Do Christian lives matter?

[Valin]

Jewish World Review

Jeff Jacoby

Thursday, June 27, 2022

When a white supremacist from Australia carried out a deadly slaughter at two New Zealand mosques in 2019, there was outrage and condemnation throughout the country and around the world.

(Snip)

The reaction from global leaders was swift and strong. UN Secretary General António Guterres urged the world to "stand united against anti-Muslim hatred and all forms of bigotry and terror." The Queen of England, President Donald Trump, and the prime ministers of Canada and India expressed shock and sadness. Pope Francis prayed for "the healing of the injured" and invoked the "blessings of comfort and strength upon the nation" of New Zealand. Flags in Australia were lowered to half-mast, and a Moscow landmark, the Ostankino tower, was darkened in tribute to the victims.

The world's reaction to the slaughter this month of some 50 worshipers at a Catholic church in Nigeria has been very different.

The attackers who opened fire and detonated explosives at St. Francis Catholic Church in the southern city of Owo just as the weekly Mass was beginning on June 5 left their victims lying in pools of blood. "Only fiends from the nether region could have conceived and carried out such a dastardly act," said Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari.

Unlike the mosque attacks in New Zealand, the butchery in Owo is part of a pattern. Christians in Nigeria, writes Raymond Ibrahim of the Gatestone Institute, are being "purged in a genocide" committed by Islamist extremists. Since 2009, a jihadist insurgency launched by the terror group Boko Haram has sent a horrifying number of victims to early graves. "Over 60,000 Christians have either been butchered or abducted during raids," notes Ibrahim. "About 20,000 churches and Christian schools have also been torched and destroyed during the same timeframe."

(Snip)