Posted on 10/07/2004 2:15:07 AM PDT by miltonim
Catholic Church In Sudan Prays for Survival
By Christina Farrell
ICC Persecution Reports
4/3/04
Radical Islam is trying to extinguish Catholicism in Sudan. Children are being forced to become Muslims. Churches are being bulldozed. Fanatics are forcing Catholic women to wear Islamic dress. The secular world is not interested. Catholic Herald readers can help stop these things happening.
Catholics in Sudan are facing the destruction of their faith and their way of life unless they receive urgent financial aid.
Despite a recent ceasefire after two decades of fighting, Catholics have become a target for renewed Islamic harassment. The worst affected are the displaced people who fled their villages during the civil war between the Islamic state and the Christian rebel fighters of the Sudan People's Liberation Army.
Bishop Daniel Adwok Kur, the Catholic auxiliary Bishop of Khartoum, has drawn up a report detailing the brutal programme of Islamisation supported by the Sudanese government.
Food and medical services are being withheld from the needy, in an attempt to persuade them to abandon Christianity. Christians are not allowed to observe Sunday as a day of rest; permits to build Catholic and Protestant churches are refused, while non-Muslim women face persecution for refusing to cover their heads.
Acting in the name of "city planning", the government of President Umar al-Bashir has taken to sporadic demolition of homes and churches. Catholic parish centres - fenced-in compounds consisting of a mud hut chapel and school - are a particular target for the Islamic demolition teams. On many occasions, entire Catholic communities have encamped inside the parish centres to stop them from being demolished.
Although the Sudanese constitution provides for religious freedom, in practice those freedoms do not apply to Christians.
Islam is the religion of 70 per cent of the population and has almost the complete allegiance of the peoples of the north. The Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in Sudan, but since the civil war broke out in 1983 its position has become increasingly precarious.
The situation is so bad, says Bishop Adwok, that "even war is better than a bad peace".
According to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, funds are desperately needed if the Church is to survive in Sudan. The charity is backing a scheme called "Save the Saveable", launched by Cardinal Wako of Khartoum, which will keep open Catholic schools for children who might otherwise be subjected to Islamisation in state schools.
Eyewitnesses speak of groups of children, dressed in rags, defiantly saying the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
John Pontifex, spokesman for the charity, said this week: "For years, the bishops of the Sudan have pleaded for help as the people endure the Way of the Cross - bowed down by intolerance and desperate poverty. And yet the bishops say their cries have been left largely unanswered by the very people in the West who can help."
Fr Moses Pitya is a Sudanese priest currently working in the Archdiocese of Birmingham. In January he returned to Sudan to visit his parents, who live in a village in the south of the country which has seen some of the worst fighting. He described the village, Loriliri, as a place "totally forgotten and ignored by the world".
He said: "The people are there only by the mercy of God. They seem to live without a future. They even lack basic necessities."
The area has been declared a no-go zone, and humanitarian organisations have not been given access to it.
Fr Pitya said the villagers were overjoyed to see him. "It was a joyful moment for thousands of Christians in the area who haven't seen a priest or had a Mass celebrated for over 17 years. Many people were in need of baptism - but I had just a short time and only baptised 700 people."
The priest added: "My parents were crying as I was leaving. They believe, even after everything that has happened, that God is looking after them.
"People in the West need to understand what is happening. The people of Sudan need to live in unity and to have their religious freedoms respected."
This is terrible. Why doesn't anyone care about this situation? Why do we look the other way?
Th UN Is paying lib service to this because they are Christains. If memory serves me correctly Anan is a muslim.
1)There's no oil in the Sudan
2)They're no threat to the New York Stock Exchange.
3)Blacks persecuting blacks. We don't get pissed until white men start suffering.
4)They haven't tried to kill the President's daddy.
The koran says it is ok, they are after all infidels. Islam = Religion of Pieces. (SARCASM OFF)
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