Pope Francis addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican after the recitation of the Regina Caeli prayer on April 14, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Apr 14, 2024 / 10:56 am (CNA).
Pope Francis expressed his concern over escalating tensions in the Middle East following Iran’s missile attack Saturday against Israel, a concern he raised after imploring Christians to share their stories of encountering Christ, which he said would create a richer and more beautiful environment for all.
“I follow in prayer and with concern, even pain, the news that has arrived in the last few hours on the worsening of the situation in Israel due to the intervention by Iran,” the pope said to all those gathered before him in St. Peter’s Square on April 14.
“I make a heartfelt appeal to stop any action that could fuel a spiral of violence with the risk of dragging the Middle East into an even greater conflict of war. No one should threaten the existence of others,” he added.
On Saturday evening Iran launched over 300 drones and missiles on military targets in Israel in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian Embassy in Syria’s capital Damascus on April 1, which killed seven.
Pope Francis also renewed his exhortation for peace as the Israel-Hamas war continues unabated, calling for “the Israelis and Palestinians to live in two states, side by side, in security, it is their deep and legitimate desire, and it is their right.”
Before the recitation of the Regina Caeli, the pope also exhorted Christians to share their personal encounters with Christ, noting that it is “the most beautiful thing we have to tell.”
The pope made this reflection against the backdrop of today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, where two disciples, returning from Emmaus, meet with the apostles in the upper room and recount their encounter with Christ.
“Jesus arrives precisely while they are sharing the story of the encounter with him,” a message, the pope observed, that for us today underscores “the importance of sharing the faith.”
Pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican hold banners during the recitation of the Regina Caeli prayer and address by Pope Francis on April 14, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
The pope observed that today, this message is often drowned out by the frenzy of messages, which are often “superficial” and “useless,” and which often reveal “an indiscreet curiosity or, worse still, arise from gossip and malice.”
“They are news that have no purpose, on the contrary, they do harm,” the pope continued.
Amid the deluge of counterproductive messages, Pope Francis called on Christians to share their personal testimonies of encountering Christ, “not by being a lecturer to others, but by sharing the unique moments in which we perceived the Lord alive and close.”
While acknowledging that it can often be a “struggle” to discuss these encounters with family, friends, and the broader community, the pope advocated persistence in doing so as it will make our personal “encounters” and social environments “even more beautiful.”
In closing his address, the pope called upon all Christians to conduct a series of interior examinations, asking ourselves: “Have I ever spoken about it with someone? Have I ever simply made a gift of it to family members, colleagues, loved ones, and those I associate with? And finally: Am I, in turn, interested in listening to what others have to tell me about their encounter with Christ?”
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President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua / Public Domain
Denver Newsroom, Aug 23, 2022 / 15:36 pm (CNA).
The priests of the Diocese of Estelí in Nicaragua called on the authorities of the dictatorial regime of Daniel Ortega to convert, to allow the… […]
Catholic Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Jos marches alongside evangelical leader Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam in front of the Plateau state governor’s office building in Jos, Nigeria, Jan. 8, 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, photo by Plateau State Government Media Team.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 9, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Thousands of Christians rallied yesterday in front of the governor’s office in Nigeria’s Plateau state to demand action after more than 200 were killed in a series of Christmas massacres.
The attacks, which targeted Christian villages beginning Dec. 23 and continuing through Christmas day, left Christian communities in Nigeria’s Plateau state reeling. Photos obtained by CNA after the attack showed villagers burying their slain relatives and loved ones in mass graves.
According to Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, an evangelical leader who helped to organize the rally, the attacks also left 15,000 people displaced without homes.
Among the demands being made by the protestors, Para-Mallam said that they asked for an “urgent humanitarian relief material response by the state and federal government” and for the arrest of the perpetrators of the Christmas massacre, which he called a “genocidal,” “terrorist” attack.
Thousands of Christians peacefully and prayerfully march to a rally in front of the Nigerian Plateau state governor’s office building in protest of the 2023 Christmas massacre that left over 200 Christian Nigerians dead, Jan. 8, 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, photo by Plateau State Government Media Team.
The attack marks the latest instance of terrorists targeting Christian Nigerians on significant Christian feast days. In 2022, on Pentecost Sunday, 39 Catholic worshippers were killed at the St. Francis Xavier Owo Catholic Parish in Ondo Diocese.
Religious freedom advocates believe that militant Muslim Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the Christmas attacks. In Nigeria as a whole, at least 60,000 Christians have been killed in the past two decades. An estimated 3,462 Christians were killed in Nigeria in the first 200 days of 2021, or 17 per day, according to a new study.
Due to continued attacks, Nigeria is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a Christian, according to a 2023 report by the advocacy group International Christian Concern.
Para-Mallam told CNA that Nigeria’s middle belt region, of which Plateau state is a part, has “suffered sustained attacks for over a decade now with destruction of lives and properties.”
The thousands of protestors at the rally, he said, were “mournful, angry, but surprisingly joyful.”
Their “central objective,” he explained, was “to ask for an end to the killings not just in Plateau but Nigeria and seek justice for the people.”
Just-In: CAN Plateau State Chapter is having a Peaceful Walk to Government House pic.twitter.com/YbFRqtFI9J
“Above all, it was very peaceful and prayerful,” he added. “The old, the young all together felt that we had to do what we had to do to get our message across.”
According to Para-Mallam, the crowd numbered about 5,000 and included both Catholics and Protestants. Together, he said, they peacefully and prayerfully marched, ending in front of the governor’s office building in the city of Jos. Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Jos and several Catholic priests also took part in the march and rally, according to Para-Mallam.
