The Houses of Parliament in London illuminated last year with red lighting as a sign of solidarity with persecuted Christians across the globe.
Photo: CNS We have a duty to stand in solidarity with persecuted believers, writes Dr Michael Kinsella
As 2017 comes to a close, we can reflect upon a year in which the Church marked both the 70th anniversary of the founding of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) by Fr Werenfried van Straaten and the 100th anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima. Fr Werenfried dedicated the work and mission of ACN to the patronage of Our Lady of Fatima – precisely because her prophetic revelations told of a Church that would suffer greatly in the years ahead: and so it has come to pass.
Last Wednesday, ACN Ireland held its first Red Wednesday event. Across the country, parishes wore red and lit their churches red as a public witness of solidarity with the suffering and persecuted Church.
The Irish faithful, historically and currently, are acquainted with Christian persecution – be it explicit or devious – where the wages of sin are all too apparent in our society and where hostility to Christian teaching, culture and even identity has been normalised, if not encouraged, by many in government. Indeed, in Ireland at present, there is something of a ‘cultural cleansing’ of Catholicism from the country’s public, political and cultural life.
Enemies
Conscious of this, Red Wednesday is ultimately a call to compassion for our fellow Christians, forgiveness of our enemies and the vital importance of prayers for both: time and again we find that those who have suffered most grievously, who have most cause to feel hurt, are the first to forgive – and forgive from the heart. In so doing, the power of the persecuted witness to forgiveness lies in the consequent Divine gifts of peace, hope and joy in often the most desolate and difficult of circumstances – and with an awareness among the faithful that one of Christianity’s greatest saints, St Paul, was once one of its greatest persecutors.
The Church thrives when it can be a community of believers peaceably working together for the Kingdom of God, which is why we must work hard to ensure that those Christians who are isolated and alone through imprisonment, torture, harassment or who live under suppression know that they are still united with us in prayer.
In the years to come, Red Wednesday will better inform the faithful of the often horrific political and social realities under which the hundreds of millions of Christians live and die and, as a consequence, provide a strong moral consensus and impetus for our government to both acknowledge and alleviate the plight of persecuted Christians.
Sr Annie Demerjian SJM recently visited Ireland and provided her own testimony to audiences both North and South about the sufferings of Christians in Aleppo, Syria. She quoted I Corinthians 12:26, when she said: “We are all one body — when one member suffers, we all suffer. When one member is rescued and raised, we all rejoice. Persecuted Christians and Christians in the West are not two separate entities, but rather we are the one body! The persecuted Church needs its fellow Christians to support them, yes, but to also pray for them most fervently.
“Our brothers and sisters are proud of their Christian witness and ask not necessarily that their cross be taken away but that they have help in carrying it.”
The degree of religious freedom is an ethical measure of the respect for freedom of conscience and expression in a society. Our search for the transcendent, for meaning beyond the commercial and ideological, is to a great degree contingent on constitutional protection and cultural acceptance of those whose search is expressed through religion.
In charity, we can respectfully disagree with tenets and dogmas and, in prudence, we may provide limits to religious expressions that could undermine a universal human right – but if the borders of religious expression are defined by intimidation, violence or persecution it is a catastrophe for humanity and a murder of the principles we seek to defend.
In all, we must ensure that, whatever our differences, our common humanity is the frame of reference for common resolution to our conflicts.
During Red Wednesday we remember, in the words of Benedict XVI, that when we lose sight of God, we lose sight of our humanity:
We can see from recent world events and the mobilisation of anti-life ideologies worldwide that Christian persecution can be an ideological guise but, in all cases, it seeks to extinguish the beauty of the Christian witness and its unsurpassable affirmation of the dignity of human life.
When you next attend Mass, remember the Christian lives martyred and those who continue to confess their Christian faith even amid the most brutal oppression and the souls affirmed and saved because of their brave witness. Remember that there are generations of Christians who have never escaped the catacombs, who are still thrown to the lions in the arena.
On Red Wednesday, the Irish faithful publicly affirmed their solidarity with persecuted Christians – so that though our brothers and sisters may be persecuted, they will not be forgotten.
Dr Michael Kinsella is Director of Public Affairs and Religious Freedom with Aid to the Church in Need (Ireland).