Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 7, 2022 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
According to a report published by Reuters today, a massive forced abortion program has been carried out by the Nigerian military on at least 10,000 women since 2013. In addition to exposing the Nigerian government’s forced abortion campaign, Reuters’ findings further evidence the use of rape as a weapon of war carried out by Islamist insurgents on Nigerian civilians.
As detailed in Reuters’ extensive article, 7 Division, the Nigerian military force in charge of countering the insurgents, has been forcing chemical and surgical abortions on tens of thousands of women who have been raped by Islamist insurgents such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP), a self-proclaimed regional “caliphate” of ISIS.
Soldiers involved in the military’s forced abortion program stated to Reuters that the reason for the program was that the unborn children are believed to be “predestined” to be insurgents like their fathers, necessitating that the government “destroy (these) insurgent fighters before they could be born.”
Reuters verified that the Nigerian military has beaten and coerced women, some as young as 12, into abortions in the most unsanitary conditions.
Bintu Ibrahim, a woman who underwent one such forced abortion, told Reuters: “If they had left me with the baby, I would have wanted it.”
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), an organization that monitors religious persecution globally, released a report in November noting a “sharp increase in genocidal violence from militant non-state actors, including jihadists,” in Africa. According to ACN, the situation is particularly dire in Nigeria, which “teeters on the brink of becoming a failed state” due to rising jihadism.
ACN’s November report stated that in Nigeria the “number of attacks and killings has sharply risen, with more than 7,600 Christians killed” between 2020 and 2022. Though previous reports detailed Islamic extremists’ use of rape as a terror tactic, Reuters’ article sheds light on the massive scale of the jihadists’ rape campaign. Now, with Reuters’ findings, there is concrete evidence that Nigeria’s radical Islamic insurgents have been perpetuating a systematic campaign of torture and rape on women, with at the very least more than 10,000 victims since 2013.
One woman, identified by Reuters as Fati, was kidnapped, regularly beaten and raped, and forcibly married off to three successive Islamist extremists. According to victims’ and Nigerian soldiers’ testimonies obtained by Reuters, Fati’s horrific experience is the norm for women captured by Boko Haram and ISWAP.
Reuters details how after enduring repeated torture and rape at the hands of the jihadist militants for years, Fati was rescued by the Nigerian military only to undergo a forced chemical abortion in which she experienced “searing pain,” surrounded by other women who were similarly suffering through abortions.
For the second consecutive year, Nigeria has been left off of the U.S. State Department’s list of countries that engage in or tolerate the world’s worst religious freedom violations, despite regular reports of kidnappings and killings of Christians.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced this year’s designations on Dec. 2, and although several Islamic terrorist groups active in Nigeria were listed, Nigeria itself was not.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Rody Sher, editor-in-chief of ACI MENA, speaks on the second anniversary of ACI MENA in 2024 at the Catholic University in Erbil, Iraq, where the agency is based. This year marks three years since ACI MENA began its mssion to report on the Churc… […]
The Vatican announced on May 6, 2024, that Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor John McDermott as the bishop of the Diocese of Burlington, Vermont. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, Vermont
CNA Staff, May 6, 2024 / 11:52 am (CNA).
Pope Francis h… […]
The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
If it degrades and injures women, there Islam is found. Islam has no respect for the God of the Bible and as a consequence has even less respect for His highest creation. Of course there will be wails of protest, yet the daily news gives the report on Islamic way of life.
Sunan Abu Dawud 2155 (Dar-us-Salam Ref) “Abu Sa’id al-Khudri said: The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives because of their pagan husbands. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: “And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess.” That is to say, they are lawful for them when they complete their waiting period.”
This is against common decency would not be approved by Jesus.
Islam in its own words, is enough to discredit any claims of peace-loving or following godly tenets! If someone would care to debate the matter, that person would be welcome to present the case fro the Koran or hadiths!
In the hand of friendship and true peace which is Jesus Christ.
If it degrades and injures women, there Islam is found. Islam has no respect for the God of the Bible and as a consequence has even less respect for His highest creation. Of course there will be wails of protest, yet the daily news gives the report on Islamic way of life.
Sunan Abu Dawud 2155 (Dar-us-Salam Ref) “Abu Sa’id al-Khudri said: The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives because of their pagan husbands. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: “And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess.” That is to say, they are lawful for them when they complete their waiting period.”
This is against common decency would not be approved by Jesus.
Islam in its own words, is enough to discredit any claims of peace-loving or following godly tenets! If someone would care to debate the matter, that person would be welcome to present the case fro the Koran or hadiths!
In the hand of friendship and true peace which is Jesus Christ.