Abuja, Nigeria, Mar 12, 2018 / 10:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With widespread violence plaguing Nigeria, Catholic religious sisters in the country have united in the name of peace to counter the mounting conflicts.
“The news of murders, massacres, kidnappings, lootings, trafficking in human beings and the actions of Boko Haram are staggeringly frequent and have even increased in recent times,” said Sister Bibiana Emenaha, coordinator for the Committee for Women’s Dignity Support, according to Vatican Insider.
“That’s why NCWR [National Conference of Religious Women] decided to take to the streets and, in addition to asking God for support, to gather women and men of good will to stop this worrying state of things,” Sister Emenaha continued.
On Feb. 14, the Nigerian religious sisters hosted a national day of prayer and fasting, where hundreds across the country united to pray for peace. This event was hosted by the Nigeria Conference of Women Religious and the African Faith & Justice Network.
This prayer and fasting imitative was only the beginning. The sisters additionally began to actively urge the government to create programs that would combat violence and work towards building bridges of peace within the communities.
“We are asking for greater security and protection of life and property,” said Sister Emenaha, noting that they are particularly requesting ways that the government could “stop the bloodshed as soon as possible.”
The sisters, who are members of the NCWR, have also jumpstarted a number of initiatives to aid the victims of violence within Nigeria, including a rehab shelter for survivors of human trafficking. This facility, located in Benin City, offers legal, psychological, spiritual and material support to women and girls who have been affected by trafficking and human slavery.
The program also offers educational campaigns on trafficking to schools, churches, media, and local communities. The sisters have so far seen tremendous support for their efforts and have been able to reintegrate around 380 individuals.
Additionally, the sisters have created an inter-religious program which unites people of all faiths to combat the staggering violence within the country.
“Throughout the year, we organize seminars, meetings and conferences attended by women of other faiths and confessions, and their presence is an added value in achieving our goals,” Emenaha said.
The violence within Nigeria stems from a number of different sources, including clashes between herdsmen and farmers.
This particular conflict has been mounting over the years, and involves primarily the Fulani and Tiv ethnic groups, although a number of other groups have been affected by its reach.
The fight for the land has also escalated with the growing drought, which has claimed the lives of over 3,000 people and caused more than 65,000 to leave their homes.
Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group, is another source of terrorism within the nation, and which has been responsible for a number of the kidnappings and bloodshed that has recently taken place in Nigeria.
Emenaha noted that the nuns’ prayers and actions have been the result of “concern for the increased violent clashes between communities, particularly among herdsmen and farmers, for the senseless killings and unbridled destruction of human lives, for the incessant kidnappings and violence against women and girls.”
It is their hope that through prayer and action, they may help bring an end to the destruction and restore a respect for human dignity within Nigeria.
“We are convinced that God listens to the cry of his children who turn to him desperately.”
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Issele-Uku, Nigeria, Jun 12, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- It was supposed to be a quiet retreat weekend last April for Fr. Sam Okwuidegbe, a Nigerian Jesuit priest and director of a local spirituality center.
Before he left, he chatted with his new provincial, Fr. Chuks Afiawari, who joked with Fr. Sam: “Make sure where you are going they don’t kidnap you.”
On his way to the retreat, which was to be in Onitsha, in the state of Anambra, Fr. Sam took a familiar, seemingly safe highway on which he had traveled many times.
That’s why he was so surprised when he heard gunshots.
“On glancing back I saw all the vehicles behind me stopping, and trying to reverse … that’s when it hit me that there was something dangerous ahead of me,” he recalled.
“On looking up I saw masked men with AK47 rifles shooting. I was so scared. I also stopped my car abruptly and began to reverse, but as I was trying to do that, a man suddenly appeared … and said, ‘If you don’t get out of the car I’ll shoot you.’”
The priest could see behind him that the men had also stopped another car, a black Mercedes, and were forcing two men out of the car. In a hurry, Fr. Sam left his phone in the car.
