Africa

Open Doors Canada is honouring persecuted Christians around the world with its One With Them challenge, a five-day prayer initiative devoted to the faithful suffering for their faith around the world.

After a scene of horror in which around 200 people were “brutally killed” in Yelwata, in Benue state, Nigeria, Pope Leo XIV prayed for the victims, calling it a “terrible massacre.”

In the presence of the mother of the newly beatified martyr, Pope Leo XIV prayed that Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui would intercede to finally bring peace to Congo.

Sub-Saharan Africa has replaced Europe as the locus for the world’s Christians, due to both higher birthrates and Western Europe’s “widespread Christian disaffiliation” — with Christians declining as a share of the world’s population due to adherents leaving the faith, according to new research by the Pew Research Center.

As millions of pilgrims flocked to the famed Ugandan shrine in Namugongo in the days leading to commemoration of the country's 45 Christian martyrs, local authorities prevented an attempted terror attack in what they said was a swift secret service operation, possibly saving hundreds from imminent death.

Catholic bishops from Europe and Africa have issued a strong joint statement warning that Africa is once again becoming a "battleground for external interests"—particularly over land, resources and Europe's climate agenda.

The Catholic Register’s exclusive April 8 report about the threats two Nigerian clerics are facing for speaking abroad about Christian persecution in Benue State has sparked condemnations against religious intimidation from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria, an international religious freedom alliance and by U.S. and U.K. politicians.

A Nigerian Catholic bishop standing in the breach to alert the world about Christian persecution in Benue State has drawn verbal attacks and apparent escalating threats in recent weeks.

Pope Francis appealed to South Sudan leaders to “lower the tension in the country” as Catholic bishops in Sudan and South Sudan expressed alarm at the escalating violence in the world’s youngest nation and warned of a catastrophe if full-scale war returns.

A young seminarian has become the latest victim of killings in Nigeria, the West African country where attack and kidnapping of Catholic clergy is on the rise.