John Allen recently wrote an article questioning conventional wisdom regarding worldwide anti-Christian persecution. Here is how it starts:
In his annual address to diplomats Monday, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted religious freedom with emphasis on persecuted Christians around the world.Please, continue reading here.
"In many countries, Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life," he said. "In other countries, they endure violent attacks against their churches and their homes."
This week, a delegation of Catholic bishops from Europe and the States tried to shine a spotlight on one small chapter of this global story: the Gaza Strip, where 2,500 Christians live amid an overwhelmingly Muslim population of 1.5 million. They're caught in a vise formed by Islamic militancy on one side and an Israeli- and Egyptian-imposed blockade on the other.
English Bishop William Kenney told the Christians of Gaza, "You are not forgotten."
It's a lovely sentiment, and the bishops of the Holy Land Coordination, which includes Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas as the American representative, deserve credit for their efforts. One wonders, however, how much reality there is behind Kenney's claim.
French intellectual Régis Debray, a veteran leftist who fought alongside Che Guevara in Bolivia, has observed that anti-Christian persecution unfolds squarely in the political blind spot of the West -- the victims are usually "too Christian" to excite the left, "too foreign" to interest the right.
As a contribution towards erasing that blind spot, let's debunk five common myths about anti-Christian persecution.
Commentary. The only I wish to add is that we need to pray for all those who are persecuted and give thanks to the Lord for all those who die on account of his Name, "for the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church".