CV NEWSFEED // Interim National Director of the Pontifical Missions Societies in the United States Rev. Anthony D. Andreassi is calling on fellow Catholics to raise awareness of ongoing religious persecution across the globe as Easter celebrations near.
In a March 25 op-ed published by Newsweek, Rev. Andreassi reflected on the fact that for most Christians in the US and throughout the developed world, “Lent tests the sincerity of our devotion with the temporal temptations of modern life.” However, for Christians living in the global south, especially Nigeria, practicing one’s faith can lead to “far more severe trials.”
If the current situation remains unchanged,” Andreassi wrote, “before Holy Week ends this Easter, we will in all likelihood receive new reports of Catholics murdered in Nigeria, as was the case last Christmas when as many as 200 Catholics were slaughtered and hundreds more injured in attacks in more than 20 Nigerian villages.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, the jihadist attacks Andreassi referred to, which took place over Christmas last year in Nigeria’s Central Plateau State, have been linked to the muslim-majority Fulani herdsmen, a nomadic group from the north.
“What can be done to confront the spread of religious persecution in Nigeria and elsewhere?” Andreassi asked, “We can start by raising awareness of the crisis, by acknowledging its existence and confronting its perpetrators.”
He continued:
America was founded on the conviction that all people are entitled to religious freedom. It’s one of our founding principles, and the government of the United States has a moral and now, more recently, a legal responsibility to support that value wherever it is assailed.
Andreassi further called on the US Department of State to redesignate Nigeria on its international religious persecution watchlist as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) after failing to do so for the third year in a row despite continued Islamist violence against Christians in the country.
“The U.S. government should correct that oversight this year,” Andreassi stated. “We cannot rally the free world to the cause of the persecuted if the leader of the free world makes exceptions for countries where people are suffering persecution, but where we might have competing interests.”
The Pontifical Mission Societies “exist to translate prayer into action,” Andreassi wrote, adding that as national director it is his objective to therefore “share and spread the faith by providing material and spiritual support wherever the need is great,” emphasizing those who suffer from active persecution.
As Christians, Andreassi wrote, the season of “reconciliation and renewal” brought on by Lent and the approach of Easter should inspire the faithful to remember those who are oppressed for their beliefs, and come to their aid, “ so they may persevere in growing the Church no matter how dire the difficulties arrayed against them.”
“All free people should expect their governments to act as apostles of freedom and stand with those who ask nothing more and nothing less than to worship God and to live their faith in their daily lives freely and without fear,” he concluded.
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