This week is Holy Week for Christians and a good occasion to remember today’s Christian martyrs. The Community of Sant’Egidio , which journalist John Allen recently dubbed “The Pope’s Favorite Movement,” does just that through its annual prayer for martyrs — in which the names of recent ones are read out — in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome that takes place Tuesday of every Holy Week. Local Sant’Egidio communities, including ours here in South Bend, Indiana (where I am a member), follow suit with their own annual prayer of remembrance.
This year the prayer is more urgent that ever. Aid to the Church in Need’s 2017 report, Persecuted and Forgotten? reports that the persecution of Christians, already widespread, has only become worse in the last couple of years. The Under Caesar’s Sword project studies and reports Christian responses.
An article in yesterday’s Washington Times, details one site of this persecution that is surprising to many — India. The country’s Hindu nationalist government, and many state governments, use trumped-up charges of induced and forced conversion as a pretext to pass anti-conversion laws that serve to repress the country’s minority Christian community (2.3% of the population). Christians are also harassed and attacked by Hindu nationalist groups.
India is one of many sites — add China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and many others — where Christians are denied their religious freedom harshly. Solidarity means remembering their Way of the Cross as we walk ours, and working for their religious freedom as we undertake our own participation in the resurrection.