News Item: : 'Pogrom' of Christians in Nigeria
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Saturday 22 November 2014 - 13:48:34

The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria organized an all-night prayer vigil earlier

this month to pray for their nation.

Rorate Caeli has featured Leone Grotti's TEMPI article to highlight the plight of the Church in Nigeria.

The Boko Haram Caliphate is advancing north through the country, murdering Christians and destroying churches in its wake. 2,500 Catholics have been killed, 50 churches destroyed, four convents abandoned and around 100,000 Catholics have had to evacuate their homes. These totals are themselves only a proportion of the 11,213 Christians who have been slaughtered and the 1.56 million people who have been forced to flee. Indeed, Daniel Kadzai, president of the youth section of the Christian Association of Nigeria, contends that the figures may be higher, because they do not include attacks in areas which have been attacked recently.

In just the last few weeks, the towns of Mubi and Chibok fell to the advancing Islamists. This latter is known around the world because of the kidnap of 276 local girls by Boko Haram back in April. According to Fr. Gideon Obasogie, many Nigerian Catholics have been trapped in areas conquered by the Islamists and have been forced to follow strict interpreatations of Sharia law. 

Earlier this month, the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria gathered together and promoted an all-night vigil to pray for their nation. The vigil included Holy Mass, a Eucharistic Procession, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the recitation of the Rosary. Nigerian Catholics had already been praying for the last 6-months for the safe return of the kidnapped girls.

In light of this report we must ask why Church leaders are not making more of a protest against this mass killing of Catholics and other Christians. Why is there no synod in Rome to deal with this serious problem which threatens the peace and order of the Church and world in our day? We may also wonder why the Western mainstream media continues to look the other way, whilst so many Christians are being systematically wiped out.

Only yesterday Christian Concern highlighted the latest Global Terror Index report. This identified four Islamist groups as bearing responsibility for almost 2/3 of the deaths due to terror attack in the whole world during 2013. Worryingly, these attacks themselves represented a 61% increase on the figures for 2012. As well as Boko Haram, the other groups highlighted in the report included Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State. The majority of these attacks occured in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. A young Christian couple were beaten and burned to death in Pakistan a few weeks ago by an angry Muslim mob who accused them of blasphemy. Again, this horrific attack has been largely ignored or overlooked in the Western Church and media. 

Please pray for these brothers and sisters who strive to keep the Faith in various nations, though being murdered by Islamists, whilst many Church leaders in the decadent West instead spend their days trying to unify the Church with a religiously, morally and ethically relativist society. 

---

This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.785 )