by Julian Mann, Christian Today
Conservative commentator Douglas Murray’s criticism of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church for failing to speak up for persecuted Christians deserves widespread attention.
The associate editor of the Spectator magazine and author of The War on the West devoted his Douglas Murray Direct Address, posted on X, to the Islamist persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa.
He said: “In recent weeks in one incident alone in Congo 70 Christians were abducted and beheaded by Islamist militia … In more recent days in Syria the ancient Christian Churches of that country have once again been under attack.”
He posed the question: “Why is there so little attention to this? Why is there so little news or reaction to atrocities like those I have just described?”
He developed his answer: “You might not have noticed but there isn’t actually an Archbishop of Canterbury at the moment … But if you do go to the ongoing social media threads of Lambeth Palace and so on, you will find the usual pabulum.
“You will find a lot of interfaith stuff, you will find a bit of green stuff thrown in, of course, but next to nothing about the persecuted Christians of Syria, of Congo, and elsewhere. It’s a very strange thing to my mind. It’s an odd thing to skip.”
He continued: “There is a Pope at the moment. He’s not well and could be forgiven for not being more outspoken perhaps for the time being. But it’s still rather striking to me that the Roman Catholic Church also remains relatively silent about the killing and persecution of members of its own faith community.”
The reason for the failure to speak up, he said, is “very straightforward”.
“They’re very scared and arguably they have some right to be,” he said.