RED WEDNESDAY

Basilica minore del sto. Niño lighted in red.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

IN SOLIDARITY WITH PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS

To express solidarity with persecuted Christians around the world, the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño in downtown Cebu City was lit in red on Wednesday.

Cebu’s most popular church and home of the country’s oldest religious image joined at least 80 churches, ecclesiastical territories and universities in the country in celebrating “Red Wednesday,” an international event geared to raise awareness about the plight of persecuted Christians.

Fr. John Paul Mabanta of the Augustinian Province of Sto. Niño de Cebu-Philippines presided over the 5:30 p.m. Mass, which preceded the lighting of the basilica’s facade in red, the color that represents the blood shed by martyrs in defense of the Christian faith.

In his homily, Mabanta called on the people to pray for Christians who are barred from practicing the faith, particularly in communist countries and the Middle East.

“So many Christians undergo persecution. In the Philippines, we don’t feel it because we are free to practice our religion. We are fortunate. But let us remember our brothers and sisters in other countries who are persecuted because of the Christian faith,” he said.

Why celebrate

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) encouraged Philippine churches and schools to celebrate Red Wednesday upon the request of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a pontifical foundation and an international Catholic charity which supports pastoral aid projects for the poor and persecuted church throughout the world.

In a 2015 report released by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, Christians remained the largest religious group in the world, making up nearly a third or 31 percent of the earth’s 7.3 billion people, followed by the Muslims who composed 24 percent of the world’s population.

The Philippines remains to be the bastion of Christianity in Asia with 86.8 million Filipinos — or 93 percent of its total population of 93.3 million. Of the Filipino Christians, 81 percent are Catholic, 11 percent Protestant, while 1 percent come from other Christian groups. The remaining 7 percent of the Philippine population are non-Christian, Pew stated.

Cebu, the cradle of Christianity in the Far East, has a population of around 4 million, most of whom are Catholics.

Christian genocide

“In the Philippines, we can bring rosaries wherever we go. But in some countries, anyone who brings a rosary are arrested and put in prison. Here, we can buy Bibles even in malls, but in other countries, Bibles are considered contraband,” Mabanta said.

“We are made aware of the plight of the persecuted Christians in other the different parts of the world. Let us pray that they will not waver in the faith,” he added.

Pope Francis has repeatedly emphasized the need to raise awareness about the plight of persecuted Christians.

“How many of our brothers and sisters in faith suffer abuse, violence, and are hated for Jesus’ sake! I’ll tell you something. The martyrs of today are greater in number than those of the first centuries,” the Pope said during last year’s Feast of St. Stephen, the church’s first martyr.

ACN noted some scenarios of Christian persecution. In Iraq, the group said the Christian population has decreased from 1.5 million in 2003 to 250,000-300,000, prompting the European Union to call the situation a “genocide of Christians.”

ACN’s report found 75 percent of religious persecution takes place against Christians through three main categories: state-sponsored persecution, fundamentalist nationalism and extremism.

Religious freedom in Sudan, for example, is seen to be “spiraling downwards” because of government-issued Islamist threats, ACN stated.

Educating the public

ACN Philippines said Red Wednesday is intended to educate the public including the youth about the nature and scale of Christian persecution; create awareness among Filipino Christians of their membership within a bigger global Christian family; and encourage Christians of all ages and traditions to stand up for faith and freedom and the right of Christians to practice their faith without fear or obstruction.

Red Wednesday was also marked in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Italy and France.

Aside from the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño, the other prominent churches and institutions who joined the Red Wednesday in the country were the Manila Cathedral, the Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo (Manila), the University of Santo Tomas, Ateneo De Manila University, and Saint Paul University in Manila and Quezon City.