The Diocese of Brooklyn is known as the “Diocese of Immigrants.” Its international flavor means that Mass is celebrated in dozens of languages and church pews are filled with parishioners of many nationalities. With that in mind, The Tablet is taking a look at how the different cultures represented in the diocese celebrate Christmas. This week, we focus on Nigeria, Brazil, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The body of a priest was discovered July 19, four days after he was abducted from a parish rectory in central Nigeria, an official with the Diocese of Kafanchan reported.
In February 2023, Nigerians will go to the polls to elect a president. Some 15-odd candidates will be competing for the top job in Africa’s most populous nation — a nation bedeviled by crippling insecurity, lawlessness, a floundering economy, poor social service delivery, and lingering hopelessness.
Father Andrew Adeniyi Abayomi was in the sacristy of St. Francis Xavier Church after Mass when parishioners began running in different directions.
The brutal attack on people at a Catholic church in Nigeria on Pentecost Sunday is “an attack on the entire church,” said a U.S. official of Aid to the Church in Need, an international Catholic charity.
Pope Francis expressed his concern Sunday for a deadly shooting at a Catholic church in Nigeria on the feast of Pentecost that left somewhere between 25 and 50 people dead. The pope said he was praying for “the victims and the country.”
Dozens of people were killed when gunmen stormed a Catholic Church in southwestern Nigeria and shot into a crowd of parishioners attending Pentecost Sunday Mass on June 5, according to various media reports.
All five of the new countries that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended that the State Department designate as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs) have experienced Christian persecution in the past year.
Religious freedom advocates are confused over the omission of Nigeria from a U.S. State Department list of countries known for having the world’s worst attacks on Christians. “We’re baffled,” said Ed Clancy, of Brooklyn-based Aid to the Church in Need-U.S. “By every single measure, Nigeria has gotten worse.”
Prosecutors in Nigeria claim a Catholic journalist violated cybercrime laws when he wrote about complaints that the government failed to arrest any suspects in the Oct. 29 murders of 38 Christians in southern Kaduna State.
