of Christians particularly in Muslim countries, should be read by all Americans. Let me share just a few of her comments:

"But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other."

Speaking of the willingness of many governments to ignore the persecution taking place she wrote,

"This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity — and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks — that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens) — has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression."

Aside from this one story, however, about the only place you'll read of the persecution of Christians is in the religious media and the blogosphere. Indeed, the silence of the secular media is exceeded only by that of the Obama administration. Unbelievably, the State Department's recent International Religious Freedom report does not even mention two of the worst offenders — Egypt and Pakistan — who regularly violate the rights of their Christian citizens in the worst way. Of course this report comes from the same administration that considered returning veterans, pro-lifers, states rights supporters, etc. as potential terrorists more dangerous than the Islamists who attacked us on September 11, 2001.

Of course, many members of the Western media, perhaps a majority, are atheists or, at best, agnostics. Not only don't they believe but they don't understand those who do. The idea of a "culture war" being waged between religious and secular cultures, between a culture of life and a culture of death, is a concept incomprehensible to them. This ignorance of things religious also leads them to discount the importance of religious teaching and values as a root cause of terrorism by Islamist extremists. Despite the evidence to the contrary they continue to believe terrorism is caused by economic disparity and a desire to right perceived historical wrongs. They just can't see religion as much of a motivator. To them religion is an aberration that will ultimately fade away under the bright light of progressive thought.

Burning a Christian Church in Egypt

Although much ignored by the media and Western governments, the global persecution of Christian is still a major story. It's also a growing story, one that will be increasingly difficult to ignore as such persecution expands in both frequency and severity. Some media outlets will no doubt mention it, but always "balanced" with stories about alleged Islamophobia by nasty, right-wing Christians -- you know, all those church ladies in Pittsburgh who regularly gun down and behead Muslim gas station attendants. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a wee bit, but you get the picture.

We have come to expect religious persecution from communist and other totalitarian states. These governments, run by ideologues or egomaniacal dictators, rightly consider organized religion, and in particular the Catholic Church, as the greatest obstacle to their complete domination of the human spirit. Communists believe Christians are the enemy and have been persecuting us for nearly 100 years. And yet despite the millions of Christian martyrs they have created, the Church still stands strong in their midst. In some places it might be forced into an underground, clandestine existence as it is in China and even more so in North Korea, but it will never be eradicated, for the Spirit will not be denied. But does our government openly chastise or sanction such nations as China or Vietnam for their state-sponsored persecution? Not if it will jeopardize commercial or banking relationships. 

Amazingly -- and  few Western Christians seem to be aware of this -- there are upwards of 100 million Christians in communist China. Most of these Christians — a majority are Roman Catholic — worship in secret house churches and their numbers are growing. This, of course, is a huge embarrassment to a regime that has propagandized and persecuted believers for over 60 years.

But one doesn't have to be a communist to hate and persecute the Church. Even current and budding dictators, like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, find themselves driven to attack the Church because it will not remain silent in the face of corruption and murder and their accompanying lies. And guess who these dictators hang out with. Why who else but the Chinese and the Iranians, among others? Despite their vastly different ideologies, they willingly join forces against the common enemy. 

I suppose I'm safe in saying we cannot rely on our government, regardless of the political party in power, to make religious persecution a key element of our nation's foreign policy. It will always take a back seat to the realpolitik of worldly concerns. Just consider the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its horrendous record of religious persecution, and then picture George Bush walking hand in hand with King Abdullah. Or reflect on Barack Obama bowing deeply to the same king in humble obeisance. It makes you understand why we've heard barely a world of criticism from either man.

Okay, before I get too political, let me offer some details on the persecution of Christians throughout the world. And I only scratch the surface...

Saudi Arabia. Let's begin with Saudi Arabia where the latest incident involved the arrest and strip-search of 29 Christian women and an assault on six Christian men for holding a prayer meeting in a private home. This, of course, is nothing new in a nation where women are treated as chattel. Just imagine their attitude toward Christian women. Read more here.

