Angelus News | February 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No

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UNPROTECTED WITNESSES The bloody campaign against Christians in Nigeria is an especially urgent case of a broader phenomenon. BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. ROME — In light of the recent furor over Fiducia Supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”), a Dec. 18 Vatican declaration authorizing nonliturgical blessings of same-sex unions, one might almost be forgiven for thinking it’s a matter of life and death. Of course, in truth that’s a merely rhetorical assertion. However important the doctrinal issues may be, nobody’s going to live or die depending on how they’re resolved. On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the issue currently dominating Catholic discussion in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, which Christians hold signs as they march on the streets of Abuja during a prayer and penance for peace and security in Nigeria in Abuja on March 1, 2020. The Catholic bishops of Nigeria gathered faithful as well as other Christians and other people to pray for security and to denounce the barbaric killings of Christians by the Boko Haram insurgents and the incessant cases of kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria. | KOLA SULAIMON/ AFP/GETTY 10 • ANGELUS • February 9, 2024
isn’t the theology of same-sex relationships or any of the other topics that often loom so large in Catholic debate in affluent societies. Instead, it’s what a growing chorus of observers describe as a “genocide” directed against Christians in a country that has the largest mixed Muslim/ Christian population in the world. According to some estimates, Nigeria now accounts for almost 90% of all Christians martyred worldwide each year. In its latest annual report, Aid to the Church in Need, a papally sponsored foundation supporting persecuted Christians, reported that more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians had been murdered between January 2021 and June 2022. Nigeria is merely an especially urgent case of a broader phenomenon. According to an annual report of “Open Doors,” an ecumenical watchdog group on anti-Christian persecution, more than 365 million Christians in the world, that is 1 in 7, faced high levels of persecution for their faith as of late 2023. The threat to Christians in Nigeria has been clear for some time, but it’s been driven home of late in the wake of Christmas massacres in the country’s Plateau State that claimed the lives of more than 300 Christians. The assaults have continued into the new year. On Jan. 4, Boko Haram insurgents killed a pastor and at least 13 members of his Church, according to local news site Sahara Reporters. Pastor Elkanah Ayuba was the leader of a Church of Christ in Nations congregation. While the violence is sometimes characterized as more social and economic than religious, pitting members of the Fulani ethnic group who are herdsmen against Igbo and Yoruba farmers and pastors, religion is inevitably part of the picture given that the Fulani are largely Muslim while their victims are mostly Christian. In addition, there’s a clear pattern in the violence of targeting Christian churches, schools, residences, and other facilities. At least 52,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, according to the International Society for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (“Intersociety”), an international monitoring group tracking genocide in Nigeria. Last year, Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the deaths of at least 3,500 Christians, the group said. The same report published in April also asserted that 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been set ablaze, and around 34,000 moderate Muslims also have been killed in Islamist attacks. Within the same period, at least 707 Christians were kidnapped, out of which the Northern Nigerian Niger State recorded more than 200 abductions, including the March 14 abduction of more than 100 Christians in Adunu. Roughly 5 million Christians have been displaced and forced into Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps within Nigeria and refugee Flowers lie on caskets during a funeral Mass in the parish hall of St. Francis Xavier Church in Owo, Nigeria, June 17, 2022. The Mass was for some of the 40 victims killed in a June 5 attack by gunmen during Mass at the church. | OSV/TEMILADE ADELAJA, REUTERS camps at regional and sub-regional borders, according to Intersociety. The director of the Christian-inspired human rights organization said the genocide of Christians in Nigeria is being carried out with the complicity of the government. “The government of Tinubu is part of the butchering machinery,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist and grassroots human rights and Democracy campaigner, referring to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who took office in late March. “The Fulani jihadi rose to power under the Buhari administration and was able to take control of everything,” he said, asserting that Tinubu is set to perpetuate that heritage. The reference was to Nigeria’s previous government under former President Muhammadu Buhari. Umeagbalasi said that international pressure should be brought to bear on February 9, 2024 • ANGELUS • 11
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Page 5 and 6: NEW WORLD OF FAITH ARCHBISHOP JOS
Page 7 and 8: NATION ■ Still trending: Spiritua
Page 9 and 10: V IN OTHER WORDS... Letters to the
Page 14 and 15: the Tinubu administration if Nigeri
Page 16 and 17: Thousands of marchers walked in the
Page 18 and 19: Nearly 7,000 event participants bra
Page 20: alienable rights or not. Our democr
Page 23 and 24: Bonaduce sings at St. Bernardine of
Page 25 and 26: Sandri later went on to become a ca
Page 27 and 28: our gods and abandoning your vain s
Page 29 and 30: Greg Erlandson is the former presid
Page 31 and 32: But that elbow room came at a cost.
Page 33 and 34: Heather King is an award-winning au
Page 35: ■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3 Nun Run, 5

Angelus News | February 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No

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