Vatican City, Feb 26, 2018 / 12:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Rebecca Bitrus, who was a prisoner with Boko Haram for two years, is a stark reminder that behind all the rhetoric about promoting peace and helping persecuted Christians, there are real people who have suffered unimaginable atrocities.
In Bitrus’ case, these atrocities include losing her unborn child as a result of her captivity; watching her three-year-old son be killed because she refused to convert to Islam; and being raped and forced into a marriage with a Boko Haram fighter.
Stories such as this are commonplace in Nigeria, where Boko Haram militants since 2002 have killed tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims who don’t share their extremist ideals.
Based in northern Nigeria and active in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, Boko Haram has been responsible for multiple deadly attacks on villages, schools and churches, often using children in suicide bombing missions as parts of territory controlled by the group have come under attack by local forces seeking to reclaim the area. In 2015, they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Yet despite all of the suffering she was forced to endure at the hands of her captors, Bitrus has also learned to forgive, pointing to the mercy of Christ as a model.
Speaking to EWTN Feb. 23, Bitrus said she was abducted by Boko Haram in August 2014, when late one evening the militants invaded the small town where she and her husband lived with their two small children, Zachariah and Joshua. At the time, Zachariah was five, and Joshua was three.
Bitrus tried to flee, but she and her sons were abducted by Boko Haram and taken to the group’s camp in the forest.
Forced to take the name “Miriam,” she said that she was immediately put to work in a labor camp. She said she had been pregnant with her third child at the time of her abduction, but lost the baby due to the strains of her captivity.
After arriving in the camp, she said the fighters wanted her to convert to Islam. Having been raised a devout Catholic, Bitrus refused. As a result, she said the militants grabbed her youngest son, Joshua, and threw him into a river.
“I have lost him,” she said, explaining that after the incident, she went through the motions and pretended to accept the Muslim faith, “but never did.”
Each time they were forced to recite the Muslim prayers, Bitrus said she would instead pray the rosary, asking God to free her “from the hands of this wicked people.”
“I was never convinced about Islam. I kept my trust in the Lord and I was praying the rosary with my fingers,” she said. “I am convinced that the prayer of the rosary saved me from captivity.”
Bitrus said that at one point, she was forced into a marriage with a Boko Haram fighter, and – like many of the other female prisoners – subjected to repeated rape. She eventually became pregnant and gave birth to a child on Christmas day, whom she named Christopher, in honor of Christ.
After two years in captivity, Bitrus and her two living sons were able to escape when the militants fled as Nigerian troops closed in on the encampment. Amid the chaos, a group of prisoners fled into the forest, where they spent nearly a month with almost no food or water, she recounted, adding that mosquitoes constantly attacked them and she developed severe rashes that have left scars on her body.
With the help of a local community, they were eventually pointed in the direction of the Nigerian army. The troops initially didn’t believe that Bitrus was Christian, and thought she was a member of Boko Haram. However, after reciting several prayers, including the Hail Mary and the Glory Be, they believed her and sent her to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Afterward being discharged, she was sent back to her hometown of Maiduguri, where she was reunited with her husband. For the two years prior, they had each believed that the other had been killed.
When she first escaped, Bitrus said she struggled to accept her youngest child, who was six months old at the time, because he reminded her of the atrocities she had suffered. However, the local bishop, Oliver Dashe Doeme, talked to her and encouraged her to both “accept and love” the child, saying he could grow up to be “an important person in life, a person who could help me.”
She voiced gratitude to Bishop Dashe Doeme, saying he “cared for my needs and I grateful for that.”
Although it was not easy, Bitrus said she was eventually able to forgive Boko Haram for everything she endured.
“I am convinced about Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness,” she said, noting how Jesus himself was tortured, treated unjustly and condemned to death.
However, “even on the cross Jesus forgave those who inflicted pain to him; he said ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,’” she reflected.
Bitrus was able to tell her story to Pope Francis during a private Feb. 24 audience at the Vatican. Joining her were Ashiq Masih and Eisham Ashiq, the husband and daughter, respectively, of Asia Bibi, who has been on death row in Pakistan since 2010 on charges of blasphemy.
