VATICAN CITY (CNS): Infringe-ments on the freedom of religion threaten peace and security world-wide as well as stifle authentic human growth and development, Pope Benedict XVI said.
“Religious freedom is an authentic weapon of peace,” which fosters the human qualities and potentials that “can change the world and make it better”, the Pope said in his message for World Peace Day, January 1.
Pope Benedict’s message, which was delivered to world leaders by Vatican ambassadors, was released at the Vatican on December 16. The message was translated into Arabic as well as several European languages, including Russian.
The message, titled “Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace”, made special mention of the “theatre of violence and strife” in Iraq and the deadly attack on a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad on October 31.
The Pope said it was in the context of widespread violence, persecution, intolerance and discrimination against people of faith that he decided to dedicate the peace-day message to the fundamental importance of religious freedom as the basis for the well-being and growth of individuals and whole societies.
“At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” citing specifically the Christian communities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and “especially in the Holy Land”, the Pope said.
During a presentation of the message to the press, Monsignor Anthony Frontiero, an official at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that of all the people “who are discriminated against, hurt, killed or persecuted for religious reasons, 75 per cent worldwide are Christian”.
The statistic came from a spokesperson from The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life during a conference hosted by the European Parliament in November.
“A conservative estimate of the number of Christians killed for their faith each year is somewhere around 150,000,” Msgr Frontiero said, quoting an article published on December 4 by the online news site of the Toronto Star daily newspaper.
“Virtually every human rights group and Western government agency that monitors the plight of Christians worldwide arrives at more or less the same conclusion: Between 200 million and 230 million of them face daily threats of murder, beating, imprisonment and torture, and a further 350 to 400 million encounter discrimination in areas such as jobs and housing,” the monsignor quoted from the news article.
In his message, the Pope said the fact that Christians must live in fear because of their faith “is unacceptable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity”.
“Furthermore, it is a threat to security and peace, and an obstacle to the achievement of authentic and integral human development,” he said.
The Pope also warned against “more sophisticated forms of hostility to religion” which, in Western countries, was often expressed by a denial of its Christian roots and the rejection of religious symbols, “which reflect the identity and the culture of the majority of citizens”.
Such hostility was “inconsistent with a serene and balanced vision of pluralism and the secularity of institutions”, he said.
Civil society must acknowledge and make room for the right of believers to have their voice heard in the public realm, he said.
He urged world leaders to “act promptly to end every injustice” against Christians in Asia, Africa and the Middle East; he also assured all Christians facing violence and discrimination of his prayers and asked they renew their commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation.
The Pope ended his message with a plea to Western countries to end their “hostility and prejudice against Christians” and he urged Europe to become reconciled with its Christian roots, which, he said, were indispensable for promoting justice, harmony and peace.
