According to local
Catholic leaders, persistent tensions and outright attacks are part of life for
Christians in Bangladesh.
International Catholic
pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been following the situation
of the Church in Bangladesh years.
"In the Dinajpur Diocese
in the north-west of the country Catholic Christians are being repeatedly
attacked by Muslim groups," Véronique Vogel, head of ACN’s India section,
confirmed.
According to the
Bishop of Dinajpur, Sebastian Tudu, a missionary center in the village of
Bulakipur is being guarded by 30 policemen.
"The worst of it
is that in three villages which have been attacked the men were no longer at
home,” the bishop reported.
“Many women and
children are suffering and living in fear and terror."
Véronique Vogel further
described the situation saying, "For months militant forces in Bangladesh
have recruited a lot of new followers. This is a very worrying development.”
“A few months ago
Buddhists were attacked, and now it's the turn of the Christians.”
Concerning the
background to the unrest, Ms. Vogel also commented that “not only religious
motives are involved here, but also political ones."
"There is a great
shortage of land in Bangladesh, for example. Some groups therefore sometimes
put simple people under great pressure with the aim of taking over their land.”
“If on top of this
they belong to a different religious community a religious and political
conflict will soon develop,” Ms. Vogel said.
“Bangladesh is a
powder keg, a very poor country with serious social problems."
At the beginning of
June, the Catholic seminary of Dinajpur was raided by Muslims who forced their
way into the building, destroyed it and attacked the 25 seminarians present.
The diocese reported
the matter to the police and the candidates for the priesthood were housed
temporarily at another location.
The background for the
attack was possibly a dispute between Muslim and Christian families in a
neighboring village, leading a group of Muslims to decide to seek out and
attack the seminary.
Bangladesh is a predominantly
Muslim country in which Islam is the state religion and some 90 per cent of the
142 million inhabitants are Muslims, predominantly Sunni.
Close to 9 per cent of
Bangladeshis are Hindus, while only 0.3 per cent are Buddhists and Christians. Of
that number, some 318,000 are Catholic.
Editor’s Notes:
Directly under the
Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports
the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.
ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through
prayer, information and action.
Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul
II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work
in over 145 countries throughout the world.
The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including
providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church
buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since
the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed
worldwide.
For more information contact Michael Varenne at
michael@churchinneed.org or call
718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street,
PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. www.churchinneed.org
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