Introvigne: the persecution of Christians do not stop, at least 70 thousand killed in 2013

On December 26, the Church remembers St. Stephen, the first martyr, who died stoned asking God not to charge this sin to his murderers. Not only in past centuries but even today many Christians are killed because of their faith. As regards the year 2012, there was talk of around 100 thousand Christians were killed. To take stock of the situation in 2013, Debora Donnini talked to Massimo Introvigne, coordinator of religious freedom in Italy:

[Massimo Introvigne] - The statistic is very controversial. There was also a controversy between Todd Johnson, perhaps the best expert on religious statistics in the world, and the BBC. Everything depends on certain situations in Africa, especially the Congo and now South Sudan, and many of those killed in these situations can be considered people killed for their faith in what Johnson calls a situation of testimony. The final figures for 2013 will be known in early 2014 but it is likely that, while decreased a little, the number of Christians killed in Africa, the figure is likely to fall in the range around 100 thousand to 70-80 thousand.

[Debora Donnini] - The 2013 Annual Report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom [1] lists eight countries of particular concern, namely Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. What is most striking about these countries?

[Massimo Introvigne] - I believe that the situation continues to affect all of North Korea: not only because they continue to kill Christians, but because we are Christians, that were not exterminated by the previous events. It is therefore evident that even in a very difficult situation for a country that only the minimum contacts with the outside world, there are people, there are also young people who have never known anything outside of the education given by the regime, who continue to convert to Christianity, which manifest in some way their faith and therefore are arrested, deported to concentration camps and even killed. Of course, the list produced by the United States are not the only countries of concern, because there is then a whole constellation of countries in which you go to the phenomenon of widespread violence in the forms of legal violence: we must never forget, for example, , laws that punish blasphemy in Pakistan, of which we know well - the case of Asia Bibi [2] illustrates the use of death penalty against Christians.

[Massimo Introvigne] - Yes. It should be clarified here that the problem is not with the Nigerian government, but by some ultra-fundamentalist Islamic extremist movements, especially one called Boko Haram . So, as we look beyond the numbers, it is important to say that these Christians are not all killed by the followers of other religions. Of course - we have just mentioned Nigeria - there is the problem of Islamic ultra-fundamentalist movements, but we must not forget the other two elements: the first is the existence of communist regimes that are still very hard-line, as is the case of North Korea, and also the tribal conflicts, where it is sometimes difficult to determine whether Christians are killed because they are Christians or because of they belong to a “wrong” tribe...

[Debora Donnini] - Then there is Europe, where there are - of course - this level of violence against Christians, however there may be cases of restrictions against them ...

[Massimo Introvigne] - Yes, restrictions on the Christians and on the religious people in general. I think that Pope Francis says it very well in Evangelii Gaudium, when he reminds us that there is a mentality that wants to reduce faith to a purely private matter and lock up the believers in their churches, synagogues and mosques; that is, so long as they are behind closed doors and pray, that is allright, but when they try to express their faith in the public arena, social and political discrimination begins, which is the real persecution. I was very impressed that Pope Francis has cited an old book which - he said - has made an impression on him, "Master of the World" by the English writer Robert Hugh Benson [3], who shows a situation where Christians if they try to give public testimony, and include the social and political aspect of their faith, are persecuted and eventually also killed. The Pope said: But do you think that these things are just in novels or the successors only so many years ago? No, it is still happening today.

Testo proveniente dalla pagina http://it.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/12/26/introvigne:_le_persecuzioni_dei_cristiani_non_si_arrestano,_almeno_70/it1-758354 del sito Radio Vaticana

[3] “’Still today, the spirit of worldliness leads us to progressivism, to this uniformity of thought’ … Negotiating one's fidelity to God is like negotiating one's identity, Pope Francis said. He then made reference to the 20th-century novel Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury Edward White Benson, in which the author speaks of the spirit of the world that leads to apostasy ‘almost as though it were a prophecy, as though he envisioned what would happen’” . ( Pope Francis denounces ‘adolescent progressivism,’ calls Lord of the World prophetic).

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Correction:

Then there is Europe, where there ~~are~~ is not - of course - this level of violence against Christians...

Google got its boolean logic wrong.

I can understand why Massimo Introvigne speaks as he does, with great caution, because he knows that his words can be used by the persecutors to kill even more helpless Christians.

But there is only ONE North Korea. There are dozens and dozens of Muslim countries, or countries that Muslims are trying to take over, and ALL of them are dangerous for Christians.

The Communist and Muslim countries were the chief killers of Christians. Stalin and Mao for instance. But Communism has decayed in many of the worst places. Not Islam. Islam has been the chief killer of Christians ever since Mohammed appeared on the scene.

Oh, yes. I forgot the name of the third big Communist killer of Christians: Pol Pot. Just came back to me.

How about this: both Islam and Communism are ideologies created to resist Christianity. The difference is that the former speaks the language of religion and the latter makes a pretense to be social science. The commonality is that both take something of Christianity in order to subvert it. So, the Koran has John the Baptist, Mary and Jesus stories only to deny the reality of the Cross; Communism has the Christian social teaching perverted into dictatorship of the proletariat. Both Islam and Communism have historical human leaders that “live in their works”; they are believed to have said the last word of religion and ethics.

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