Mike Christian and his wife lead a small congregation called the Afghan-American Church of the Bay Area. But their main ministry is not gathering with a dozen or so Afghan believers during the week. It is engaging with the tens of thousands of Afghan seekers from around the world who reach out through messaging apps, social media, and online outlets.
Mike, who was born in Afghanistan and worked alongside the US military there, adopted the name “Mike Christian” after his conversion. It was a signal to fellow Afghans that they could speak with him if they were curious about Christianity. His popular Facebook page shares Bible verses and Christian messages in Dari alongside an invitation to get in touch.
The recent Taliban takeover has created a unique opportunity for some Afghan Muslims to rethink their faith, just as a massive influx of Afghan evacuees are fleeing to the United States for resettlement. It ’s the younger generation, and especially the women, Mike says, who are most dis-enchanted with Islam, and most open to learning about the God of Christianity.
“We receive tons of text messages, emails, WhatsApp, and phone calls from Afghanistan,” Mike told in an interview. “They ’re saying, ‘We don ’t like Islam. We don ’t want that kind of religion. We want to become a Christian. Please help us. Show us how we become a follower of Jesus.’”
“I just keep praying,” he says, “‘Lord, you have the power to change Afghan people—to join your church, to seek you and believe in you, to pray and repent.’’”
The couple fields hundreds of questions a day from curious Afghans, describing the good news to them and connecting new believers to nearby house churches. But they are also part of the global network of believers with Afghan connections, helping create resources for churches to better serve their Afghan neighbors—both here and abroad.
“I’m engaged with 30,000 Afghans now,” said Mike. “I don ’t remember the Lord tell-ing me to stop. The Lord ’s mission is never stopped, so let ’s keep going.”
When Mike was working with the military during the War in Afghanistan, he found himself in a dark place and struggling after a deadly mission. He had a series of dreams about Jesus, who called him by name to share the gospel with his people. After joining the underground house church movement, Mike endured intense persecution, multiple imprisonments, and brutal torture for his evangelism efforts before he was able to escape Afghanistan and make his way to the United States.
Pakistan government supports Taliban: Catholic priest
The government in Pakistan celebrated the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan, a senior priest has said, stressing that “the brotherhood of the two countries” means they are prejudiced against Christians and other non-Muslims.
Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father Mushtaq Anjum, the only Pakistani priest of the Order of St Camillus, explained that, following the Taliban’s victory, Christians are under serious threat.
He said: “The threat against them (Christians) has increased, since our government supports the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan consider the United States as an enemy. There is a deep-seated hatred of western countries where Christians compose a sizeable proportion of the population.
“The brotherhood of the countries is based on Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:51 of the Qur’an, which warns believers against becoming allies of Jews and Christians. It is largely because of the Taliban that religious minorities in Pakistan and Afghanistan live a subdued life.”
Pakistan’s Ministry of Reli-gious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony last month rejected a bill which sought to prohibit forced conversion of any indi-vidual of a religious minority, particularly underage girls, on the grounds that it “clashes with Islamic Shari’a.”
Father Anjum said: “We have always complained of mob rule and about the controversial blasphemy law which has been grossly abused, with many people making false accusations to settle personal scores, to obtain the victim’s property, or to attack the person’s faith. We have always demanded that the majo-rity of Muslims should respect and accept religious diversity in Pakistan…
The soaring cost of justice for minorities in Pakistan
Costs and lack of helpful resources are the most prominent barriers for religious minorities in accessing justice in Pakistan, according to a survey by a legal group.
“Religious minorities were less confident about attaining a fair trial compared to their Mu-slim counterparts. They foremost identified themselves as not aff-luent and powerful, and therefore not possessing the law to seek protection within its ambit, nor the law taking ownership of them. Consequently, they seldom approach the judicial system to seek justice,” found the Legal Needs Assessment Survey laun-ched on Oct. 20 in Islamabad.
“They repeatedly referenced poverty, and not religious dis-crimination, as their biggest problem. They identified their minority status as exacerbates of their poverty. Instead, a dearth of opportunities, corruption and administrative incompetence were the primary suspects.
