{"id":59930,"date":"2025-06-17T19:27:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=59930"},"modified":"2025-06-19T18:22:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:22:45","slug":"the-words-of-pope-leo-xiv-denouncing-the-massacres-against-christians-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/06\/17\/the-words-of-pope-leo-xiv-denouncing-the-massacres-against-christians-in-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"The words of Pope Leo XIV denouncing the massacres against Christians in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christians in Nigeria have been suffering crimes of genocide for years at the hands of Islamic extremist terrorist groups..<\/p>\n

Islamists murdered more than 100 Christians in Nigeria in the first half of April<\/a><\/rel>
\nThe 50 countries that most persecute Christians in 2025 and the role of communism and islamism<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

On 8 February 2024, the European Parliament condemned the violence against Christians in Nigeria<\/a>, denouncing that 52,000 Christians have been killed in that country since 2009<\/strong>, where 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been destroyed. Inexplicably, the approved text avoided the term \"genocide\"<\/strong>, 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<\/strong> or do not give it the importance it deserves.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Robert Prevost during one of his visits to Nigeria before being elected Pope (Photo: Nigeria Catholic Network<\/a>).<\/div>\n

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

Last Sunday, Leo XIV spoke about the terrible situation of Christians in Nigeria<\/a> 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:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"During the night between 13 and 14 June, a terrible massacre took place in the city of Yelwata<\/strong>, located in the local administrative area of Gouman, in the state of Benue, Nigeria. Around two hundred people were killed with extreme cruelty.<\/strong> 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<\/strong>, a beloved country that has suffered various forms of violence. I pray in particular for the rural Christian communities in the state of Benue<\/strong>, who have unceasingly been victims of violence.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regarding the massacres in Nigeria\u2019s Benue State, the Nigerian Catholic Network released the following today<\/a>: \"Over the last decade, the death toll in Benue State alone is estimated to have exceeded 5,000<\/strong>, 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.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em> The Nigeria Catholic Network adds the following:<\/p>\n

\"The media and state actors must stop euphemising this horror in the land with narratives such as: \u201cherder-farmer clashes,\u201d<\/strong> \u201cethno-religious tension,\u201d \u201ccommunal misunderstandings.\u201d We all know these are not true, but a cowardly whitewash, an insult to the dead, and a license for more killing.<\/strong> The truth is harder to say, but it must be said: this is terrorism<\/strong>. It is systematic, deliberate, and sustained. Yet, the Nigerian government has refused to officially designate the assailants as terrorists<\/strong>, even while the scale and structure of their operations outmatch that of the perpetrators of these crimes in some regions.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

---<\/p>\n

Photo: Vatican News<\/a>. Pope Leo XIV presiding over the Holy Mass \"pro Ecclesia\" with the cardinals this Friday morning, May 9, 2025, in the Sistine Chapel.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christians in Nigeria have been suffering crimes of genocide for years at the hands of Islamic extremist terrorist groups..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10712],"tags":[8161,24669,24670,10424,10713,24398,8801,10427],"class_list":["post-59930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-eng","tag-africa","tag-benue","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-catholic-church","tag-christianism","tag-leo-xiv","tag-nigeria","tag-vatican-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}