He quickly identified the armed kidnappers as Fulani herdsmen, a notoriously violent group whose clashes with farmers have killed thousands of people in Nigeria over the past two decades. According to the Global Terrorism Index, they were the fourth most violent militant group in the world in 2014.
Violence against Christians has also significantly increased in the country in recent years, particularly in Muslim-majority areas. In 2016, one Nigerian bishop lamented that Christians had essentially become “target practice.”
The Fulani kidnappers led Fr. Sam and the other two men into the forest at gunpoint for eight hours, barely stopping for breaks. They eventually let one of the two other men go, because he could not keep up with the pace, but they first cut his feet so that he could not escape quickly, Fr. Sam recalled.
“The pace in the forest was jogging, jumping over tree trumps, going over leaves, which often cut through our skin. So it was quite brutal!” Fr. Sam said.
“I was so shaken, and began to ask myself, is this happening to me? What am I doing in this forest? What am I doing here? I felt extremely cold and in my confusion … I’d mutter to myself, this can’t be happening, God. This can’t be happening,” he said.
The captors started questioning Fr. Sam and the other man, and were suspicious when Fr. Sam identified himself as a priest; they thought he might be a government spy. They stripped him of all his belongings – his watch, wallet, and rosary.
When they questioned Fr. Sam about his phone, the captors were enraged that he had left it in his car – which was fortunate, the priest said, because he had saved financial information from his work on it.
The militants asked him if he could remember anyone’s number – someone to call who could negotiate for Fr. Sam’s life and pay off the herdsmen. Traumatized by his experience, Fr. Sam couldn’t remember one phone number.
“That triggered a series of beatings…they huddled me up, hands and feet tied to the back with a rope like a goat before a kill. They removed my cassock, then my shirt, threw me into the dirt on the ground, and began to beat me with the back of their guns, they’d kick me hard on my sides, slap across my face, push and pull me hard across the ground…one of them said ‘We are going to burn you alive!’” the priest recalled.
“I really believed that they were going to do it…I began to pray in silence…I said, ‘God, I commit to you, I commit my spirit’ and I resigned to the thought of my fate, that I was going to die that day.’”
Finally, the beating stopped. Fr. Sam said he remembers praying constantly through the whole experience.
“I hoped for a miracle…every minute I’d pray saying all kinds of prayers, I’d pray to Saint Ignatius, say the rosary and the Divine Mercy (chaplet)…at one time I found myself singing heartily but in the inside, a Ghanaian song that says ‘God speak to me…God where are you?’ I kept humming in my heart…it gave me hope,” he said.
Eventually Fr. Sam was able to get the phone number of another Jesuit priest through the contact of the other man in captivity. This priest, Jesuit provincial Fr. Jude Odiaka, began negotiations with the herdsmen.
And while at times he prayed for death, Fr. Sam said he felt better once he had made contact with the Jesuits.
“I knew that word must have gotten around about the kidnapping, and that the sisters at the retreat centre and people who knew me all over, must have been praying for me.”
The other man who had been captured with Fr. Sam also was a great comfort, he recalled.
“…the guy I was kidnapped with…he was a grace for me, a gift from God. I hope I was too for him because we exchanged words of encouragement silently, as we were not allowed to talk to each (other).”
Finally, the captors seemed to have gotten what they wanted, and started talking of letting the men go.
“I intensified my prayers and I prayed to God ‘Please God, make this end well,’” Fr. Sam said.
“I recalled a saying that ‘God will not bring you this far, then abandon you’, so this brought some assurance to my heart,”
When the militants decided to release the men, they were left to wander alone together through the forest, trying to find the pathway out. Eventually, they were able to make it to safety and back home.
While the experience was “painful and traumatizing,” Fr. Sam said one of the best consolations upon his return was hearing from many people, near and far, that they had been praying for him.
“In all these things God revealed to me that I was never abandoned while in the forest, even if I was out of reach and in danger, that God heard the prayers and was with me,” he said.
