GREENPOINT — Aggression against Catholic priests and religious — including kidnappings, imprisonment, and murder — is on the rise. 

Specifically, 2023 saw 132 total confirmed cases over 124 in 2022, according to the second annual report on global violence against people who wear clerical collars or veils. 

The report’s author is the staff at Brooklyn-based Aid to the Church in Need US (ACN), a papal agency that champions for the persecuted Church worldwide. 

According to ACN, two categories had slight drops; kidnappings fell to 33 last year from 54 in 2022, and murders also dropped from 18 in 2022 to 14 in 2023. Still, a grim picture emerges from a closer look at these cases, particularly those from Africa, South America, and Europe. 

“It’s almost like tomorrow is just a reflection of yesterday,” said Ed Clancy, ACN’s director of mission. “It seems to be in the same places.” 

Clancy explained that the report, released Jan. 9, focused on acts against clergy and religious because their stories are extraordinary examples of faithful Catholicism. 

“There are great numbers of people being killed, displaced, brutalized,” Clancy said. “But we also have to focus on those men and women who serve in those places voluntarily. They are there because they want to be there. They don’t leave.” 

High on the list again was Nigeria, where Muslim cattle herders have stepped up kidnapping and killing Christian farmers in the country’s “Middle Belt” region. 

For example, Father Isaac Achi died last January when attackers set his home ablaze and he couldn’t escape. Na’aman Danlami, a seminarian, died the same way in September. 

Next, in October, kidnappers abducted Godwin Eze, a Benedictine brother, and killed him. 

“Nigeria is a country where they attend Mass more often and in greater percentages than anywhere in the world,” Clancy said. 

He added multiple agencies besides ACN report that “more people are dying for their faith in Nigeria than all other places in the world combined.” 

Late last year, on Christmas Eve, attackers murdered 300 people in 30 Nigerian villages, according to news reports. 

ACN found that no nuns were murdered last year in Nigeria, but three were kidnapped. 

They were among 28 reported kidnappings of religious and clergy worldwide in 2023. Brother Eze in Nigeria was the only one to die. 

“Otherwise, the vast majority of those kidnapped ended up being released,” according to the report. 

But kidnappers still held three Nigerian priests when ACN released its report. They are Fathers John Bako Shekwolo, Joseph Igweagu, and Christopher Ogide. 

Also in Africa, Father Joël Yougbaré, from Burkina Faso, has been missing since 2019, and Fathers Joseph Igweagu and Christopher Ogide, both kidnapped in Nigeria two years ago, remained missing. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Nicaraguan authorities detained 46 clergy during 2023, including two bishops and four seminarians. 

Bishop Rolando Álvarez — arrested in August 2022 and later sentenced to 26 years in prison — was sent into exile to Vatican City on Jan. 14. Many of the detained Nicaraguan priests were also released or sent into exile, ACN reported. In Belarus, at least 10 clergy were detained by the authorities, with three still jailed in late December, ACN said. 

And in Ukraine, Fathers Ivan Levitskyi and Bohdan Heleta, two Greek Catholic priests arrested in 2022, were still detained by Russian forces in 2023, according to the ACN report. 

While the report focused mainly on confirmed cases involving aggression against the faith, it also noted several killings that happened under circumstances “unclear or not directly related to any confirmed incident of persecution.” 

These included the murder in February of Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell of Los Angeles, for which a suspect remains in custody. 

A mentally unstable man killed Father Pamphili Nada in Tanzania. Father Javier García Villafaña was shot dead in an area of Mexico where cartel thugs routinely kill anyone who defies them. 

And, in December, attackers fatally stabbed a Belgian priest, Father Leopold Feyen, during a break-in at his home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He had served for decades, ACN reported.