This past Wednesday, March 8, the Holy Father met with two young Nigerian Christians who were victims of jihadist persecution. (Cover photo: Pope Francis in Iraq, March 2021).
On the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ pontificate, Pontifical Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) highlights the Holy Father’s closeness to Christians who suffer persecution around the world, as well as his special interest in interreligious dialogue and defence of religious freedom.
“The Holy Father’s presence has been close and marked by important details. He has also shown himself to be extremely interested in our work at ACN. We fondly and gratefully recall the occasion in February 2018 when he received a delegation from our charity that travelled to Rome with Rebeca, a Nigerian Christian who was persecuted by Boko Haram, to hear her terrible story of rape and suffering,” says Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN International. “Just recently, on March 8, after his Wednesday general audience, he greeted two young women who also suffered greatly from Islamic terrorism in Northern Nigeria.”
“And how can we forget his words to the family of Asia Bibi, asking to extend his care and support to the Pakistani woman who was imprisoned for 10 years under false charges of blasphemy?” asks Heine-Geldern.
A concrete example of Francis’ concern for those persecuted by their faith is the Holy Father’s series of monthly videos, in which he conveys his prayer intentions. In 2017 and 2019, he asked that persecuted Christians be supported with the prayers and material help of the whole Church, and in January 2022, he labelled religious persecution “unacceptable and inhumane,” as well as “madness.”
Visits to Christians suffering in forgotten countries
His visits to countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Kazakhstan or Iraq bear witness to the legacy of a pope who listens and is close to the suffering church, the forgotten, and those who hunger for peace and justice. In Iraq, Pope Francis visited churches that were destroyed by the Islamic State (IS) and paid a visit to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, in a gesture that was described by some as a “landmark on the road of interreligious dialogue.”
The successor of Peter has also given many indications of his interest in ACN and its work. In 2017, he invited the faithful to perform works of mercy with the charity through the campaign “Be God’s Mercy,” and on several occasions he has spoken about ACN’s “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” campaign, to pray for peace in the world.
“I have personally witnessed those occasions where Pope Francis showed great care and concern for our suffering brothers and sisters, such as when he blessed a candle, or the icon of Our Lady of the Sorrows of Syria, to pray for peace in Syria.” That same day, 6,000 rosaries provided by ACN and blessed at the conclusion of his Angelus prayer on August 15 were distributed to the parishes and to families who have suffered as a result of the war. Also donated by ACN and distributed were Bibles in Arabic, along with crosses made of olive wood from the Holy Land and blessed by Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ephraim III.
Defending religious freedom
The pontifical charity also gratefully recalls the pope’s written and spoken statements about the importance of religious freedom. The most recent was in January 2023, when he spoke to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See about the defence of religious freedom as key to real peace in the world.
“We are particularly grateful to the Holy Father for his wise analysis of the times we are living at the moment, where in many countries we are seeing a polite and hidden persecution of Christians, no longer marked by terror and terrorist violence, but by lack of regard for conscience and by pressure to live in ways that are opposed to moral values and to the sacred,” Heine-Geldern concludes.
The Holy Father has made multiple references to the right to religious freedom. One such occasion was in 2014, during the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square, when he asked that we pray that the sacrifice of modern day “martyrs,” persecuted for their Christian faith, may help strengthen religious freedom around the world. More recently, during his visit to Kazakhstan, where he took part in the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, he stated that “those who legitimately desire to voice their beliefs must be protected, always and everywhere” and that “Above all, we must ensure that religious freedom will never be a mere abstraction but a concrete right. ”
