Pope Benedict XVI condemns attacks on churches in Nigeria; calls it “absurd violence”
Special to USAfricaonline.com
AFP. Vatican City―Pope Benedict XVI deplored on Sunday (December 26, 2010) the “absurd violence” against Christians after attacks on churches in the Philippines and Nigeria over the Christmas holiday.
“It was with great sadness that I learnt about the attack on a Catholic Church in the Philippines during the celebrations for Christmas and also against Christian churches in Nigeria,” the pope.
“The earth is once again stained with blood as we have seen in other parts of the world,” Benedict added in his Angelus address at The Vatican, as he offered his condolences to the victims of the “absurd violence”.
At least 32 people were killed and 74 wounded after a series of Christmas Eve bomb blasts in the troubled Nigerian city of Jos on Friday evening. Many of the victims were doing their Christmas shopping at the time and a church was also targeted.
On the same night, suspected members of an Islamist sect that launched an uprising last year attacked three churches in northern Nigeria, leaving six people dead and one of the churches burned.
Six people were also wounded on Saturday when a bomb went off in a church during Christmas Day mass on the southern Philippine island of Jolo which is known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism. ref: AFP
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USAfricaonline.com: More than 35 persons have been killed from a number of Christmas Eve (December 24, 2010) bomb blasts, apparently coordinated in Jos around central Nigeria. At least 80 persons were injured. The Plateau state police commissioner Abdulrahman Akano said there were a total of 7 explosions with homemade devices; an unusual tactic.
One of he targets was a church, Sacred Catholic Church at Kadong — a section of the metropolitan Jos. Angwa Rukuba explosions killed 17 people, in Gada Biu 32 lives were eliminated by the radical zealots. The bomb explosions continued in the already volatile and violence wracked Nasarawa Gwom section of the Jos North Local Government.
Radical Islamic zealots and Christians in the area have been on violent clashes and collision over religion, land and politics, as reported variously since 10 years and more here on USAfricaonline.com and our e-group Nigeria360@yahoogroups.com
Governor David Jang, a former soldier, leads Plateau state; he has announced his condolences and the events add to another of complications and security problems facing Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan ahead of the April 2011 controversial elections.
all violence should be condemned. the innocents are in danger, it's unfair for those who yearn for peace. They want peace but what do they get? 🙁
We trust that other Christian Churches and organizations will speak up now, and not just let the Pope be the lone, even if extremely influential, Moral voice.
Especially, the British and UK Christian churches: why should the British people and their church-goers remain quiet in the light of the British government unconditional and staunch support of murderous Nigeria, especially Muslim Northern Nigeria, where these atrocities are repeated with callous impunity, all the time? Do we forget so soon the unconscionable British government support for Nigeria and Northern Nigeria in maintaining a blockade against Biafra which resulted in the loss of millions of Biafran children, women and elderly, in the 1967-1970 Biafra War, a war of survival for the Biafrans? Why does Christian (?) Britain not speak up against these crimes?
As for the USA, it remains now to be seen what their Christian Churches will do; will they forget so soon that it was their support that focused the US and World attention on Darfur and the mistreatment of the Southern Sudanese Christians? Or, do they play favorites and selective Morality? We watch.
African Churches, especially the Christian Churches operating in the Geospace called Nigeria, can you raise a strong Moral voice now? The world will not exonerate you from your shirked responsibilities.
We have already offered a practical and Moral solution: Peoples who cannot and will not live together MUST live apart in order to survive as human beings, without further dehumanization, in order to preserve, and not mock, Human Dignity. Foreign countries and other stake holders, their institutions and Interests, have to stop shoring up and propping up the already falling Nigeria, whatever their reasons are; instead, they should support a “managed separation” of Nigeria. Otherwise, these humanity-wasting crimes will continue with even more impunity and frequency (and who can believe?), in these "modern times."
Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
oguchi@mbay.net