The words of Pope Leo XIV denouncing the massacres against Christians in Nigeria

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On 8 February 2024, the European Parliament condemned the violence against Christians in Nigeria, denouncing that 52,000 Christians have been killed in that country since 2009, where 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been destroyed. Inexplicably, the approved text avoided the term "genocide", even though the characteristics of these massacres correspond precisely to the typology that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court attributes to this type of crime. Unfortunately, it is a genocide to which many media outlets and political leaders do not pay enough attention or do not give it the importance it deserves.

The current pope is no stranger to Nigeria. As the Nigeria Catholic Network noted in May, Leo XIV visited the African country several times before being elected pope: "as records show that he has visited the country on at least nine occasions between 2001 and 2016." Robert Prevost made several such visits as Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, while in 2016 he visited Nigeria after being appointed bishop of Chiclayo, Peru.

Last Sunday, Leo XIV spoke about the terrible situation of Christians in Nigeria during his speech on the occasion of the Angelus in St. Peter's Square, referring specifically to the most recent massacre that has been perpetrated in that country:

"During the night between 13 and 14 June, a terrible massacre took place in the city of Yelwata, located in the local administrative area of Gouman, in the state of Benue, Nigeria. Around two hundred people were killed with extreme cruelty. The majority of those killed were internally displaced people who were being housed at a local Catholic mission. I pray that security, justice and peace prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country that has suffered various forms of violence. I pray in particular for the rural Christian communities in the state of Benue, who have unceasingly been victims of violence."

Regarding the massacres in Nigeria’s Benue State, the Nigerian Catholic Network released the following today: "Over the last decade, the death toll in Benue State alone is estimated to have exceeded 5,000, with over 1.5 million persons internally displaced, according to reports by Amnesty International and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). A good part of Agatu, Guma, Logo, Kwande, Katsina-Ala, and more have been razed, rebuilt, and razed again. Crops are destroyed, schools deserted, places of worship desecrated, and mass graves dug with alarming regularity.” The Nigeria Catholic Network adds the following:

"The media and state actors must stop euphemising this horror in the land with narratives such as: “herder-farmer clashes,” “ethno-religious tension,” “communal misunderstandings.” We all know these are not true, but a cowardly whitewash, an insult to the dead, and a license for more killing. The truth is harder to say, but it must be said: this is terrorism. It is systematic, deliberate, and sustained. Yet, the Nigerian government has refused to officially designate the assailants as terrorists, even while the scale and structure of their operations outmatch that of the perpetrators of these crimes in some regions."

It should be noted that the president of Nigeria is Bola Tinubu, a Muslim. His party is the All Progressives Congress (APC), which has governed the country since 2015 and is a consultative member of the Socialist International. I suppose this largely explains why the Western left has shown rather little interest in the massacres suffered by Christians in that African country.

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Photo: Vatican News. Pope Leo XIV presiding over the Holy Mass "pro Ecclesia" with the cardinals this Friday morning, May 9, 2025, in the Sistine Chapel.