VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Seventeen Catholic priests, sisters, seminarians and lay workers were murdered in 2025, according to Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency.
Five of the victims were killed in Nigeriawhere kidnapping priests, seminarians and school students for ransom has plagued the Christian community, Fides reported Dec. 30.
Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, a Nigerian and secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s missionary section, told Fides, “All of this is a cause of great sadness and also some shame because Nigeria is one of the countries with the most religious populations in the world — a people of believers, Christians and Muslims.”
“We all say that we are people of peace,” the archbishop said. “We must all reject any justification for using religion to commit violent acts, including killing people.”
In a situation of “generalized violence,” particularly in areas where farmers and nomadic shepherds were engaged in violent clashes, Archbishop Nwachukwu said, it appears that anti-Christian groups have infiltrated the nomadic groups and are targeting Christians.
Asked about the U.S. airstrikes on northwestern Nigeria Dec. 25, which U.S. President Donald Trump said targeted Islamic State terrorists who were persecuting Christians, the archbishop responded that the Nigerian “government’s paralysis is evident. In this situation, an indirect intervention from outside, to support the state and the government against extremist groups and to help the country remove the causes of widespread violence, might not be entirely unjustified or inappropriate.”
More: https://www.osvnews.com/vatican-agency-says-17-churchworkers-murdered-in-2025/
No comments:
Post a Comment