The demonstration was “mournful, angry, and surprisingly joyful,” according to Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam. Credit: Photos by Nigerian multimedia journalist Jœy Shèkwônúzhïbó, used with permission.
The rally was organized with the help of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a coalition of Nigerian Christian Churches and groups that includes the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
Para-Mallam said the purpose of the demonstration was to “mourn in solidarity” with the devastated communities as well as to show them that the Church “cares” and “identify with them in the moment of suffering and mourning.”
A secondary purpose for the rally, Para-Mallam said, was to “get the Church on the Plateau to unite and to speak with one voice around the issues of social justice” and to “create awareness nationally and globally about the Christmas season attack.”
Para-Mallam said that Plateau’s governor, Caleb Mutfwang, addressed the crowds at the rally and was “sympathetic and understanding and spoke well on the pains of his people.”
Mutfwang condemned the attacks shortly after they occurred in a Dec. 26 statement in which he said: “This has indeed been a gory Christmas for us.”
“He promised to relay our concerns to the president and committed to work with the president to end the killings in the Plateau state,” Para-Mallam said.
Despite the governor and president voicing their support for the impacted communities, several religious freedom advocates have been critical of the lack of government response to the growing terrorist attacks.
Maria Lozano, a representative for the papal relief group Aid to the Church in Need, told CNA after the attacks that tangible government support was largely absent after the Christmas massacre and that a “lack of response from the government” over the years has worsened the situation in the region. The absence of government support, Lozano said, has forced Christian churches to take on the “primary responsibility of providing assistance.”
Para-Mallam asked for Christians outside of Nigeria to help by offering prayer, advocacy, and humanitarian intervention.
“We also want fellow believers to encourage policymakers to encourage the Nigerian government to do more to end the killings in general and particularly those targeted at Christians,” he said.
For several years now, religious freedom advocates have criticized the U.S. government for failing to include Nigeria in the State Department’s “Countries of Particular Concern” list, which some consider to be America’s most effective tool to encourage foreign governments to address the persecutions in their countries.
“There is no justification as to why the State Department did not designate Nigeria or India as a Country of Particular Concern,” said U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom chair Abraham Cooper and vice chair Frederick Davie in a Jan. 4 statement.
Cooper and Davie mentioned the Christmas massacre as “just the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria.”
Speaking on “EWTN News Nightly” on Monday, Davie said that the decision to leave Nigeria off the list was “particularly” concerning and a “huge mistake.”
Davie told EWTN that “there are some who are saying that the government [of Nigeria] if it is not actively participating in some of this religious persecution is actually standing by and not doing what it can to prevent it.”
“We just believe,” Davie explained, “that by designating Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, the United States puts itself in a position to work more closely with the government of Nigeria to address some of those fundamental security issues that are going unattended to.”
Despite this, the State Department has left Nigeria off the Countries of Particular Concern list since 2021.
Pope Leo XIV smiles as a jubilant crowd joins in prayer on Sunday, May 11, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, May 17, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The Mass for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate will be celebrated on Sunday, … […]
2 Comments
We all should be able to support the Pope’s plea for peace in the Middle East. The key point regarding the weekend’s excitement is that Israel instigated the attack by bombing Iran’s embassy in Syria. The Netanyahu government is clearly intent on starting a war with a Iran that it will want the US to finish. This must not be allowed to happen.
During the last week, I suffered a case of Covid and sought chores which didn’t require much energy. I determined to cull a decrepit box of old Catholic pamphlets, pictures, holy cards, etc., so I could claim to have made a dent in the over-stuffed storage state of my garage.
Serendipitously discovered in the box was a high-quality glossed card with Pope Benedict’s picture, coat of arms, signature, and a few lines of text from his homily of Sunday, April 24, 2005. I don’t remember how the card came to be in that box in my garage. I don’t remember who gave it to me or how I received it.
The homily was from the 5th Sunday of Easter on the occasion of the “MASS, IMPOSITION OF THE PALLIUM AND CONFERRAL OF THE FISHERMAN’S RING FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME.” IOW, it was Benedict’s homily for his first public Sunday Mass, as Pope.
Curiously, Benedict said things in words arranged similar to Francis’: “There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with him.”
Question: Did you catch the charism? Did you feel the warmth and the joy from the words of the Shepherd Pope Benedict?
Do you feel and think the same when you read the words of Francis? I didn’t.
We all should be able to support the Pope’s plea for peace in the Middle East. The key point regarding the weekend’s excitement is that Israel instigated the attack by bombing Iran’s embassy in Syria. The Netanyahu government is clearly intent on starting a war with a Iran that it will want the US to finish. This must not be allowed to happen.
This article continually troubles me.
During the last week, I suffered a case of Covid and sought chores which didn’t require much energy. I determined to cull a decrepit box of old Catholic pamphlets, pictures, holy cards, etc., so I could claim to have made a dent in the over-stuffed storage state of my garage.
Serendipitously discovered in the box was a high-quality glossed card with Pope Benedict’s picture, coat of arms, signature, and a few lines of text from his homily of Sunday, April 24, 2005. I don’t remember how the card came to be in that box in my garage. I don’t remember who gave it to me or how I received it.
The homily was from the 5th Sunday of Easter on the occasion of the “MASS, IMPOSITION OF THE PALLIUM AND CONFERRAL OF THE FISHERMAN’S RING FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME.” IOW, it was Benedict’s homily for his first public Sunday Mass, as Pope.
Curiously, Benedict said things in words arranged similar to Francis’: “There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with him.”
Question: Did you catch the charism? Did you feel the warmth and the joy from the words of the Shepherd Pope Benedict?
Do you feel and think the same when you read the words of Francis? I didn’t.
May God have mercy.