The meeting was organized by Aid to the Church in Need, a papal foundation dedicated to supporting persecuted Christians. On Saturday, the organization hosted an event in which Rome’s ancient Colosseum was illuminated red in order to raise awareness of anti-Christian persecution throughout the world and commemorate the modern martyrs who have died for their faith.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Tonight the colosseum in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rome?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Rome</a> is illuminated red in honor of persecuted Christians throughout the world <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ColosseoRosso?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ColosseoRosso</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/acn_int?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@acn_int</a> ???? <a href=”https://twitter.com/dibanezgut?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@dibanezgut</a> <a href=”https://t.co/9QlK0pQtaB”>pic.twitter.com/9QlK0pQtaB</a></p>— Elise Harris (@eharris_it) <a href=”https://twitter.com/eharris_it/status/967463801451892736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In comments to EWTN Feb. 23, Ashiq Masih said that although his wife is still in prison, she is doing well and is “a symbol of faith.”
“We hope she is going to freed one day, by the grace of God,” he said, explaining that the ordeal has been difficult for the family to endure, because “we are missing her and she misses us.”
Bibi’s daughter, Eisham Ashiq, told EWTN that she wanted Pope Francis and all of Europe to pray that her mother would be released soon.
[…]
What? More?
Too much of an echo chamber for the illuminati? Three comments and a question:
FIRST, the synodal style, by itself, is something for the next conclave to think about, twice. In 2028 Cardinal Grech might even be awarded two minutes to say his piece. One key innovation, here, is “consensus,” and we ask, “consensus about what”? A second devolution is the meaning of the word “alongside.” As successors of the Apostles (apostello: “sent”), the ordained bishops are firstly the guardians of the Deposit of Faith, which is our institutional, charismatic, sacramental, and personal incorporation into the life of Jesus Christ (the Mystical Body of Christ).
SECOND, yes, to some credible process to get the ordained clergy and the laity to support and leaven each other within the “universal call to holiness.” But, what still of Vatican II—which Grech mentions—which retains clarity about the vital “difference in kind as well as degree” (Lumen Gentium). Also a distinction between the realm of Revelation (Dei Verbum) and the realm of the world (Gaudium et Spes).
THIRD, so, in the full text of this initiative (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2025-03/grech-a-new-path-to-help-the-church-walk-in-a-synodal-style.html), why are the terms “Synod” (of Bishops) and “Assembly” used interchangeably? In a deeper way, the presence of the entire Communion of Saints (!) already happens at each celebration of the Mass—as an “extension and continuation” (St. John Paul II, drawing from St. John Chrysostom) of the one event of Calvary. The center of universal human history; not simply an episode within one narrative among many.
So, yes, to reinvigorating a religious and therefore fully human alternative to a post-World War II, post-modern, and flat-earth world moving backward into global spheres of influence. But, alone, the synodal “style” does not replace content. This by procedurally substituting (?) the vertical altar with horizontal roundtables of various sizes.
QUESTION: What does the synodal “style” have to offer to what is, in fact, a new Apostolic Age?
By then we will have a different Pope and this “Synodality” nonsense would have been tossed into the trash can of history and forgotten, where it belongs.
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish.
If not before. Most sons of men have their plans perish long before they die. If the plans happen to persist after the death of the planner, it is only because someone else made it his plan. (John Kennedy had less to do with the moon landing than he is usually credited.)
The question, then, is whether the new pope will take up Francis’s plans. That, of course, is completely unknowable. Many people point to the number of cardinals Francis has appointed, but ALL of the cardinals who elected Francis had been appointed either by Benedict XVI or by John Paul II. As we see, this did not guarantee the election of a like-minded pope. Even so, it is by no means certain that the next pope will change even the most obviously disastrous aspects of Francis’s papacy.
Team Francis, Cdls Grech, Hollerich, Cupich, Farrell, Roche, Tobin, how can we neglect McElroy are pressing forward despite hopeful expectations of the more traditional Catholic. 2028. The Synodal Church sails on regardless of passenger recalcitrance, disenchantment and turmoil.
Where does she sail? Paradise Island. A dreamy place where the brutality of rigorist legalism doesn’t exist. Where good is evil and evil is good. Didn’t Zoroaster foretell the day? A truly happy place in the minds of the enlightened progressives freed from tradition. That insufferable past.
Perchance Leviathan [wasn’t the bronze serpent an effigy?] himself will providentially wreck her, the survivors a new beginning.
“The brutality of legalism doesn’t exist …” except if we need it to enforce the synodal dance. After all, as Cardinal Grech reminded us, this is an expression of “the ordinary Magisterium.” And if a cleric said it, it must be true. Expect this process to be somewhat like the Vatican’s survey last summer: we want to “hear” you until what you start to say is not what we want to hear.
