“Christianity, the world’s most persecuted religion, now risks being wiped out in countries where until recently it has been well established,” declares a new report from Aid to the Church in Need.
“Oppression and exodus now threaten Christianity’s status as a worldwide religion.”
The Catholic charity, which operates directly under the Holy See, said over the past two years the persecution of Christians has worsened in 20 of the 30 nations it assessed.
“In others where the problems were already extreme, there has been little or no change.”
In the Middle East, the charity said, “a Christian exodus of almost biblical proportions now threatens the survival of the Church”.
Aid to the Church in Need’s media head, John Pontifex, said incidents of persecution are now apparently relentless and worsening: “Churches being burnt, Christians under pressure to convert, mob violence against Christian homes, abduction and rape of Christian girls, anti-Christian propaganda in the media and from government, discrimination in schools and the workplace…the list goes on.”
Meanwhile, Vatican correspondent John Allen has said that Christians are currently the most vulnerable minority on earth and massive outside intervention will be needed to stem the rising tide of persecution against them.
In a Zenit interview, he put Christians in the same category as dissident Jews in Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s and black
Allen’s new book is called The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution.
Citing statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, he said an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in a “situation of witness” each year for the past decade. That works out at 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour.
Allen said he would like to see a grassroots mobilisation of the Christian consciousness — so there would be “something analogous to what happens in the Jewish world every time there’s an anti-Semitic attack someplace”.
Sources:
Image: Spero News
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