Catholic churches bathed in red light Wednesday

Just because Catholics in the Philippines do not face persecution does not mean they should not be aware of the sufferings Christians face in portions of the Middle East and other regions, church-affiliated officials said on Tuesday.

The Philippines is joining for the first time Red Wednesday, a worldwide religious activity geared towards raising awareness on the "ever-increasing" trend of Christian persecution in the world, set for November 22, in scores of cathedrals, dioceses and Catholic universities in the country.

On Wednesday, the façades of 82 participating churches, ecclesiastical territories, and universities will be bathed in red light, "the color of martyrdom," to bring attention to the suffering of Christians being persecuted in many parts of the world, said Jonathan Luciano, National Director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Philippines.

The international event, which is mainly marked by a Mass and the symbolic lighting, was first held last year, but Luciano said he hopes it will be an annual event for the church in the Philippines.

Luciano, quoting Pope Francis, said "there are more martyrs now than at the beginning of the Church," referring to the large numbers of Christians who are in varying situations made to suffer for their faith.

Reading from a report, meanwhile, Mark von Riedemann of ACN's parent office in the United Kingdom, outlined some of the scenarios of persecution Christians face.

In Iraq, the Christian population has dwindled from 1.5 million in 2003 to 250,000 to 300,000, prompting the European Union to call the situation a "genocide of Christians," he said.

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

According to the report, religious freedom in Sudan, for example, is seen to be "spiraling downwards" because of government-issued Islamist threats, such as the tearing down of churches, the fining of women for dressing "immodestly," and the mass exodus of Christians after the state removed citizenship rights of people with origins outside of the country.

For an illustration of extremist-fueled violence, one need not look further than the Philippines' own experience in Marawi City.

And such examples of persecution are not only a threat to the Christian faith itself, but to the "plurality of society" in general, said von Reidemann.

"The survival of Christianity is a test case for the survival of plurality as a whole," he said.

Red Wednesday will not end persecution, its organizers conceded. After all, Christians have been facing persecution for thousands of years, said Luciano.

What they hope it will do, instead, is increase Filipinos' awareness of the plight of their fellow Christians in areas with severe persecution.

Marawi

Even though the Philippines is largely Christian and the scale of religious persecution here is markedly narrower than in places like Nigeria, China, or North Korea, Filipino Christians---and Muslims alike---have suffered at the hands of extremist militants known to the world as the Maute-ISIS terror group.

It can be recalled that Maute terrorists were caught on video destroying religious images and artifacts in at least one cathedral in Marawi.

"We've been through so much pain," said Bishop Edwin de la Peña of the prelature of Marawi at the forum.

Marawi was shell-shocked by five months of fighting between ISIS-inspired extremists and government troops, killing, injuring and displacing Christians, Muslims, and possibly secularists alike.

De la Peña and his group, assisted by various other civil society groups, are engaged in the "slow" journey towards rehabilitation and reconstruction for the war-hit city, but such efforts must come from gathering Christians back into a community, he later told reporters.

"A lot of the hostages are my people," the bishop said, citing in particular the six people abducted by Maute fighters from the bishop's house, including Fr. Chito Suganob.

The hostages are now undergoing "trauma healing" sessions, de la Peña said.

Yet he was quick to note that it was not only Christians who suffered during the siege of Marawi---"moderate" Muslims, too, were the victims of the Maute's "cleansing" of the city.

"There is a greater kind of sympathy between Muslims and Christians who suffer together, and the sense of compassion is becoming strong among these groups of people," he told GMA News Online.

"This is something beautiful that we want to project to the world around, that really, this is not a religious war. This is simply a war that is inspired from outside, trying to divide us, but instead of dividing us, we have come together to express our solidarity with one another," he also said.

Still, the bishop said he does not believe martial law should be extended for the whole of Mindanao, except in places like Marawi, where a measure of "control has to be put in place."

And while the Marawi Church may take long before it is reconstructed, the bishop said he is focused on locating his people.

"What's very important is that you establish the community before building the structures," he said. —NB, GMA News