According to a Breitbart news report, “the Vatican’s foreign minister said that Christians have grown ‘too complacent’ in the face of widespread Christian persecution and need a greater commitment to oppose it.”
Archbishop Paul Gallegher, told an online forum celebrating the first anniversary the “Truro Report,” publication of which led the British government to commit to address the problem of Christian persecution, that this report was “very timely” and “a bit of a wake-up call,” Catholicherald.co.uk reported.
“Speaking to some extent on behalf of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, I think in some ways perhaps we became too complacent in front of persecution, too used to it being a phenomenon in our community story, and thought therefore perhaps it was something you had to live with, something that we can’t do anything about. I think the Truro Report was a very significant effort to do something about that,” Gallagher said.
“I think also we all know the denial of religious freedom is the beginning of the denial and erosion of so many other human rights; it is almost the litmus test of human rights,” the archbishop said.
Jeremy Hunt, a former British foreign secretary, commissioned the Truro Report, which was launched July 8, 2019. Its name came from Anglican Bishop Philip Mounstephen of Truro, England, leader of the independent commission that produced the report. It revealed a surprising scale of global persecution of Christians and recommended that Britain seek a U.N. Security Council Resolution to require all nations of the Middle East and North Africa to protect Christians and permit U.N. observers to monitor their security.
Gallagher said it is important that Christians and other people make “a renewed effort to underline the question of conscience in general, even outside the religious sphere,” because “we do see—even in the West, developed world—the progressive erosion of conscience and, therefore, also of human rights.”
“Never underestimate the power of prayer and the unity of the people of faith,” he added. {eoa}
