Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) – As sons and daughters of the Church we can all identify ourselves fully with this missionary prayer intention, most important still today.
We know that the Church has suffered from persecution and intolerance since the early centuries marked by all kinds of barbarism and deadly violence against Christians.
This reality has never been lacking for believers in Christ who in his preaching warned his disciples that they would be rejected by the world. Today, as in other times in history, many of our brothers and sisters in various parts of the world still encounter such difficulties.
One question we may ask ourselves: why is the Church persecuted? The answer is easy, because the Church contradicts the world, its way of thinking, living, its inspiring principles.
The criteria Christ left us in the Gospel, the Beatitudes in particular, go against the radical mentality of the world.
But there is one type of persecution referred to in our Missionary Intention which is exercised by power.
In the past Christians were obliged to adore idols and false gods including the representatives of power themselves, considered to be divine. It is obvious that Christians would never agree to this and would prefer to die rather than betray their faith.
Not lacking in history are other motives of persecution such as those coming from totalitarian regimes leftist and rightist. Although different in their motivation, the methods are equally perverse, unjust, and they coincide with the absolutism of power.
The same happened with ideologies, systems, currents of philosophical thought which poisoned with their evilness and declared an atrocious war on those who did not share their ideas and the Church was the first victim.
Not to mention the serious crisis provoked by heresies and painful schism in these twenty centuries. As a consequence of these sad realities, many sons and daughters of the Church suffered terribly.
On the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Pope John Paul II commemorated the victims of history and he asked for the Martyrology to be updated to include all those admirable witnesses of the faith in the 20th century. We honour all of them as our heroes and heroines to whom the Lord granted the grace to profess their faith to the shedding of their blood, like the early Christians.
At the beginning I said that we can all identify ourselves with the Missionary Intention which we are commenting, especially because today it is necessary to pray for those who are persecuted for the faith.
It is shameful for humanity to see that, more than fifty years since the Declaration of Human Rights recognised the dignity of the human person, regardless of gender, religion, social state etc., that there are some ridiculous regimes, still at the prehistoric age of the social and juridical realities, which commit all kinds of vexation, abuse, violence against helpless people simply because they are believers.
I am impressed by the Holy Father and his fruitful and lucid teaching with which he proclaims insistently the rights of human persons, in particular the right to life and freedom of belief, the first juridical realities that every person must be allowed to enjoy.
We should not be surprised that still today our brothers and sisters are persecuted because the children of darkness are terrified of truth and freedom. Their macabre plans are based only on mistruth and oppression.
This is why during the month of December we will pray that the Church under primitive and outdated totalitarian regimes may be granted full freedom to carry out her spiritual mission.
Today more than ever there is need of this freedom when signals of the most absurd religious intolerance are ever more frequent.
Let us entrust the Church to her Founder and Spouse Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only Saviour of the world who has promised to be with us until the end of time.
We cannot omit a final prayer to Mary, spiritual Mother of the Church who has accompanied it since apostolic times down to today.
Card. Nicolás De Jesús López Rodríguez
(Fides Service 28/11/2003; lines 55; words 716)Vatican City (Fides Service) – As sons and daughters of the Church we can all identify ourselves fully with this missionary prayer intention, most important still today.
We know that the Church has suffered from persecution and intolerance since the early centuries marked by all kinds of barbarism and deadly violence against Christians.
This reality has never been lacking for believers in Christ who in his preaching warned his disciples that they would be rejected by the world. Today, as in other times in history, many of our brothers and sisters in various parts of the world still encounter such difficulties.
One question we may ask ourselves: why is the Church persecuted? The answer is easy, because the Church contradicts the world, its way of thinking, living, its inspiring principles.
The criteria Christ left us in the Gospel, the Beatitudes in particular, go against the radical mentality of the world.
But there is one type of persecution referred to in our Missionary Intention which is exercised by power.
In the past Christians were obliged to adore idols and false gods including the representatives of power themselves, considered to be divine. It is obvious that Christians would never agree to this and would prefer to die rather than betray their faith.
Not lacking in history are other motives of persecution such as those coming from totalitarian regimes leftist and rightist. Although different in their motivation, the methods are equally perverse, unjust, and they coincide with the absolutism of power.
The same happened with ideologies, systems, currents of philosophical thought which poisoned with their evilness and declared an atrocious war on those who did not share their ideas and the Church was the first victim.
Not to mention the serious crisis provoked by heresies and painful schism in these twenty centuries. As a consequence of these sad realities, many sons and daughters of the Church suffered terribly.
On the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Pope John Paul II commemorated the victims of history and he asked for the Martyrology to be updated to include all those admirable witnesses of the faith in the 20th century. We honour all of them as our heroes and heroines to whom the Lord granted the grace to profess their faith to the shedding of their blood, like the early Christians.
At the beginning I said that we can all identify ourselves with the Missionary Intention which we are commenting, especially because today it is necessary to pray for those who are persecuted for the faith.
It is shameful for humanity to see that, more than fifty years since the Declaration of Human Rights recognised the dignity of the human person, regardless of gender, religion, social state etc., that there are some ridiculous regimes, still at the prehistoric age of the social and juridical realities, which commit all kinds of vexation, abuse, violence against helpless people simply because they are believers.
I am impressed by the Holy Father and his fruitful and lucid teaching with which he proclaims insistently the rights of human persons, in particular the right to life and freedom of belief, the first juridical realities that every person must be allowed to enjoy.
We should not be surprised that still today our brothers and sisters are persecuted because the children of darkness are terrified of truth and freedom. Their macabre plans are based only on mistruth and oppression.
This is why during the month of December we will pray that the Church under primitive and outdated totalitarian regimes may be granted full freedom to carry out her spiritual mission.
Today more than ever there is need of this freedom when signals of the most absurd religious intolerance are ever more frequent.
Let us entrust the Church to her Founder and Spouse Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only Saviour of the world who has promised to be with us until the end of time.
We cannot omit a final prayer to Mary, spiritual Mother of the Church who has accompanied it since apostolic times down to today.
Card. Nicolás De Jesús López Rodríguez
(Fides Service 28/11/2003; lines 55; words 716)
