Catholics in India have questioned the silence of the global community over the brutal mass killing of Christians in southwest Nigeria recently and want it to take a strong stand against such atrocities. Scores of Catholics belonging to the Catholic Congress based in Kerala state in southern India staged a rally in Kottayam district, a Christian stronghold, and condemned the massacre.On June 5, Pentecost Sunday, gunmen believed to be Islamic extremists associated with Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) entered St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state. They fired weapons, detonated explosives and killed at least 40 people, government agencies said. “We appeal to the global community to stand up against the mass murders in Nigeria,” said Catholic Congress president P.P. Joseph of Changanaserry Archdio-cese. “Unless the global conscious rises up against such murders, humanity will not survive in this world.”
Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam of Changanassery Archdiocese in Kerala wrote an editorial for Deepika (Light), a church-run daily, in Malayalam, the official language of the southern state.
“When it comes to the killing and persecution of Christians, certain media houses maintain silence. What sort of media ethics is this?” he wrote in a June 13 article.
The prelate claimed that in 2021 alone at least 6,000 Christians were slaughtered in Nigeria by Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram among others. Since 2009, at least 40,000 Christians were killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria, he added.
The prelate also expressed concern over the spread of Islamic terror in other African countries and other parts of the world, noting that Christians are “the worst victims of persecution” and questioned why global powers could not protect human beings from the onslaught of Islamic terrorists.