So when are we supposed to stop Synodaling and share the Word of God with someone else?
“Putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
(Ephesians 4:25)
Idiots.
O Lord, when will this affliction of walking talking and ending up actually doing and producing NOTHING will end!!!!!!
The church is being manipulated from the top.
I’m hoping that by 2028 the Synod on Synodality will be a vague memory that only about two or three Catholics will remember with embarrassment, if he or she is unfortunate to remember it at all.
Malice in Wonderland
Hilarious!!!
And perfect..,
How best to manage the worldwide Church? Circular roundtables of layered synodality (local, national, continental)?
Two comments and a question:
FIRST, a thought experiment…what if in 2025 we are tutored by the inner circle that the Council of Nicaea (1700th anniversary) was really in management of inclusion, rather than a recalling of what was/is believed from the beginning and, therefore, a rejection (non-inclusion!) of Arianism (read Pachamama, Fiducia Supplicans, etc.)? AND, then in 2026 or so, we read that the protocol for electing a subsequent pope is modernized to involve, in some way, the advice or even consent of the 2028 Assembly.
SECOND, about management of such a community-based (or Lutheran) remodel of the ecclesial Catholic Church of the Apostolic Succession (with a validly ordained priesthood and stuff like that), clearly rooted in Matthew (28:19) and in Pentecost (Acts 2:1-31)—“listening” to Benedict XVI we hear that the message is not to “turn back”, but rather “to return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II” (The Ratzinger Report, 1985):
“But the Church of Christ is not a party, not an association, not a club. Not setting the clock back, but setting in right. Her deep and permanent structure is not democratic but sacramental, consequently hierarchical” (49). “Real reform is to strive to let what is ours disappear as much as possible so what belongs to Christ may become more visible…what the Church needs in order to respond to the needs of man in every age is holiness, not management” (53).
QUESTION: Does the replacement of Synods of Bishops with mongrel-democratic Synodality teach/imply/ signal and morph that the process of management IS holiness?
What, exactly, about the post-synodal Study Group #9 possibly anguishing over how to elevate today’s theologians and maybe an Assembly above the Church’s magisterium(?)—that is, assigned to develop “Theological criteria [?] and synodal methodologies [?] for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal [?], pastoral [?], and ethical [?] issues.”
My walk toward Christ is full of failures. My desire has been to follow him, but I fall short of that on a daily basis. I take the responsibility of sharing the message of the Good News with my neighbors seriously. I firmly believe that the role of the Church is to be the bridge between Good and all of humanity. The Church is supposed to serve as community to unite believers as one body in Christ. She is the beacon that clearly, without hesitation and full of clarity, announces the teachings of Christ to the world.
Anything, any movement, any teaching that attempts to move the Church from her purpose is heretical and must be cast out. In my weakness, I strive to walk in truth. I am not in a position, and I am unworthy to condemn another, but I know Jesus Christ and choose to walk with him. I ignore everything else.
Amen brother! You’re for sure on the right road.
YADA YADA YADA!!
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
FURTHERMORE – asxovvnddiuertn434&&9999v330fgjv..!!
AND THIS TIME – I MEAN IT!!!
LOL, I can’t help but agree
Sounds like you’re all ready for the Jubilee of Synodal Teams!
The Synod was a “meeting about meeting” we were told. I guess the post-Synodal Synod will be a meeting about meeting about meeting. Just think of it this way: it’s the Vatican’s version of Festivus.
Serious question. Has a single parish made a single change because of the Synod?
Ours has not, not that I can tell
“The goal is not to add work upon work but to help Churches walk in the Synodal style” according to Cardinal Grech.
Help Churches walk in the synodal style. Hmm… that sounds eerily like “I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help.” More to the point, the 2028 Synod will be where the teeth come out to “help Churches walk in the Synodal style.” Well, that could prove problematic for Churches faithful to Tradition that exhibit bureaucratic resistance to walking in the Synodal style.
It is my prayer that Mssrs. Johann du Toit and Ken T are correct in their prediction that post-Francis, synodalism will be discarded. I am not so optimistic. I fear that 2028 will be the beginning of the final crackdown. The Church of Accompaniment directing us to accompany together into the cattle car taking us to banquet of rotten fruit compliments of the Synodal Way.