The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution by John L. Allen

Author:John L. Allen [Allen, John L.]
Format: epub
Publisher: Image
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

A crescendo to the violence came in June 2010, when Luigi Padovese, the Catholic Apostolic Vicar for Anatolia and president of the country’s Catholic bishops’ conference, was killed by his driver and longtime aide, Murat Altun. The murder took place at the bishop’s residence in Iskenderun. An autopsy showed that Padovese had received multiple stab wounds to the chest and was then beheaded. Although both Turkish and Vatican officials played down any religious motive, suggesting the driver suffered from mental illness, some experts believe the pattern of wounds reflected an Islamic ritual killing. Witnesses reported that Altun had shouted, “Allahu Akbar, I have killed the greatest Satan!” A fellow Catholic bishop in Turkey, Ruggero Franceschini, claimed that the killing was the work of “religious fanatics and ultranationalists.”

In December 2011, a journalist writing for the Turkish daily Zaman complained that “the Vatican is not doing anything” to ensure that the investigation of Padovese’s death “is handled in a serious manner.” Columnist Orhan Kemal Cengïz wrote that if the Vatican would take a more aggressive stance, it would “really contribute to the well-being of all non-Muslims” and offer “a huge contribution to the promotion of human rights and freedom of religion in Turkey.”

Profile: The Martyrs of Algeria

Perhaps the most compelling martyrology of the last two decades belongs to seven Catholic monks in Algeria who went to their deaths in 1996 amid that country’s bloody civil war, after having been kidnapped and held by militants for two months. They belonged to the legendary Trappist order and lived in an Algerian monastery called Notre-Dame de l’Atlas de Tibhirine, developing deep friendships with their Muslim neighbors. The story of the Tibhirine monks has been told in books, in sermons, and even in an award-winning 2010 French film titled Of Gods and Men.

During the era of French colonial occupation, when Algeria was incorporated as a territory of France, the country had a flourishing Christian presence largely due to the more than one million pieds-noirs, or European settlers. The vast majority left after Algerian independence in 1962. Life became precarious for the country’s tiny remaining Christian community in 1992, when the militant Islamic Salvation Front won Algeria’s first democratic elections, only to have the results annulled and military rule imposed. Several waves of violence ensued, leading to a civil war that resulted in a hundred thousand deaths and more than a million people injured or left homeless.

In their own quiet way, the monks of Tibhirine had been pioneers in Muslim/Christian relations. They gave their Muslim neighbors part of the monastery to use for daily prayer, taught them French, delivered their babies, and watched over their health. Algerians said the monks were regarded not just as Catholic brothers but also as “true Muslims.”

The monks were well aware of the risks of staying. In 1993, a band of militants showed up at the monastery demanding money and logistical help. Told they were interfering with preparations for Christmas Mass, the soldiers departed, apologizing for interrupting the religious observances. As things turned out, however, it was a temporary retreat.

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