"Rising Restrictions on Religion", a worldwide survey published in August by the much-respected Pew Forum, shows an increase in restrictions on and violence directed against believers in religion. The top offenders are Egypt, Pakistan, and India. Among the Muslim countries, the only one going against the trend is Turkey. The most mistreated group is... wait for it... faithful Christians.
More than 2.2 billion people – nearly a third (32%) of the world’s total population of 6.9 billion – live in countries where either government restrictions on religion or social hostilities involving religion rose substantially between mid-2006 and mid-2009, the period covered by the study.
The survey was done before the "Arab spring" now causing turmoil in northern Africa and the Middle East. But it promises nothing good about future developments there. Even before the Islamists began fomenting rebellion, the indicators were signaling deterioration almost everywhere. In fact, Pew did a similar survey three years earlier, and the situation now shows a widespread increase of persecution, torture and killing of the faithful.
The graphic above focuses attention on countries with populations of more than 50 million inhabitants. That includes Pakistan and Nigeria, from where we get disturbingly regular reports of the execution of Christians and burning of churches. One has only to follow the RSS feeds from a site like Catholic World News (which Walt recommends highly) to see such stories virtually every day.
Then we come to the two giants -- India and China -- where the persecution of Christians just gets worse and worse. India remains the record holder for hostilities among religious groups, which are added to the already burdensome legal restrictions there. They even have laws against the conversion of non-Christians, which effectively prohibit not just foreign missionaries but local Catholic clergy who have been serving India for six centuries, from ministering to their communities. One might expect such laws in Islamist states such as Afghanistan and Iran, but according to its constitution, India is supposed to be a secular state. Ha!
China continues to hold the record – challenged only by Iran and Egypt – for political restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church and other religous groups such as the Falun Gong. (Falun Gong is a rather eclectic mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and taiji. It has the qualities of a religion -- a belief system and numerous adherents -- and was banned by the Communist government of China in 1999.)
Walt has written many times about the schismatic and heretical Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the so-called "Catholic" church set up by the Communists after they seized power in 1949. In "Communist Chinese persecution of Catholic Church intensifies", I explained how the Chinese government is grinding the heels of its jackboots even more fiercely into the bodies of the faithful, in spite of the Vatican's misguided and now discredited attempts to make nice with the atheistic Communists.
More instances of the increased persecution -- and execution -- of Christians may be found in "No summer stop to Chinese repression", published September 2nd on the AsiaNews website, which I also read regularly.
Conclusion: If you're a Christian -- especially if you're a Catholic living in the Third World -- the Islamists, the Hindus and the Communists are out to get you! They have declared war on Holy Mother Church. How much longer must we turn the other cheek?
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