Kenya: A blood sacrifice offered to the god of Islam
A church is bombed in Pakistan and 85 people are killed while more than 140 more are maimed. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
Violence and civil unrest rocks Damascus and Aleppo, forcing Syrian churches to close their doors, possibly forever.
Thousands of elite Philippine troops battle Muslim guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who raze churches before they occupy the key port of Zamboanga.
Christians in the southern Egyptian town of Dalga are forced to watch as a Muslim mob set fire to an ancient monastery and steal its contents.
All played out against the backdrop of a shopping mall terror attack in Kenya where Muslims are asked to leave before hostages are taken.
Yes, just another instalment of terror that is matched only by the silence of political leaders refusing to speak in support of the persecuted.
From Algeria in the west to Iran in the east and deep into Asia, Christians are being kidnapped, terrorized, tortured, raped and murdered.
Their fate looks to be at risk in the very heartlands that first inspired their faith, as well as in the furthest-flung corners of the globe.
The cause is aggressive Muslim fundamentalists seeking to cleanse Christians from land they have occupied for thousands of years.
Their fate is barely remarked and little acknowledged - with Canada among the honourable exceptions.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has used a variety of stages and occasions to defend Christians along with a host of other persecuted minorities.
Here are a few instances:
"I stand with Roman Catholic priests and other Christian clergy and their laity, as they are driven underground to worship in China while their leaders are detained," he said in 2011.
Here was Baird 12 months later.
"We (Canada) were the first major country to speak out about the attacks against Egyptian Coptics following the events in Nag Hammadi ... and we deplored the New Year's Eve attacks in Alexandria. And in Iraq, where al-Qaida has driven out many Christians and minorities, we implemented a program to resettle refugees."
In the latter example, Baird cited Franklin Roosevelt who observed on the eve of global war: "Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the attack has come from sources opposed to democracy."
All sorts of religions are attacked for a variety of reasons, yet Christians appear to be alone as they robustly back their right to exist.
When it comes to specific acts of Muslim-on-Christian violence, the silence is deafening.
Bishop Angaelos, leader of the U.K. Copts, pointed this out seven days ago when he expressed disappointment at the response from other religious leaders to tragic events that have transpired since the Arab Spring dawned in Egypt.
He said if Christians burned down 10 synagogues or mosques, let alone 50, there would be outrage and vows of resistance.
For the Taliban and like-minded terror groups, the key factor is always religion and they know they can act with impunity.
The connections they make are not national, or ethnic, or geographic, but religious. Hence, since they regard America and Britain and Canada and France and Australia and dozens of other countries as essentially Christian, they kill Christians to amplify their assumed religious superiority.
As long as our ruling elites remain terrified of offending Islam, the self-proclaimed religion of peace that claims sole ownership of the term ‘persecuted minority,' the fundamentalists will do as they please.
SIMON KENT | QMI AGENCY
