If you are a priest in Nigeria, there’s a good chance that you will be kidnapped or martyred. You don’t have to pay close attention to the news from there to have come across reports such as, for example, that about a priest who was burned alive in a rectory. Christian persecution, however, often takes place in remote towns where state resources are slim, as is global media coverage of these events. And yet, Nigerian Christians display a real witness of hope — and this has a lot to offer the rest of us.
“Our nation may collapse if the current situation lingers.” That was the assessment of the Catholic bishops of Nigeria after their meeting this September. Nigeria gets the attention of U.S. media now and again — typically when something horrific happens — but currently, on the American right especially, there is a moment of deafening silence about the persecution of Nigerian Christians. In 2021, the Biden administration took Nigeria off the list of countries of concern under the International Religious Freedom Act. Righting this wrong now would be a matter of recognizing the truth.
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