A Catholic bishop in the Philippines said his government’s controversial war on drugs is really a war against the country’s poor.

“There is no war against illegal drugs, because the supply is not being stopped. If they are really after illegal drugs, they would go after the big people, the manufacturers, the smugglers, the suppliers. But instead, they go after the victims of these people. So, I have come to the conclusion that this war on illegal drugs is illegal, immoral and antipoor,” said Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan. Sign up for NCR’s Copy Desk Daily, and we’ll email you recommended news and opinion articles in each weekday.

The Philippines has suffered for years from widespread drug abuse, principally shabu, a cheaply produced form of methamphetamine. President Rodrigo Duterte ran for office promising a crackdown on drug use, and since he took office in 2016, rights groups say more than 20,000 people have been killed in extrajudicial killings, mostly carried out by the country’s police.

Church leaders have grown increasingly critical of the violence. The country’s Catholic bishops conference acknowledged in a Jan. 28 pastoral message that they had been slow in responding as a “culture of violence has gradually prevailed in our land.”

The bishops spoke “of mostly poor people being brutally murdered on mere suspicion of being small-time drug users and peddlers, while the big-time smugglers and drug lords went scot-free.” While they said they had “no intention of interfering in the conduct of state affairs,” they said they had “a solemn duty to defend our flock, especially when they are attacked by wolves.”

Duterte has repeatedly slammed the church in response to its criticism, and David, who also serves as vice president of the bishops’ conference, has become the principal target of Duterte’s angry outbursts at the church.

Anti-Christian persecution in the Middle East is a major concern, said Pope Francis in Angelus before leaving for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he remained, something Chaldean Patriarch Card Louis Raphael Sako stressed as he spoke about the first papal visit to a Gulf State.

With persecution in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in his mind, the Pope will try to turn a page in ChristianMuslim relations in order to renew the journey of peace.

The 70-year-old cardinal, originally from Zakho in northern Iraq, plays a leading role in interfaith dialogue in his country.

“Pope Francis is saying that this is enough. Let us live in peace, love, tolerance and renounce violence and hatred,” Card Sako noted, adding that in the UAE, the Pope promoted Christian-Muslim outreach, trying to oppose any fanatical, violent or hateful discourse.

According to the prelate, the pontiff will raise awareness among the believers of various religions of the situation of Christians in the region and will refer to the values found in various sacred texts and scriptures, which call for human coexistence.

The Christian community in Nepal has not been spared the wrath of society’s caste based inequality, even though bottom-rung Dalits are increasingly turning to Christianity as a means to escape their fate.

Religious conversions are illegal in Nepal but the numbers suggest many consider it a risk worth taking as the “untouchables” are among the most oppressed by this complex social system, which leaves no sphere untouched. Testament to how legions of Dalits are prepared to gamble on breaking the law in search of a more dignified life, Nepal now harbours one of the fastest growing Christian populations in the world. At least 12,000 churches have been built and millions are believed to have turned to Christianity despite a 2011 census claiming Christians make up just 1.4% of the population, or several hundred thousand people. A whopping 65% of the newly converted are Dalits, according to the National Christian Federation of Nepal.