Rome, Italy, Oct 24, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- As the pastor of a parish in which many families lost a mother, father, or child in a bombing on Easter Sunday, Fr. Jude Raj Fernando has seen how healing from loss can be a long, difficult journey of faith.
Fr. Fernando is the rector of St. Anthony’s shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka — one of the churches bombed during the Easter attacks by a group affiliated with Islamic State that killed 258 people in April. He spoke of his painful pastoral experience Oct. 24 at an Aid to the Church in Need event in Rome on the ongoing persecution of Christians.
“I had never heard a sound like that. My first words after the blast were ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do,’” Fernando said, beginning to weep as he remembered the parishioners at Mass the day of the bombing.
“There was a young couple married eight months before together at Easter Sunday Mass … and a man who had given an older lady his seat … a pregnant mother who lost her husband.” He noted that this woman gave birth to a healthy baby last week and she is now a single mother.
Along with offering trauma counseling at the parish, Fernando said that the local Church remains committed to aiding the religious education of the children who lost parents and occupational training for households that lost their breadwinner.
People at the parish are still asking, “Why did God allow this to happen to us?” he said. A young child asked him ‘why did God take my mother from me at church?’
“We priests walked this difficult journey with our victims,” Fernando said. “It is a long journey of faith.”
“Please continue to pray for us … we can overcome evil with the love in our hearts,” he said. “Our faith is stronger than their bomb.”
Fr. Fernando spoke in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island, a basilica devoted to the Church’s modern martyrs and home to 120 relics of persecuted Christian communities around the world.
The Sri Lankan priest presented the basilica with items from St. Anthony’s church in Colombo that survived the bombing during the Aid to the Church in Need event “Persecuted more than ever.”
“This place, the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island, is a testimony,” said Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation of Oriental Churches, “to this dimension of the Church’s today … surrounded by innumerable signs, coming from the various continents, men and women who gave their lives for the Lord Jesus.”
“They make us sure that the passion of Christ continues in the children of the Church, as He tells us in the Gospel ‘If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too,’ but they also ask us to purify our heart and our eyes, learning to live all these experiences in faith,” the cardinal said.
The Aid to the Church in Need report on Christian persecution 2017-2019 defined Iraq, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Pakistan, India and Myanmar as countries with the most severe persecution of Christians.
Cardinal Sandri said that an awareness of this ongoing persecution should also always be framed by the victory of Christ, who tells us “take courage, I have conquered the world.”
The cardinal said that he learned during his diplomatic service to the Holy See to look for and recognize the signs of victory that the Lord grants over time. He pointed to the example of a Eucharistic procession that took place in Zocalo Square in Mexico City after Cardinal Posadas Ocampo was assassinated.
“It was a historic fact after the prohibition of public acts of faith that had lasted since the time of the anticlerical and anti-religious persecutions that gave the country many glorious martyrs and witnesses to the faith, Christ returned to physically tread the streets of the city in the Blessed Sacrament,” he said.
Sandri stressed that, while circumstances were growing more difficult for Christians in different ways across the globe, the whole Church was rediscovering the early Church’s understanding of bearing witness to the faith.
“In different geographical and social contexts, witnessing will take on a different meaning,” Sandri said.
“In some places it will be giving life, even physically, in blood; in others it will require the courage of parresia; in others, isolation, misunderstanding or derision.”
“In any case,” the cardinal said, “it will require a willingness to pay a high and true price, as happened in the first centuries.”
“Being a Christian cost life, but this did not prevent the Gospel from spreading. Modern times have given us back the ancient meaning of the word witness.”
[…]
Interfaith prayer is a meaningful initiative. The community of Sant’Egidio is serving humanity with dedication and distinction. May their tribe increase.
Really? What does it mean?
For the Christens persecuted worldwide by those who deny the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, who worship demons that if named cause censurship?
For Catholics kicked out of Churches by the 2nd Bishop in White because they pray in Latin – first in China, and now Worldwide: what does it mean?
What does it mean to see the once honourable Catholic Church confirming gnostics, heretics, and those worshiping false idols in their error?
Simpleton headline writers, and others, continue to equate “interreligious” with the inventive non sequitur: “interfaith.” Religious beliefs are one thing; the unique faith in the person of incarnate Jesus Christ is quite another.
From their sites, it’s clear that Sant’ Egidio, itself, knows the difference. As for the spirit of Saint Francis, what was the purpose for his famous visit in A.D. 1219 with Sultan Malek al-Kamil at Damietta on the Nile Delta, then under siege by an army of the Fifth Crusade?…
The purpose was conversion, not the sharing of tea in a flat-earth dialogue of interreligious equivalency. So, without implying such equivalency, in the Roman Colosseum let there be interreligious prayer for peace. (At least it’s not the twelve-niched, polytheistic and now secularized pantheon!) But for the global spectators, also let there by some understanding and indication of the Christian Faith.
And, even some anti-cancel culture curiosity about the ins and outs of real history. In the Paradiso, Canto XI, Dante says that St. Francis sought martyrdom and that failing this he left; and implies that the Sultan might not have been attracted to Lady Poverty. Later in the mid-13th century, and fearful of the Mogul invasions, other Franciscans made their way to Mongolia (where there is now a newly minted Catholic cardinal!) in unsuccessful efforts to convert the Khan, and with the remote possibility of even joining in an alliance against Islam. One of these (John of Pian de Carpine, 1180?-1252) had been a companion of St. Francis (See Daniel Boorstin, “The Discoverers”, 1983).
The present “Francis” presented bishops to the World from the Amazon proudly announcing in his name that they “had never committed a single baptism.”
Proselytism being a “crime” in Freemasonry and a “Sin” in post-catholic Bergoglioism – not that there could possibly be even a remote connection – there should be no risk of any baptisms at the Colosseum – to the great relief to all of Francis’ “Sin-OD” friends. Perish the thought! This is the Francis who begs Anglican bishops NOT to Convert…