The Deacon's Bench
Making an impassioned plea at the end of his Feb. 18 Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, Cardinal Donald Wuerl urged the faithful to offer prayers and speak out for Christians being persecuted throughout the world.
“Lent is a time of prayer – pray for those who are suffering and offer your voice,” Cardinal Wuerl told a standing-room-only gathering of faithful. “Say, ‘This is wrong. There is no political, social, cultural or religious reason for this.’”
Particularly mentioning the suffering and persecution of Christians in Africa, especially in Nigeria; in the Middle East; in parts of Iraq and Syria; and in India, Cardinal Wuerl noted that “when we go out the door with ashes on our forehead, we manifest ourselves as practicing Christians, but there are parts of the world where this will be a death sentence.”
The cardinal also lamented the recent beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya, and he noted how Pope Francis spoke out after the atrocity.
“People are being slaughtered simply because they believe in Jesus Christ,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “We should not have to die, we should not have to pay this extraordinary price no one has to pay because we are followers of Jesus.”
He pointed out that persecution against Christians takes many forms: “People have their homes destroyed, their churches burned, they face forced conversion and their children are sold into slavery simply for being a Christian.”
He condemned what he called “the silence of the world community at this extraordinary violence against the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” and reminded the faithful that “we owe [persecuted Christians] a sense of solidarity and our prayerful support and our voice. We have to say what is so obvious – ‘This is wrong. This must be rejected. This cannot be a one-day story.’”
Photo by Jaclyn Lippelmann/ Catholic Standard
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