“These problems are a direct result of poverty and dire living conditions. Structural discrimi-nation, including absence of employment opportunities and lack of provision of legal identities, creates and traps these communities in a problem loop by limiting avenues for awareness and information and thus altering legal behaviours.
“The majority of our res-pondents were unaware that their problems are legal issues with a predetermined solution. Majority versus minority rhetoric has made our respondents believe that this country is for Muslims and so is the law. The discrimi-nation faced by these marginali-zed communities is not only external but is also fuelled by ca-steism and socioeconomic dispa-rity within these communities.”
Catholics urged to join evangelization in Vietnam
Catholics in Vietnam are urged to celebrate the coming World Mission Sunday by praying the Our Father and reaching out to people in need. Bishop Matheus Nguyen Van Khoi of Qui Nhon said October is chosen as the Mission Month, starting with the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, patroness of mission lands, including Vietnam. Bishop Khoi said the height of Mission Month is World Mission Sunday falling on Oct. 24 this year. The entire Church unites in prayer and sacrifices for the work of evangelization worldwide and locally.
In synodal journey, reach out to those who left Church: Singapore archbishop
For too long, the Church hierarchy has held consultations between bishops and priests, and between Bishops and the pope, without involving the laity seriously. However, unless the hierarchy identifies with the pains of the people, it would not be able to come up with solutions that are effective, practical and uplifting.
Archbishop William Goh of Singapore made this point during his homily at an online Mass on October 17 to launch the synodal process in the Southeast Asian archdiocese. This process of Church consultation, launched simultaneously by dioceses around the world, is part of a two-year process leading to the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 2023. The event has the theme: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”
“The Church is not just simply constituted of the hierarchy,” stressed Archbishop Goh in his homily. “The Church is the People of God including the bishops and the priests. And so it is very important that this synodal process must begin by including everyone.”
He noted that many Catholics had left the Church “because they feel that the Church lacks compassion, the Church did not listen to them,” he said. “They have been hurt, they are angry.”
Experts see synod as ‘biggest consultation exercise in human history’
Though probably unbeknownst to most Catholics around the world, on October 9 Pope Francis officially opened a two-year global consultation process, all part of a Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which participants hope will help radically change the way the Catholic Church takes decisions.
“My expectation is that a new way of doing things, which will allow us to see synodality being lived at every level of the Church, is now underway,” Spaniard Carmen Peña Garcia, a synod participant, told Crux.
“The Synod should not be reduced to this moment, these two years, because synodality is a call for co-responsibility and co-participation of the entire people of God in the life and mission of the Church, with baptism being the entry card,” she said.
During the next year, a consultation will be launched at a parish level, with the faithful being invited to join in dialogue sessions. In March, there will be time for a diocesan and national gathering, followed by a continental one, with the process, in principle, concluding in Oct. 2023, with a general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, set to take place in Rome in October.
On Saturday, the people on hand were mostly laity, priests and religious, with some countries not even having Bishops in the Synod Hall. This was so because the Vatican’s Synod office had requested continents to send representatives, not each country individually, among other reasons due to COVID-19 restrictions on travel.
Some participants had to embark on a months-long process to get a greenlight from their governments to fly to Rome, as was the case of lay woman Susan Pascoe from Australia. All of the Bishops from Down Under are currently taking part in a national-level Plenary Council, the first session of which is being held this week, so none came. Upon her return home, Pascoe will have to isolate in a hotel for two weeks.
A member of the Synod’s Commission on Methodology who has worked both for the Australian Church and the Australian government, she told Crux she values “the authenticity of the process. I see hope in this process, and I trust in it. So, I hope other Catholics will answer the invitation issued by the Pope for them to participate.”
An invitation for all the baptized to take part, Peña Garcia said, has been issued, but it not only applies to them, because “the Church wants to be in dialogue with the world too. I think we have to encourage people to take part, so that you don’t only get the voices of the usual suspects, but well, there’s also the matter of free will!”
Putin asking Western civilization ‘to steer clear of our home’
The Western civilization has the right to choose its own values, but at the same time it should not force them on other countries, including Russia, President Vladimir Putin said.
