Pray for the persecuted Christians worldwide!

When others are suffering, especially other Christians, it is a great spiritual work of mercy to pray for their aid, their strength in faith, and the end to their oppression.

The last 100 years have seen more violence and oppression against Christians than the previous 1900 years combined.  By actual count, far more Christians have perished in persecution in the past century than they did in the previous 19.

Persecutions continue to heat up around the world, especially wherever Christianity comes into contact with islam.  From the Philippines to Indonesia to the entire Mideast – the ancient home of Christianity, far, far older than islam – muslims are persecuting Christians in massive numbers.

Of course, some of the worst persecution continues in Iraq and Syria, where radical muslim (but I repeat myself) Al Qaeda type insurgents continue to slaughter Christians in scores and hundreds, while hundreds of thousands have fled one of Christianity’s most ancient homes.  Christianity used to be prevalent across the North African littoral, but now, outside Egypt (where the pressure had been growing to great heights, until the last few months), very few communities remain. Even in Egypt, Christianity’s second oldest home, there are still frequent attacks on ancient desert monasteries, churches, and individual souls.

Here I am going to depart from our Holy Father a bit, whose exceedingly (some might say excessively) generous  “ecumenism” towards muslims has repeatedly stressed that they need not convert, that they are fine where they are at and have their own path to salvation.

Balderdash. Leaving aside the constantly defined Dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus,  muslims are descendants of a wicked melange of heretical Arian Christianity and some of the more bizarre Jewish sects that existed after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 (including the sodomite infested “zealots”).  Mohammad was an itinerant desert trader who initially tried to be Christian, then was convinced by a sister (or wife, she may have been both) that starting a new religion would be much more profitable. There is not a single miracle in the history of Mohammad to testify to any special commission from God. There are no miracles in the history of islam, unless you consider its initial wave of conquest miraculous.  I consider it diabolical.

Islam is the only world religion that has only ever been spread solely by the sword.  Aside from rare individual exceptions, mostly among deeply troubled individuals (such as incarcerated populations), islam only makes “converts” due to horrific persecution of other religions and constant threats of violence, enforced poverty, secondary status, etc.  Those attuned to spiritual warfare might surmise that many characteristics of islam – its backwardness, its rejection of the God-given faculty of reason, its inherent violence, its constant repression of women and minorities – would imply a far darker origin for this religion than some revelation from the Lord.

Below is a video of the depredations of muslim fanatics against Christians – many Catholic – in Syria.  This is just a very mild example there has been far worse destruction and murder reported:

Of course, Christians are not only persecuted by muslims.  In India, hindus persecute Christians with grim abandon.  There are regular tales from there of raping of nuns, destruction of churches, waves of murder, and even worse.

But in the post-Christian West, the gravest threat to Christianity comes not from factional religious violence, but from the growing hatred for the Faith and all it represents in the minds of millions of sexular paganists.  Many of those pagans are former, at least nominal, Christians themselves. They are thus almost impossible to convert, absent a miracle of Grace, as they feel they already “know” Christianity and have consciously rejected it.

The steadily increasing secularization of our governments, the growth in leftist ideologies carefully indoctrinated into public school children, and the increasing collaboration between the government and those who seek to advance a wickedly sexularist agenda all point towards an increasing likelihood of not only white persecution, but even red.  I am increasingly convinced I will see blood martyrdoms of Christians in this country in my lifetime.

So we have much to pray for.  We must pray for those suffering now, pray for the conversion of our culture, and pray that we may remain steadfast in the Faith should the persecution – already extant in many low-key ways – should get really amped up in this country.

If we don’t pray for the mercy of God and the amelioration of the suffering of those Christians persecuted now, who will pray for us when our turn comes?