{"id":33547,"date":"2019-03-05T10:32:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T10:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=33547"},"modified":"2019-03-05T10:32:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T10:32:06","slug":"march-for-persecuted-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2019\/03\/05\/march-for-persecuted-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;MARCH&#8221; FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>This month the Holy Father has asked all to &#8220;Pray that Christian communities, especially those who are persecuted, feel that they are close to Christ and have their rights respected.&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Making the sign of the cross, reading the Bible, going to Mass on Sunday, talking about Jesus, praying the rosary&#8230; These seem like totally normal, everyday activities to us. However, in many parts of the world that is not the case. Doing any of these things could mean risking your own life: being killed or stoned, or ending up in a forced labour camp.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-33549\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"253\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-600x398.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-580x385.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-860x571.jpg 860w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/b21bfbc4-1d69-451f-9f40-220a9e37a422-1160x770.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 253px) 100vw, 253px\" \/><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This year began with an attack during a Mass at the Cathedral of Jolo in the Philippines, where 23 people died. Last year, 40 missionaries were killed around the world, 35 of whom were priests. Two were from the Central African Republic, massacred at the end of November together with 80 members of the faithful at the Alindao refugee camp.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Some cases have gotten more media coverage, such as that of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani mother accused of blasphemy, condemned to death, and then freed after 9 years of prison. There\u2019s also the case of the 21 Egyptians who were decapitated in 2015, and the massacre at Peshawar in December of 2014, when more than 130 students were massacred.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There are thousands of other cases like these that we don&#8217;t hear about because they don&#8217;t make it into the media. According to the <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/religious-freedom-report.org\/\">Religious Freedom Report<\/a> by <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.churchinneed.org\/\">Aid to the Church in Need<\/a> (ACN), Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. This fundamental human right is being gravely threatened in 38 countries, 21 of which are classified as places of persecution. \u201cIn many places around the world, religious freedom isn\u2019t an idea; it\u2019s a question of survival. It\u2019s not about whether you feel more or less comfortable with the ideological foundations underlying religious freedom; it\u2019s about how to avoid a bloodbath!\u201d says Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-33551 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-600x398.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-580x385.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-860x571.jpg 860w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2e77c8f2-64c0-49a4-88e0-5dad0304e17e-1160x770.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In The Pope Video for the month of March, a project of the <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.popesprayer.va\/\">Pope&#8217;s Worldwide Prayer Network<\/a>, Francis says that \u201cit might be hard for us to believe, but there are more martyrs today than in the first centuries,\u201d because \u201cthey speak the truth and proclaim Jesus Christ\u201d even \u201cin countries where, in theory, and on paper, they protect freedom and human rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He asks us all to \u201cpray that Christian communities, especially those who are persecuted, feel that they are close to Christ and have their rights respected.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">On his part, Fr. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Fornos, SJ, international director of the <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.popesprayer.va\/\">Pope&#8217;s Worldwide Prayer Network<\/a> and of the Eucharistic Youth Movement, said that \u201cthe situation of persecuted Christians in the world seems less remote and abstract every day. It&#8217;s them, but it could be us. As the Holy Father says, even in countries where in theory and on paper they protect freedom and human rights, subtle discrimination can be present. \u2018Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you, and say every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.\u2019\u201d (Matthew 5:11).<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>ACN Malta<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month the Holy Father has asked all to &#8220;Pray that Christian communities, especially those who are persecuted, feel that they are close to Christ and have their rights respected.&#8221; \u00a0 Making the sign of the cross, reading the Bible, going to Mass on Sunday, talking about Jesus, praying the rosary&#8230; These seem like totally&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;MARCH&quot; 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