Aid to the Church in Need: Hope amid Pakistan’s persecution

Hope amid Pakistan’s persecution

Posted by Press release on 2/7/2008, 11:53 am
Message modified by board administrator 2/7/2008, 11:54 am

ACN News, Wednesday, 2nd July 2008 – PAKISTAN

Hope amid Pakistan’s persecution
By John Newton and John Pontifex

A BISHOP has described how the Church is achieving a break-through for Christianity in Pakistan despite a dramatic shift towards a “theocratic” form of Islam.

Bishop Max Rodrigues has developed out-reach initiatives to tribal communities in his diocese of Hyderabad, in Pakistan’s south-east Sindh province, working with catechists, priests and lay-faithful to encourage the growth of the Church.

(Bishop Rodrigues)

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, Bishop Rodrigues said his “apostolate” risked the wrath of Muslim hard-liners, who believe Pakistan to be an Islamic state with reduced rights for Christians and other minorities.

Despite intolerance, the bishop said the Church’s programme in remote parts of the diocese was continuing to grow, recruiting 17 catechists from the tribal people themselves.

He said: “The task of evangelisation in a theocratic country, strongly islamicised… is a difficult thing, but in my diocese there is a large tribal apostolate.”

Bishop Rodrigues went on to say that the pastoral work was revolutionising attitudes to women, which he described as key to the Church’s appeal.

“The pastoral teams have changed the way that people think, and uplifted the status of women – women were seen as chattels, they had never sent girls to school as didn’t see the value in educating them, but now they send them to school as well.”

The bishop said that key to the Church’s work in the tribal regions is ACN’s Child’s Bible, translated into the local language of Sindhi and introduced two years ago.

Bishop Rodrigues said: “It is a most beautiful thing to have a Child’s Bible in Sindhi, as most people speak Sindhi as well as their tribal language. Adults can read it and understand it.”

He also stressed the importance of work to translate other Scriptural texts into local languages.

The Church’s outreach is set in the context of institutionalised discrimination against non-Muslims, as set out in Pakistan’s notorious Blasphemy Laws, where severe punishment – theoretically involving life imprisonment and even death – is imposed for people found guilty of insulting Islam’s prophet Mohammed and abusing the Qur’an.

Describing the Blasphemy Laws as being “like a sword dangling over our heads”, Bishop Rodrigues stressed that that the legislation is heavily biased in favour of the prosecution.

He said: “You have to defend yourself. They don’t have to prove the accusation – their honesty is considered to be enough as they are Muslim.”

The bishop added: “Many of these cases don’t even reach the courts. It is announced at the local mosque and then the mobs come.”

The bishop referred to the Sindh town of Sukkur where two years on Christians were still reeling from an attack on two churches, a convent and a school – all sparked by a dispute involving a Christian convert to Islam who accused his father-in-law of burning pages of the Qur’an.

He explained that St Mary’s Catholic parish was still meeting in a part-damaged school hall, with no break-through in the plans to repair the 19th century church, which was reduced to a shell during the attack. ACN has offered help with the rebuilding work.

(Children gathered outside the bombed church in Sukkur)

(The community gathers for Mass in the school hall after the church was destroyed)

(Bishop Rodrigues and Sr Nargis inspect the damage to St Saviour's church Sukkur)

Editors Notes

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, contact please contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web:www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org