During a June 22 street campaign before the European Parliament, Duke Paul of Oldenburg, Director of the Brussels Office of the Pro Europa Christiana Federation, launched a petition drive requesting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to declare March 2 as the “World Day against Christianophobia.”
Duke Paul of Oldenburg promotes World Day against Christianophobia on the streets of Brussels
March 2 was selected because it is the day that Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistani Minister for Minorities and a Catholic, was cruelly martyred by Islamist terrorists for his staunch efforts to abolish Pakistan’s infamous “blasphemy” laws which are used to persecute Christians in this country.
Bhatti was outspoken in defense of Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman who is in jail in Pakistan (Islamists want to lynch her) for standing up for the honor of Our Lord Jesus Christ in an exchange with fellow workers who were Muslim. Bhatti was killed because he refused to be silent against injustice. He received death threats, but did not back down. In a video interview recorded shortly before his assassination, Bhatti said he was ready to witness to his faith: “I believe in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us. I know what is the meaning of the Cross, and I follow Him to the Cross….I prefer to die for my principles and for the justice of my community rather than compromise on these threats.”
Shahbaz Bhatti was martyred for his Catholic faith on March 2, 2011
The Pro Europa Christiana Federation states that every 5 minutes a Christian is killed in the world for his religious beliefs. The Federation also denounces militant secularism for moving an unbloody but nevertheless ruthless persecution against Christianity in the West, passing bad laws and then manipulating the coercive power of the State to remove Christian symbols, values, beliefs, and morals from the public square. A particularly aberrant example of this secularist persecution was the European Court of Human Rights’ November 3, 2009 ruling that Italy had to remove all crucifixes from public schools.
For years now we have seen similar persecutory measures in the United States. To name a few of these impious attacks:
• the campaign to remove all Manger scenes from public squares;
• the campaign to remove all Ten Commandments displays from public property;
• the removal of the large Latin Cross erected in the Mojave National Preserve by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934;
• the removal of any mention of God in the Pledge of Allegiance.
To protest against this persecution, Pro Europa Christiana Federation launched a special web site: www.againstchristianophobia.org . You can sign the petition to the UN Secretary General on this special site. Please take a minute to do this and register your protest against the persecution of Christianity worldwide.
Duke Paul of Oldenburg at launching of the German edition of "Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII"