“It has renewed my faith in God, my faith in people…the human person, God’s gift of friendship and that if what I do matters, then also those people I do it with are also very important.”
Fr. Sam said he also plans to use his experience to help other people in his work as a counselor.
“This has also given me an understanding to accompany those who come to me for help seeking solace, encouragement, strength, hope, renewal…you know…maybe that’s why it happened,” he said.
“I’m going to use it in my work as a counselor, psychologist and help those who come to me for help, because what support can be given to people that have been kidnapped? What help can we give such people? I think I have become part of that help with what I have received, and experienced.”
Cairo, Egypt, Apr 1, 2019 / 10:29 am (CNA).- A court in Cairo sentenced Saturday 30 men to between 10 years and life imprisonment. They were charged with planning to bomb a church in Alexandria, an attack which was not carried out.
Egypt has seen a number of attacks on churches in recent years, motivated in part by a call from the Islamic State.
Of the 30 men sentenced March 30, only 20 were in court. Ten remain on the run. Prosecutors said they had been trained abroad and were influenced by Islamic State.
They were also accused of joining an illegal group, possessing explosives, and planning to attack a liquor store, Reuters reported.
In February 2017 the Islamic State issued a call to target Egypt’s Christians.
At least seven Coptic Orthodox people were killed, and 12 injured, in a November 2018 attack on a bus travelling to St. Samuel the Confessor monastery in Minya governorate. Another attack on a group of pilgrims to the monastery in May 2017 had killed 29.
In December 2017, 11 people were killed in an attack on a church in Helwan, in Minya governorate.
Attacks on churches committed on Palm Sunday of 2017 killed 45 and injured more than 125.
St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral was bombed in December 2016, killing 29.
About 10 percent of Egypt’s population are Christian, the vast majority of whom are Coptic Orthodox.
Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Feb 2, 2023 / 05:45 am (CNA).
To bring about peace, “prayer is the most powerful weapon there is,” Pope Francis told thousands of young adults and catechism teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.
The meeting in Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC, took place on Feb. 2, the third day of the pope’s visit to the central African country. On Feb. 3, Francis will fly to Juba, South Sudan, for the second leg of his peace pilgrimage.
Pope Francis on Thursday interacted with an enthusiastic crowd of about 65,000 young people and adults, some of whom traveled days to be present for the papal visit.
Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. Vatican Media
“Yes, prayer conquers fear and enables us to take our future into our hands. Do you believe this?” the pope said. “Do you want to make prayer your secret, as refreshing water for the soul, as the one weapon you carry, as a traveling companion on each day’s journey?”
During the second half of his speech, the pope was repeatedly drowned out by the energetic audience, which broke out in cheering, singing, and dancing despite the hot weather.
Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. Vatican Media
In his talk, Francis used the imagery of the hand to speak about the future of the DRC.
“God has placed the gift of life, the future of society and the future of this great country in those hands of yours,” he said.
“Dear brother, dear sister, do your hands not seem small and frail, empty and unsuited to so great a task? It’s true,” he said. “Let me tell you something: your hands all look alike, they all look alike, but none of them is exactly the same. No one has hands just like yours, and that is a sign that you are a unique treasure, an unrepeatable and incomparable treasure.”
He invited those present in the stadium to open and close their hands while meditating on whether they wanted to choose peace or violence.
Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. Vatican Media
“Notice how you can squeeze your hand, closing it to make a fist. Or you can open it, to offer it to God and to others,” he said.
“You who dream of a different future: from your hands, tomorrow can be born, tomorrow can be born from your hands, from your hands peace so lacking in this country can at last come about.”
Bishop Donatien Bafuidinsoni Maloko-Mana from the Diocese of Inongo, in western DRC, was at the meeting.
He told EWTN News that people from his diocese traveled in boats on the Congo River for two to four days to arrive in Kinshasa.
Bafuidinsoni said the Congolese people were disappointed last year when the pope’s visit was canceled, but “now that the pope is here it’s a big joy for us all.”
