The UK “should lead the way” in tackling unprece-dented levels of Christian persecution a Conservative MP said on January 17. Teresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet was speaking at the launch of the annu-al World Watch List, a survey of global Christian compiled by the Christian Charity Open Doors.

The report reveals that 3,000 Christians were killed for their faith last year, more than double the number recorded in the previous survey. It also states that more than 200 million Christians in the top 50 countries experience high levels of persecution or worse. Eleven of the countries in the list are now places of extreme persecution, the highest number ever recorded.

Mrs Villiers said more should be done to tackle Christian persecution: “The UK must encourage other countries, particularly those experiencing high levels of persecution, to tackle the problem.”

Citing the Commonwealth Heads of Govern-ment meeting, which will be held in London this April, she said: “The meeting is a chance for the UK to set the agenda on this issue and encourage those countries to do more.” This is particularly pertinent given that nine of the countries attending the meeting are listed on the World Watch List.

The event featured speakers Michael and Hannah from Egypt and Pakistan respectively, talking about the levels of persecution endured by Christians in their native countries.

Michael, an elder in one of Cairo’s local evangelical churches, works for the leadership team of a national ministry and with partners to strengthen the church and teach Christians in Egypt to stand strong through persecution and pressure.

Hannah, from Pakistan, described how the country of her birth is being “violated by extremist ideologies” that “treat Christians as foreign enti-ties” and encourage “the vast majority of Muslims to believe that Pakistan is only for Muslims.”

“In Eritrea, the regime has begun to persecute religious confessions and, in particular, the Catholic Church. The object-ive is clear: to try to prevent its influence on society: not by prohibiting worship, but social activities.” This is the alarm launched by Mussie Zerai, a priest of the eparchy of Asmara, for years a chaplain of the Eritreans in Europe and active in saving migrants in danger in the Medi-terranean. “Since 1995 – explains the religious to Fides – there has been a law in force in the country according to which the State wants to carry out all social activities. Therefore, the latter cannot be carried out by private or even by religious institutions. So far, the law has been applied in a bland manner and has not seriously affected the network of services offered by Christians and Muslims. In the last few months, however, there has been an acceleration.”

Public officials have decreed the closure of five Catholic clinics in various cities. The minor seminary (which served both the diocese and the religious congre-gations) was closed in Asmara.

A new report on young adults who no longer identify as Catho-lic is attempting to understand why so many have “disaffiliated” from the faith they were born into. It comes at a time when more young people than ever before are leaving the church, even as those losses are being off set by His panic immigration to the U.S.

We looked at a sample of former Catholics, aged 15 to 25. This group is often characterized as “nones” because they claim no particular religious affiliation. The “Going, Going, Gone” rep-ort notes 2015 Pew research on all Americans that puts the number of disaffiliated young millennials (ages 18-24) at 36% and disaffiliated older millennials (25-33) at 34%. Approximately 12.8% of young adults in the U.S between 18 and 25 are former Catholics.

• Approximately 6.8%of U.S teenagers between 15 and 17 are former Catholics.

• 74% said they stopped identifying as Catholic between ages 10 and 20, with a median age of 13.

• About one-third (35%) are “done” with religious affiliation but still believe in something bigger, perhaps even God.

Mention of the name Robert Louis Stevenson instantly brings to mind his three enduring classics: Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I should add a fourth: A Child’s Garden of Verses, a charming reconstruction in verse of a child’s imaginative world. What most lovers of his fiction will not know, however, is that he also had one significant encounter with the Catholic Church.

Born into the narrow, pious world of Edinburgh Presbyterianism, Stevenson was too intelligent a man to dismiss Christianity in adult life – though he certainly rejected its conventional and social aspects within the rigid hierarchies of Scottish society. Recently reading Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa by Joseph Farrell, an account of the final four years of his life, 1890-1894, it was interesting to learn that he ran his unconventional household in an old-fashioned, paternalistic style – which included leading prayers every evening for his family and the Samoan staff.

Now the CTS has reprinted Fr Damien by RLS, first published in 1956, as part of its new CTS Heritage series which has been devised to celebrate 150 years of publishing. This is a superb idea and I hope to highlight other booklets in the series in due course. Father Damien, now St Damien of Molokai, Hawaii, is famous for the self-sacrificial and practical charitable work he did among the lepers of Molokai, dying among them in 1889. Stevenson, in his quest to find a permanent home in the South Seas for the sake of his health, visited the lazaretto a year later, spending a week among the people, weeping at their suffering and making notes of their memories.

Stevenson’s “Open Letter” of 25 February 1890 has given the unfortunate Hyde an immortality he would not have wished, revealing all the latter’s petty prejudices and calumnies. Hyde described Fr Damien as a “coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted.” With a skilled writer’s relish at demolishing this pompous, self-important man, RLS goes through each of Hyde’s criticisms in turn in his devastating critique, concluding with the resounding statement: “Well the man who tried to do what Damien did, is my father… and the father of all who love goodness; and he was your father too, if God had given you grace to see it.” The man who once wrote “We lepers” had undergone an unusual metamorphosis – to become the spiritual father of the renowned Scottish writer.

The on-going refugee crisis has indirectly led to Austria recording a significant number of Muslims who converted to Christianity.

Three quarters of the 750 baptized adults in 2017 are immigrants from Muslim countries, citing the official spokesman for the Archdiocese of Vienna. Only in the Austrian capital, 260 people representing 15 different nations have been baptized.

Fredericke Dostal, who is responsible for the baptism of adults in the archdiocese, says the claim that migrants change their religion in order to increase the chances of getting an asylum are groundless.