Aid to the Church in Need: PAKISTAN'S EMBATTLED CHRISTIANS ASK OUR PRAYERS

PAKISTAN'S EMBATTLED CHRISTIANS ASK OUR PRAYERS

Posted by Press Release on 20/12/2002, 1:14 pm
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PRESS RELEASE
PAKISTAN'S EMBATTLED CHRISTIANS ASK OUR PRAYERS
"In many instances we are helpless. Please pray for us, as we pray for all our benefactors". Two aid workers from the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) were able to witness for themselves the childlike faith of the Catholic minority in Pakistan, the poorest among the poor, during a recent three-week project trip there.
In an overwhelmingly Muslim country of around 140 million people fewer than 1% are Catholics; they are organised into six dioceses and one prefecture. In a society ruled by the mullahs, and with up to 80% illiteracy, the 116 Catholic parishes and the diocesan centres are under constant police guard in the face of the constant menace of terrorism. "With the threat of war in Iraq, people are afraid; we noticed this in the North especially, on the frontier with Afghanistan, where all the missionaries reacted nervously to unexpected visitors or anonymous telephone calls. They know all too well that if things get serious they will be made into scapegoats for the Western powers", our two ACN staff report.
Apart from a handful of better-off Christians in the south of Pakistan, no one can afford the luxury of fleeing to the West. According to Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, Christians are discriminated against but not persecuted. Bad things happen not only to Christians, he observes; some Muslims are also treated like slaves, and there is corruption, sexual abuse and discrimination against women and children everywhere in Pakistan. It is true that Christians are not given equal rights with the Muslims, but at the same time they are being made into "a target for the anger which is directed against America and the West".
There is a shortage of priests and, under the law, new missionaries may only enter the country in order to replace exisiting ones. Another problem is the difficulty in obtaining the extension of residence permits for foreign priests. 149 priests have had to entrust parish life to a great extent to the catechists and religious sisters.
In Kushpur a national catechetical training centre is being supported by ACN. Many Christians who can neither read nor write gather daily for prayer together in the village chapels. And the Good Shepherd Sisters especially devote themselves to the care of abused women and children, while courageous religious brothers and lay people minister to prisoners, many of whom have been imprisoned unjustly. Despite this difficult situation there is a good dialogue with the Muslims in some dioceses and there are some signs of hope. It is in this spirit that Aid to the Church in Need is supporting the construction of a pastoral centre for dialogue in the Muslim village of Dalwal in the diocese of Islamabad.

Over the past 10 years Aid to the Church in Need has helped to build over 70 small churches in some of the poorest villages of Pakistan. The charity is working intensively to help the Church's evangelisation work and to support religious brothers and sisters working in the pastoral and social fields.
In all ACN gave $570,000 for the support of the embattled Catholic Church in Pakistan during the year 2001.
For further information please contact
Information Service
Ph/Fax: 02 9679-1929
e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org
Internet: 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
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