Even those who are following the trip from home “are really happy,” he added. “It’s a message of joy, of peace, and of hope for all.”
Sister Asterie Neema, 29, is from Rutshuru in eastern DRC, where her brother was brutally killed last year. Elias Turk/CNA
Sister Asterie Neema, 29, is from Rutshuru in eastern Congo, where, she told EWTN News, they are under the control of an armed group called M23.
Neema said her older brother was killed in 2022 by unidentified rebels in front of his 12- and 7-year-old children.
In her 29 years of life, she said, her region of the DRC has never seen peace. Neema added that she has forgiven her brother’s killers, but she hopes for peace in her country.
Not everyone in the audience was Catholic. Two young Muslim men also attended the youth gathering with Pope Francis.
Yassine Mumbere, from Butembo in eastern DRC, told EWTN News that he came to the event because all young people were invited. He also studied at a Catholic school.
Muslim Yassine Mumbere, 35, from Butembo in eastern Congo, (R) with his friend (L) at the youth gathering with Pope Francis in Kinshasa, DRC on Feb. 2, 2023. Elias Turk/CNA
The 35-year-old Muslim Scout leader said he hopes the pope’s trip will help bring peace to the DRC’s eastern region.
In his speech, Pope Francis encouraged those present to be careful of the temptation to point fingers at people, or to exclude others because of “regionalism, tribalism, or anything that makes you feel secure in your own group, but at the same time is unconcerned with the life of the community.”
“You know what happens: first, you believe in prejudices about others, then you justify hatred, then violence, and in the end, you find yourself in the middle of a war,” he said.
To create a concrete sign of community, Francis invited the crowd to hold hands with those beside them and to sing a song together: “Imagine yourselves as one Church, a single people, holding hands.”
Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. Vatican Media
“Yes, brother and sister, you are indispensable and you are responsible for your Church and for your country,” he said after the song. “You are part of a greater history, one that calls you to take an active role as a builder of communion, a champion of fraternity, an indomitable dreamer of a more united world.”
After Pope Francis spoke against corruption — inviting everyone to shout together, “Go away, corruption!” — the stadium broke out in loud singing and cheering.
The event’s emcee had to invite the crowd to quiet down before the pope could continue speaking.
Francis also drew attention to two Congolese martyrs and their examples of faith: Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite.
Statues of Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite, young Congolese martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II, in Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, DRC, on Feb. 2, 2023. Elias Turk/CNA
Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Family, was killed during the civil war in 1964 at the age of 24. Anuarite was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his visit to the DRC, then known as the Republic of Zaire, in 1985.
Blessed Isidore Bakanja was a Catholic convert at the age of 18. He became a catechist and was devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He died in 1909, around the age of 21 or 22, after succumbing to an infection caused by a beating and other torture he received at the hands of a European manager for refusing to remove his brown scapular at work. Bakanja was beatified in 1994 by Pope John Paul II.
Statues of the two blesseds were present at the youth meeting, where people in the crowd shouted and held signs asking the pope to make them “santi subito!”
The pope pointed to another example of virtue from the DRC, Floribert Bwana Chui, who was killed in 2007 in Goma.
The 26-year-old man, who worked as a customs manager, was killed for refusing to cooperate with corruption; specifically, he did not allow the passage of expired food products.
A spectator at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, DRC, on Feb. 2, 2023, holds a sign with the phrase “santi subito” in reference to two Congolese blesseds. Elias Turk/CNA
“He could easily have turned a blind eye; nobody would have found out, and he might even have gotten ahead as a result,” Francis said. “But, since he was a Christian, he prayed. He thought of others and he chose to be honest, saying no to the filth of corruption.”
“Now I want to tell you something important,” he added. “Listen closely: If someone offers you a bribe, or promises you favors and lots of money, do not fall into the trap. Do not be deceived; do not be sucked into the swamp of evil. Do not be overcome by evil!”
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