Posted on 12/25/2011 12:18:23 PM PST by Steelfish
Christmas Attacks In Nigeria By Sect Kill 39 The majority died on the steps of a Catholic church after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.
Men look at the wreckage of a car following a bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church outside the Nigerian capital Abuja on Dec. 25. (Sunday Aghaeze / AFP / Getty Images)
December 25, 2011, LAGOS, Nigeria— Terror attacks across Nigeria by a radical Muslim sect killed at least 39 people Sunday, with the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.
Authorities acknowledged they could not bring enough emergency medical personnel to care for the wounded outside St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla near Nigeria's capital. Elsewhere, a bomb exploded amid gunfire in the central Nigeria city of Jos and a suicide car bomber attacked the military in the nation's northeast as part of an apparently coordinated assault by the sect known as Boko Haram.
The Christmas Day violence, denounced by world leaders and the Vatican, shows the threat of the widening insurrection posed by Boko Haram against Nigeria's weak central government. Despite a recent paramilitary crackdown against the sect in the oil-rich nation, it appears that Africa's most populous nation remains unable to stop the threat.
"These are cowardly attacks on families gathered in peace and prayer to celebrate a day which symbolises harmony and goodwill towards others," Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Mat 5:11-12
Too bad the Latins are going to insist on waiting for two confirmed miracles before they will proclaim their martyrs as saints. We Orthodox will do it immediately, and let the hierarchs catch up (following the example of St. Herman of Alaska in the case of the New-Martyr Peter the Aleut), thusly:
“Holy new-martyrs of Abuja, pray Christ God that our souls be saved.”
The sooner people recognize evil and react appropriately, the sooner peace will return to the earth.
But isn’t that what the massacre is intended to do?
In self-defense, yes.
Some how, the ROP doesn’t quite buy in to that philosophy when it comes to Christians.
Don’t wait till it comes to your neighborhood.
Alive somewhere else is not better than dead?
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