Sudan and South Sudan. Over the past ten years the Islamic government of Sudan has killed between 300,000 and a million Christians and animists in South Sudan and Darfur. Nobody knows the exact number, but the total is staggering. What more can one say as this Islamic government piles atrocity upon atrocity? Any effort to protect the victims was apparently not in our national interest and so we and our allies did nothing. Even after the creation of the nation of South Sudan, the northern government infiltrates armed groups into the south to engage in a proxy war against the new government.

The persecution of Christians continues in Sudan itself. As the Orwellian titled Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment recently stated, “We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities...We have all legal rights to take them to court.” In case you had any doubts, this warning was aimed specifically at Christians who must also obey the sharia law of the land. Read more here.

Today I took a peek at the Sudanese government's website, and noticed that the nation's 1st Vice President, one Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, directed the nation, in honor of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, to take on "an attitude of making the celebrations of the Prophet this year full of love, mercifulness, cooperation and solidarity..." I'm sure the people of South Sudan appreciate this sentiment.

Egypt. Mob attacks on Copts continue in Egypt in the aftermath of the nationwide voting in which the radical Islamists won a clear majority. When one considers that Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population, it's apparent that the extremists have the support of the vast majority of Muslims. The latest incident involved an attack by more than 3,000 Muslims who looted Coptic homes and businesses and then set them on fire. The army, located a little over a mile away, took well over an hour to respond. No one was arrested. Such attacks are becoming increasingly common and causing many Christians to leave the country. Read more here.

Another form of persecution in Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic world involves the kidnapping of young Christian girls and their subsequent forcible conversion and marriage to Muslims. The Egyptian courts recently decided in favor of the kidnappers of a 16-year-old Coptic girl and ordered her held in a state-run home until she is 18 when she can legally convert to Islam. Her family is understandably distraught, and the Christian community is worried that such decisions will lead only to more kidnappings. Read more here.

Palestinians. Wherever the Palestinians run things, whether in the West Bank (bad) or in Gaza (horrendous), Christians are treated horribly. I find this especially interesting since this persecution comes from a people that loves to depict itself, erroneously, as the object of decades of persecution by the Jews. In reality, the Palestinians have become the "useful idiots" of those neighboring Islamic nations intent on the destruction of Israel. These same nations could have solved the Palestinian "problem" years ago but it benefits their agenda to keep these people in refugee camps and the squalor of Gaza. As a result, the Christian population is quickly disappearing. In 1948 Christians made up 10% of the Palestinian territories; today they make up 1%. Read more here.

Interestingly, the only growing Christian population in the entire Middle East is in the one country in which Islam does not prevail, Israel. This tells us a lot about the fate of Christianity in that part of the world. The only Middle Eastern country where religious freedom, tolerance and democratic values exist is the Jewish state.

St. Theresa Catholic Church destroyed in Nigeria

Nigeria. Here we have a Muslim-majority nation with a large (40%) Christian population. For years the two religions have coexisted side by side. But peace with Christians is unacceptable to the Islamist extremists who demand the imposition of sharia law and are willing to kill anyone, Christian or Muslim, who resists them. The primary terrorist group, Boko Haram, is apparently receiving aid from al-Qaida and has been responsible for the murder of hundreds of Christians and the destruction of dozens of churches in just the past few months. Read more here.

Yousef Nadarkhani

Apostasy. In most Islamic nations converts to Christianity are considered apostates. Sharia law is explicit about the punishment for apostasy: death. Iranian Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani remains in prison because he refuses to acknowledged publicly that prophet Muhammad is a messenger sent by God. To do so would be a rejection of his Christian beliefs and so he continues to resist bravely even though facing potential execution. And although several of the most prominent cases are in Iran, the imprisonment and execution of Christian converts from Islam occurs throughout the Muslim world. Converts living  in Kenya have even been tracked from their countries of origin — e.g., Ethiopia and Uganda — by those intent on killing them. In Kuwait a royal prince who converted to Christianity has stated that as an apostate he will likely be targeted. And recently two converts to Christianity who believed they would be safe after moving to Norway were recently stabbed on the street by masked men shouting "Infidels!" Read more here.

