Posted on 06/03/2002 6:55:44 PM PDT by LarryLied
A new book which claims that Christians are the victims of worldwide persecution has stirred controversy in Italy amid accusations that it minimises the Holocaust and demonises Islam.
The author, Antonio Socci, claims the untold story of the 20th century is the murder of 45 million Christians, mostly at the hands of communist and Islamic regimes, and that massacres continue to this day.
The New Persecuted, Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs, has angered some scholars by depicting Christians as beleaguered victims of rampaging Muslims.
Some reviewers have hailed the publication as a wake-up call to Christians in the west who have not realised, even in the wake of September 11, that they are under attack by a hostile rival religion.
Others said Mr Socci was part of a rightwing revisionist effort to distort history and promote a hawkish response to perceived threats.
Drawing heavily from the World Christian Encyclopedia, published last year by the Oxford University Press, Mr Socci traces the persecution of Christians through the centuries, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the lions at Circus Maximus, the assassination of Thomas Becket and the execution of Thomas More, the Boxer rebellion in China, Mexico's revolution and the Turkish massacres in Armenia. He calculates that in the past 2,000 years some 70 million Christians have been killed, two-thirds in the past 100 years alone, a bloodbath blamed mostly on the Soviet Union as well as communist China and Nazi Germany.
Mr Socci supports Israel and does not dispute the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust but by framing the genocide in such a context he had minimised its significance, said Alberto Melloni, an author and religious historian.
"The statistics he cites are largely meaningless but the effect is to make the Shoah [Holocaust] just one detail in a century of massacres. It is part of an effort by some in the Catholic church to stop the Shoah being the most important event in the 20th century."
Mr Socci, 43, a columnist with conservative Italian newspapers, claims that an average of 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990, the vast majority in the third world. Critics said the figure included Christians killed in conflicts which had little to do with religion.
Chronicling attacks, pogroms and wars in East Timor, Indonesia, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and even Rwanda and Latin America, Mr Socci identifies Islamic extremism as the main danger.
He complains that secular western governments, intellectuals and media organisations have played down the bloodbath because the persecution of Jews and Muslims, whether in the former Soviet Union or former Yugoslavia, was considered more newsworthy. "This global persecution of Christianity is still in progress but in most cases is ignored by the mass media and Christians in the west."
Tommaso Debenedetti, a cultural commentator, said the book was part of an attempt by Italy's right to deflect accusations of intolerance against immigrants and other minorities by casting itself as the victim of non-Christian and liberal forces. "The right is reversing the argument."
Breaking ranks with positive reviews which called the book "extraordinary", the Turin daily La Stampa said it was a provocation with questionable statistics and a flawed definition of martyr which included those killed for political reasons.
... Tommaso Debenedetti, a cultural commentator, said the book was part of an attempt by Italy's right to deflect accusations of intolerance against immigrants and other minorities by casting itself as the victim of non-Christian and liberal forces. "The right is reversing the argument" ...If only we on the right were really that smart.
You'd think the liberals would be up in arms after millions of blacks have been killed and enslaved in Sudan for instance, since blacks are an officially designated victim group. But it doesn't count, since they are Christians as well. That's almost as bad as a black Republican!
There is ample documentation. The Catholic Church has been working on a book of twentieth-century martyrs, and it has been established that more Christians were killed in the past century than in the previous nineteen. And little or nothing said about it.
:
20TH CENTURY SAW 65% OF CHRISTIAN MARTYRSConclusions of New Study Published in Italy
ROME, (Zenit.org).- The 20th century may have been the most striking in the annals of Christian martyrdom, and a new book shows it with numbers.
In two millennia of Christian history, about 70 million faithful have given their lives for the faith, and of these, 45.5 million -- fully 65% -- were in the last century, according to "The New Persecuted" ("I Nuovi Perseguitati").
Italian journalist Antonio Socci presented his work today during a conference on "Anti-Christian Persecution in the 20th Century" held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum.
"I handed in the draft of the book in January; since then the martyrdom of Christians has had no letup," the author noted. "Suffice it to think of what is happening in Colombia and Indonesia."
In the journalist´s analysis, the term "Christian martyrs" is not understood in the specific sense of the word (with the recognition of the Church´s processes of canonization), but according to the common assessment of scholars who have compiled statistics on religious persecutions.
Socci´s map of the current persecution highlights countries where Christians are dying for their faith.
It includes the Molucca Islands of Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, East Timor, Cuba, the former Soviet republics, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, Vietnam, China and others.
According to the author, the two currents that fuel the persecution of Christians today are Communism and Muslim fundamentalism.
Socci said that persecution of Christians is currently most severe in Sudan.
Since to a communist EVERYTHING is political, the reasons for killing Christians would indeed be political. But it would still make them martyrs, since they were killed by an enemy of the Faith.
Since to a communist EVERYTHING is political, the reasons for killing Christians would indeed be political.
Amazing claim isn't it? The exact same case could be made about the Holocaust. The author of this article exhibits the same bigotry of which he writes.
I had a feeling that was your reason for posting this, but I am still glad you did and bookmarked it. It saddens me, but take comfort that many true soldiers for Christ withstood horrible tortures and hideous death--perservering in the faith. Incidentally, today is the feast day of St. Charles Lwanga who withstood martyrdom that rivaled that of the early christians. I pray for an end to the bloodshed.
Mr. Melloni sounds like a "historian" in the mold of Michael Bellesiles. His viewpoint is the only viewpoint that's allowed to be discussed; any differing viewpoint must involve heretical motives.
BTW, I didn't see anything in the article that infers Mr. Socci works for the Vatican. And I don't think the Oxford University Press is a bastion of Catholicism.
Get over it, Mr. Melloni. There have been victims other than you-know-who.
Interesting. Benzion Netanyahu, the historian (father of the Israeli politician), says the same in his book
The Origins of the Inquisition (1995). Some controversy among historians, but no venom.
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