‘End persecution the world seeks to hide’, Francis demands

Hundreds of Pakistani Christians attended funerals on Tuesday for the 15 victims of two Islamist suicide murderers in Lahore. Security was tight, with around 5,000 police sealing off Lahore’s biggest Christian neighbourhood of Youhanabad.

The attacks on two churches – a Catholic and an Anglican one in Youhanabad – also left more than 70 wounded. The Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility. Two days of rioting by Christians followed, with two men lynched.

Shops were shut on Tuesday as grieving relatives made their way towards burial grounds. “I would like to tell these terrorists if they think that they can push us back from our faith, they are mistaken,” Manual Mani, a pastor attending the funerals, told the BBC.

Pope Francis condemned the atrocity after his weekly Angelus prayer on Sunday. “I implore God … that this persecution against Christians – that the world seeks to hide – comes to an end and that there is peace,” he prayed. “These are Christian churches and Christians are persecuted, our Christian brothers are spilling their blood simply because they are Christians.”

The attacks, that took place as Mass and Sunday morning services were being celebrated in St John’s Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Christ Church, were condemned by representatives of all religions in Pakistan. The Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, speaking in the National Assembly on Tuesday, also condemned the reprisal attacks. “A similar incident occurred right at the heart of Paris,” Mr Nisar said, “but the minority Jews did not react violently in the French capital.”

Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi said in a statement:  “Terrorists have struck once again without any respect or concern for human life. Once again the state has not been able to privide safety to its citizens. We have grown tired of condemning such atrocities so freely carried out at the will of terrorists … I appeal to all Christians to voice their protests in a peaceful manner.”

Bishop Declan Lang, chairman of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales’ department for international affairs, said the weekend massacres in Lahore “showed in the most terrible way just how vulnerable Pakistani Christians, and other communities, are to extremist political violence. The statement by Archbishop Coutts makes clear what the Pakistan Government’s responsibilities are and how much more needs to be done to protect its citizens.” Bishop Lang said the Lahore victims would be remembered during Mass at Clifton Cathedral on the Feast of St Joseph on 19 March.

n The Council of Paris on Tuesday unanimously adopted a proposal  to award honorary citizenship to Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian who has been on death row since 2010. Mrs Bibi, a mother of five, was condemned to death for blasphemy after Muslim co-workers  said she insulted Muhammad.