Indonesia. In this nation, often praised as the most open and tolerant of Muslim nations, attacks on Christians and their churches have more than doubled in the past year. Christians are not only being attacked in their churches by mobs of Muslim extremists, but these same mobs are seeking out and disrupting prayer meetings held in the homes of Christians. Read more here.

Just last month at the Vatican, Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See's press office stated:

“Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention. Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”--a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate...Such sufferings are a part of the Christian journey. Nor ought we be amazed. Jesus said so in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’ is the last of the Beatitudes; its promise is reward in heaven.” 

Father Lombardi is right: we will be persecuted. As Christians we should know that we can't count on our governments to help us. Our only source of help is the Lord, and our best weapon is prayer. 

A Christian in a Saudi Jail: Brian O'Connor's Story

Asia News, the Catholic online news organization, is an excellent source of information on the worldwide persecution of Christians. It also played a major role in the release of Brian O'Connor, an Indian Evangelical Christian who spent over seven months in a Saudi jail on trumped-up charges of spreading Christianity, selling alcohol, and possession of pornography. Arrested by the Muttawah, the dreaded Saudi religious police, O'Connor was subsequently tortured and placed in a communal cell with murderers and other criminals. An international campaign to secure his release was ultimately successful. When asked if he now regretted his earlier decision to accept a job as a baggage handler for Saudi Airlines, O'Connor replied:

"No! As I said, it was a blessing in disguise. In 2003 I was offered a job in Great Britain but I turned it down. Perhaps, it was the Holy Spirit's doing.  If I had accepted I would not have been able to bear witness to the Gospel in a Saudi prison."

 Click here to read the full story on Asia News: A Christian in a Saudi Jail.

Persecution in Saudi Arabia

Did you know that there are somewhere around one million Catholics living in Saudi Arabia? Most of them are Filipinos hired by the Saudis to work as domestics or in similar jobs, largely low-paying, menial work. But because they live in Saudi Arabia where the law prohibits non-Muslims from worshiping except in private non-Muslim homes behind closed doors, it is almost impossible for them to attend Mass. This is not simply religious law, but the law of the kingdom.

This week 13 Filipinos, among them a Catholic priest, were arrested by the Mutawa. the very nasty Saudi religious police, because they were participating in a Catholic Mass held at a hotel. They were taken into custody when the police raided the hotel and shut down the Mass. Apparently there were upwards of 150 people attending but most were not detained because there was insufficient room at the local police station. The 13 arrested were charged with proselytizing. They were all eventually released on bail but still face some very serious charges under Saudi law. [See the article in the Arab News.]

Such charges stem from the Islamic fear of Muslims converting to other religions. Indeed, the harshest of punishments -- death -- can be handed down on those found guilty of the "crimes" of conversion or helping a Muslim convert. I suppose that's one way to keep the numbers up, just threaten to kill anyone who tries to abandon ship. And you thought the world had left all that behind a few centuries ago. But the Saudi's go even further: here's a link to a story describing the forced conversion of Filipino migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.

Mosque in Dearborn, Michigan

There are over 1,200 mosques in the United States. There are no Christian churches in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- not a single church. And so, instead of wasting our time arguing about whether to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, perhaps we should just make its construction contingent on the building of a Catholic church in downtown Riyadh.

Of course, Saudi treatment of women who run afoul of the Mutawa is horrendous. Here's a quote from the book, Veiled Atrocities: True Stories of Oppression in Saudi Arabia:

The Saudi mutawas (“morality police”) are terrifying. Like vultures, they swoop down on their vulnerable prey, especially women, and then send them straight to Hell. The “long beards” curse and beat their female prisoner, totally terrify her; then, they throw her into a dark, medieval dungeon, (assume the worst here). They remove her only in order to gang-rape and torture her—all presumably in the name of Islam. Her crime? In one instance, although the woman was a foreign national, she dared to take a taxi downtown without a male escort.

Pray for the 13 who were arrested. And pray for the conversion of the world; after all, Jesus commanded us to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit" [Mt 28:19] -- pretty clear instructions.

And keep one thing in mind: As Christians we know we're doing something right when we get persecuted for doing it.