Why? – Catholic World Report

Washington, DC Newsroom, July 14, 2022 / 1:27 p.m. (CNA).

Father Peter Amodu was supposed to say the 5 p.m. Mass at Holy Ghost Parish in southern Nigeria on July 6.

It never happened.

Gunmen abducted the Catholic priest as he walked towards the church along the Otukpo/Ugbokolo highway in Benue state. He was released safe and sound four days later, confirmed the Chancellor of the Diocese of Oktupo.

Amodu’s abduction was not an isolated crime. He is one of at least 18 Nigerian Catholic priests kidnapped since the beginning of this year, according to a score by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic non-profit organization. Three of the priests were killed.

More disturbingly, the kidnappings seem to be intensifying. Five priests were kidnapped in Nigeria in the first week of July alone, ACN noted.

The alarming trend begs the question: Why are Catholic priests being targeted in this way?

Clergy and security experts who spoke to CNA provided a range of responses.

Bishop Jude Arogundade of Ondo in southwestern Nigeria, where as yet unknown gunmen on June 4 killed at least 40 people attending a Pentecost mass in Owo, believes that the Catholic Church in Nigeria is both a threat and a strategic target for radicalized Muslim Fulani herders and Islamic terror groups using violence to destabilize Nigeria.

“Catholic priests represent an international institution with an important message that challenges the message of terrorists,” Arogundade told CNA.

Due to the global importance and structure of the Church, an attack in even the most obscure places guarantees the international media attention that terrorists seek, he noted.

At the same time, priests pose a political threat to Islamic extremists, observed Father Andre Mahanna, president of Saint Rafka Mission of Hope and Mercy, a religious liberty advocacy group based in Lakewood, Colorado.

He thinks priests are singled out for educating their congregations about their civil rights.

“Priests are targeted, silenced, kidnapped, burned alive and killed because they educate the people they need to build their nation by deciding their own fate based on Judeo-Christian principles of law, justice, property rights, faith. , family, and freedom,” Mahanna said in an interview with CNA at the recent International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC.

“Pastors and priests are an organic, local, natural voice of leadership in a civil rights movement that is grounded in the gospel of the freedom of God’s children,” Mahanna explained.

There are also more pragmatic and monetary reasons at play, others say.

Security expert David Otto, director of the Geneva Center for Strategic and Security Studies in Africa, based in Geneva, Switzerland, said the consensus among security experts in his group is that the Catholic Church is being targeted because she paid the large ransoms the terrorists demanded, which can reach $200,000 or more.

“That’s the simple reason, because bandits are all about the money,” Otto said.

Some priests are fired during the day – as happened in the case of Father Emmanuel Silas, who was removed from his residence before dawn on July 4, according to a notice from the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Kafanchan.

Bishop Matthew Ndagoso of Kaduna points to another factor contributing to attacks on priests: incompetent law enforcement. Ndagoso and Arogundade of Ondo Diocese have openly criticized Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and his security agencies for not doing enough to stop the wave of violence targeting Christians in the country.

“The president is the commander-in-chief, and he has people working under him, and yet no one has been brought to account for the atrocities going on,” Ndagoso said.

“People are not held accountable for their failures, despite huge sums of money being approved for security,” he said.

Ndagoso spoke with CNA on the day he celebrated the funeral of Father Vitus Borogo. The 50-year-old priest, who was a Catholic chaplain at Kaduna State Polytechnic, was shot and killed at a prison farm in Kujama, along the Kaduna-Kachia road, on June 25, according to the archdiocese. from Kaduna.

Borogo’s younger brother was abducted the same day and has not been released.

“Those with the responsibility of securing our country must tell us why they have failed,” the Archbishop said.

“So many of my parishioners have been kidnapped that I can’t count. So much and every day,” he said.

Some priests were rescued by security teams. Father Peter Udo and Father Philemon Oboh, both of Uromi Diocese, were abducted on July 2 in Edo, 400 miles south of Kaduna, then snatch kidnappers in the early hours of July 6 and brought to the Edo State Government Headquarters, where they were received by the Acting Governor, Philip Shaibu.

On July 11, the Nigerian Association of Diocesan Catholic Priests issued a statement on the attacks, saying, “it is truly sad that as part of their normal pastoral activities, priests have become an endangered species.”

“Attempts have been made at various levels to cry out to the government,” the association said, “but as the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has already observed, ‘it is clear to the nation that [the Government] failed in [its] primary duty to protect the lives of Nigerian citizens.

In the statement, the association of priests asked priests to observe a week of prayer, fasting, Eucharistic adoration and recitation of the Rosary to help them in their ministry despite the dangerous security situation, ACN reported.

“We humbly call on all priests to take it very seriously without neglecting other related regulations and recommendations in their various dioceses,” the association said.