April 5, 2015
By Ines San Martin
ROME — As Christians commemorate (click here) the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday, attacks on believers in various parts of the world are causing many pastors and other leaders to cast modern martyrdom as an extension of Christ’s agony which, they say, will also end in the resurrection.
During the Easter period, Christian churches in India have stepped up security fearing attacks from radical Hindus, a university in Kenya is recovering from a rampage by Muslim extremists that targeted Christians and left an estimated 147 people dead, and fear hangs over Church services in Iraq and Syria where Christian holy days tend to be favorite windows for ISIS assaults.
Facing those realities, Pope Francis said on Wednesday that the Christian martyrs of today, by shedding their blood, join Christ in serving the Church as witnesses to the faith.
“Even today, there are many men and women, true martyrs, who offer
their lives with Jesus to confess the faith,” the pope said. “It is a
service: Christian witness to the point of shedding blood.”...
...In India, after a series of attacks on churches in the capital, New Delhi, the local police enlisted more than 10,000 officers to guard the services during Holy Week....
Security gaurds were tied...(click here)
The men escaped with some cash, a mobile phone, a laptop computer and a camera, all belonging to the school, the officer said. They also ransacked the school's chapel and holy items, the Press Trust of India news agency cited the archbishop of Kolkata, Thomas D'Souza, as saying....
...The Indian Express reported on Wednesday that churches are being barricaded along a half-mile radius, fearing terrorist attacks from extremist Hindus.
Last month, a nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of men in India. The men who attacked the Convent of Jesus and Mary School also ransacked the chapel and destroyed holy items, police said.
Last Friday in Egypt, while locals were celebrating a Mass to mark 40 days since the death of the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS in Libya, a church that was being built in their memory was attacked with petrol bombs by Muslims protesting its proposed location.
On the same day, a mob identified by witnesses as composed of members of the Muslim Brotherhood attacked the home of a family of one of the martyrs.
British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, presided over a prayer vigil in Rome this Tuesday, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a movement that specializes in inter-faith dialogue.
During his sermon, Gallagher strongly condemned terrorism, saying that a martyr is someone who gives his or her life for the love of God, not who sheds it. A martyr is the victim, he said, not the victimizer....
By Ines San Martin
ROME — As Christians commemorate (click here) the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday, attacks on believers in various parts of the world are causing many pastors and other leaders to cast modern martyrdom as an extension of Christ’s agony which, they say, will also end in the resurrection.
During the Easter period, Christian churches in India have stepped up security fearing attacks from radical Hindus, a university in Kenya is recovering from a rampage by Muslim extremists that targeted Christians and left an estimated 147 people dead, and fear hangs over Church services in Iraq and Syria where Christian holy days tend to be favorite windows for ISIS assaults.
Facing those realities, Pope Francis said on Wednesday that the Christian martyrs of today, by shedding their blood, join Christ in serving the Church as witnesses to the faith.
...In India, after a series of attacks on churches in the capital, New Delhi, the local police enlisted more than 10,000 officers to guard the services during Holy Week....
The men escaped with some cash, a mobile phone, a laptop computer and a camera, all belonging to the school, the officer said. They also ransacked the school's chapel and holy items, the Press Trust of India news agency cited the archbishop of Kolkata, Thomas D'Souza, as saying....
...The Indian Express reported on Wednesday that churches are being barricaded along a half-mile radius, fearing terrorist attacks from extremist Hindus.
Last month, a nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of men in India. The men who attacked the Convent of Jesus and Mary School also ransacked the chapel and destroyed holy items, police said.
Last Friday in Egypt, while locals were celebrating a Mass to mark 40 days since the death of the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS in Libya, a church that was being built in their memory was attacked with petrol bombs by Muslims protesting its proposed location.
On the same day, a mob identified by witnesses as composed of members of the Muslim Brotherhood attacked the home of a family of one of the martyrs.
British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, presided over a prayer vigil in Rome this Tuesday, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a movement that specializes in inter-faith dialogue.
During his sermon, Gallagher strongly condemned terrorism, saying that a martyr is someone who gives his or her life for the love of God, not who sheds it. A martyr is the victim, he said, not the victimizer....