“We are watching with asto-nishment the processes taking place in the countries that used to considering themselves flag-ships of progress. Of course, the sociocultural disturbances that are taking place in the States, in Western Europe are none of our business, we are not getting into that. Some people in Western countries believe that the aggre-ssive deletion of whole pages of their own history, reverse discri-mination against the majority in the interests of minorities or a demand to give up basic things such as mother, father, family or gender differe-nces constitute movement towards public renewal.”
“Adepts of so-called social progress believe they are bring-ing some new, better knowledge to humanity,” he said. “So, God willing. Let them go ahead with it. Only the recipes they are offer-ing are not new at all, we have done all that in Russia,” Putin said.
Vatican issues decree clarifying responsibilities for translation of Latin liturgical texts
The Vatican issued a decree on October 22 guiding bishops’ conferences on the proper protocol for the translation of liturgical texts from Latin into vernacular languages.
Published on Oct. 22, the feast of St. John Paul II, the decree, called Postquam Summus Pontifex, clarifies changes already made by Pope Francis to the process of translating liturgical texts. The decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship builds on a motu proprio Pope Francis issued in September 2017 shifting responsibility for the revision of liturgical texts toward bishops’ conferences.
The motu proprio, Magnum Principium, modified Canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law, which addresses the authority of the Vatican and national bishops’ conferences in preparing liturgical texts in vernacular languages.
“Fundamentally the aim is to make collaboration between the Holy See and the bishops’ conferences easier and more fruitful,” the 71-year-old English archbishop said in an interview with Vatican News. “The great task of translation, especially translating into their own languages what we find in the liturgical books of the Roman Rite, falls to the bishops.”
Will Islam soon be the world’s largest religion?
A Pew Research poll predicts that, based on current trends, the number of Muslims worldwide will be nearly equal to the number of Christians by 2050. In conversations, you might hear this statement as proof that Islam is growing and other religions (such as Christianity) are quickly declining. But such a conclusion is misleading and does not take into consideration a number of realities happening throughout the Muslim world.
Research reveals the cultural tendencies in Muslim families, not the attractiveness of Islam itself, explains the demographic surge. The growing number of Muslims is not primarily caused by conversion but is due instead to Muslim families producing more children. The higher rela-tive birth-rate occurs for various social and religious reasons, including the fact that, in most Muslim-dominant societies, women have few opportunities outside the home.
Of course, some converts are choosing Islam—but we should acknowledge recent research demonstrating that conversion works in two directions.
Consider the Muslim popu-lation in the United States. In January 2018, a Pew Research study declared that the number of converts to Islam almost equa-lled the number who abandoned the faith. Thus, there was virtua-lly no net growth at all. This study also found that about 25% of adult Muslims raised in the United States no longer identified as Muslims.
Catholics number 1,344,403,000, 17.74% of the world population
Catholics numbered 1,344,403,000 as of 31 December 2019, up by 15,410,000 over the previous year, while the world popu-lation stood at 7,577,777,000, up by 81,383,000 over the same period, Agenzia Fides reported to mark the 95th World Mission Day, which will be celebrated on 24 October.
The increase touches every continent, except Europe (-292,000). As in the past, the highest increases were reported in Africa (+8,302,000), Americas (+5,373,000), Asia (+1,909,000), and Oceania (+118,000).
The worldwide percentage of Catholics increased compared to the previous year, reaching 17.74 per cent. With respect to the continents, variations are minimal: increases in Africa (+0.14), Asia (+0.02), and the Americas (+0.09); decrease in Europe (-0.05); no change in Oceania.
The number of Bishops dropped by 13 to 5,364. Dio-cesan Bishops gained 12 new members, but religious bisho-ps declined by 25. Diocesan Bishops increased in Africa (+11), Asia (+5), Europe (+4) and Oceania (+2); decreased only in America (-10). Religious Bishops declined on all continents: Africa (-6), America (-7), Asia (-5), Europe (-4) and Oceania (-3). The total number of priests in the world went up, to 414,336 (+271). Europe again reported a major drop (-2,608) as did the Americas (-690) and Oceania (-69). Increases were reported in Africa (+1,649) and Asia (+1,989).
Permanent deacons also increased (+734) to 48,238. The largest gain was in the Americas (+562), followed by Europe (+177), Oceania (+5), Africa (+1), decreasing only in Asia (-11).