Editorial: When fidelity to Baptism is a crime against the State

The world would be a much happier place if the prayer of the unpersecuted matched the fortitude and suffering of the Catholics (and others) who are persecuted around the world.
The one thing that Europe, Africa, Asia and Central and South America have in common is that Catholics die for their faith in all of them, though not necessarily in all parts of them.
This persecution is sometimes the result of official policy, as in China where regional authorities seem to have a free hand in the way they treat Christians, or sometimes it occurs as a result of local animosity combined with official indifference or inadequacy, as in India.
It is hard to find coherent explanations for the range of brutality that occurs in various parts of Africa, or the violence of the Middle East, which is sometimes targeted and sometimes viciously random.
Then there is the destruction of homes, the deprivation of livelihood, the enforced migration, and all the suffering that accompanies dislocation and enforced living for years in refugee camps in foreign lands.
At the next level there are campaigns to prevent the delivery of services to homes and schools, programs of house arrest, random attacks on priests, nuns and catechists, removal of bishops at times of planned ordinations, refusal or delay of town planning and building permits, and, generally speaking, more forms of harassment than most of us could imagine, much less carry out. 
Aid to the Church in Need, an organisation that assists local churches wherever and whenever it can, published a book Persecuted and Forgotten? in 2008 as a report on Christians oppressed for their faith in 2007-08. Country by country, it documents the style and extent of religious persecution and oppression in 28 countries, including such major ones as China, India, Pakistan, Russia and Indonesia.
At times it is depressing, but more often it is inspiring and enlightening.
It is depressing because the suffering of so many is always hard to accept, and even more so because the cruelty of so many of our fellow human beings can be almost overwhelming.
It is inspiring because behind the darkness one quickly sees the light of faith in all those countries where the suffering is so great. In Africa and Asia in particular, but in all parts of the world, one sees the joy of people who have found the life of Christ shining in the darkness of their communities.  It is impossible to be depressed in the face of the strength and joy of the Faith we see flourishing among African people in the midst of their too numerous conflicts; among the Tribal people and others in India who suffer at the hands of many, but who deeply love the Lord; among the Chinese Catholics who flourish despite national and regional governments desperate to control them and squeeze them into an inhuman and unenlightened philosophy; among Russians whose compatriots seek to limit them to an ethnic Christianity when their origin and their purpose is to embrace the fullness of Catholicism; and among our near neighbours in Indonesia, many of whose religious leaders desperately try to persuade them that happiness comes not from love freely given and received, but from religious control that leads only to cruelty and division. The wonderful example of Christians in the midst of oppression shines brightly and the more we learn about it the more inspiring it becomes.
Finally, this clash of conflict with fidelity becomes enlightening when we put aside our anger or our desire for revenge and see the oppressors as God sees them. To see their anger and the futility of the ways they seek to exercise control over other people is to recognise the effects of sin on humanity and the whole of creation. They are living in darkness they did not create and do not know how to relieve. As we begin to see and feel the pain in which they live, we begin to recognise the meaning of sin, and to recognise the wonder of the salvation and love that Our Lord has offered us. There are millions who live without the knowledge of God and they live among millions who want them to remain in that terrible state.
And what of us, we who live without oppression, with no obstacles but ourselves to the enjoyment of the love of God?  Our privilege, our pleasure and our responsibility is to pray more constantly for those who are oppressed, those who oppress, and those in our own society who are blind. We need to understand how closely we are united to them.
When Jesus called St Paul, he said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Not “my Church” or “my followers” or even “my friends”, but “me”.  This same Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.
Prayer is the greatest power we have to influence the outcome of this intense conflict between faith and fear. The more we pray, the more we will love Jesus, and in him his Church, and the more we will come to love those who persecute Him.