The Trials of Stephen

The feast of St Stephen the Protomartyr today. Apart from celebrating the life and witness of our first Christian martyr, we also remember those Christians who are suffering for their faith in these times. Martyrdom has never left us, it will always be a feature of the Church's life and every age is a capable of producing those who hate the faith and manifest that hatred in bloodshed, or, as in recent times, in more novel and legalistic ways.

Just a few days ago we heard of the martyrdom of Nigerian Catholics, the Church has been persecuted there for decades though it is rarely acknowledged. The perpetrators are Islamists who occupy part of the country and are trying to rid it of Christians. A priest I know was almost martyred in Nigeria. He was the rector of a seminary there when it was attacked, a number of seminarians were killed and he was left for dead. He managed to get help for those who had survived - unable to walk due to his injuries, he had to crawl for hours with one eye hanging out of his head to get to the nearest town. He lost the eye and still bears scars, but he is a man of extraordinary faith who was prepared to lay down his life for the seminarians in his care. He would tell you about jihad and its crusade against Christianity, but the politicians and the media of the West do not want to hear, even though we are now beginning to feel the sharp edge of the scimitar ourselves. 

Many of our Western (Christian?) leaders are not inclined to dwell on the persecution of Christians, even though we are the most persecuted religion on earth. Indeed, many of those same leaders are inclined to impose restrictions on orthodox Christians in the name of the new ideologies which are emerging. Someone said to me recently that the day may be coming when a priest will not be able to preach what is in the Gospel because it is against the law. That may sound crazy, but it is not. If Ireland goes ahead with legislation against free speech, euphemistically covered up in the term 'hate speech', for example, the opening verses of the Book of Genesis may not be allowed to be read in Church because they reiterate that God created man and woman; for some today that is hate speech because it denies the multiplicity of genders they hold so dear. And be assured, there will be many who will be happy to play the Stasi to take out the priests they don't like.  

The example of St Stephen becomes more relevant for us as time goes on. What we first note about him was his faith, this gave him an eloquence which led to his heroic defence of Christ. He knew his faith and he could explain it even if his persecutors were not interested in listening to him, though they felt threatened by it. Stephen inspires us to be heroic, not to fear persecution, but to see it as an opportunity to bear witness and perhaps win hearts for Christ. The Martyrs of Nagasaki preached the Gospel from their crosses and did so effectively; the witness of St Edmund Campion converted St Philip Howard. Stephen teaches us that our suffering will not be in vain, it can be used by Christ for the salvation of souls. There is a belief that Stephen's martyrdom had a hand in the conversion of his persecutor, St Paul; the Martyrology is full of similar stories. This of course leads to another lesson Stephen teaches us: to forgive our persecutors and to pray for them, even those who would put us to death. The greatest 'revenge' we can affect is the conversion of our persecutors and reconciliation - the only weapon we must wield here is mercy.

None of us can say that we will not be asked to take a stand for our faith. Indeed, in the West that is happening all the time. Many Christians are being persecuted for their adherence to true marriage, for example. Ideologues take Christians to court to silence them and destroy their livelihood; we have had such cases in Ireland, in Belfast and Dublin. Given the mounting evidence which is pointing to his innocence, Cardinal Pell in Australia has become the most famous example of a Christian who preached the truth who has fallen victim to those who wish to destroy him for his faith. Though there is no evidence of crimes - we now have many eminent practitioners of the law who have gone public and reiterated that, including one of his appeal judges, yet the judicial system in Australia has cooperated in this persecution by convicting and imprisoning him. The conditions of his imprisonment are draconian - in solitary confinement, he is not allowed to practice his faith by offering Mass; you can be sure the prison authorities would not do the same to a Muslim. We can only hope the High Court in Australia will see this attack for what it is and release him. However, his persecutors will not give up so easily, they have plans to take further action against him should his innocence be vindicated. Pell's crime? He is an orthodox Christian and pastor, and unlike many of his brother bishops, he is not prepared to roll over and beg when secularism clicks its fingers. The trials of Stephen are still among us.

While many of our political masters and mistresses in the West ignore the persecution of Christians, there are some who are prepared to acknowledge it and take a stand. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, spoke of this persecution in his Christmas message. Prince Charles of England has also spoken out and has been proactive. Among the countries who are making it a priority is Hungary, a nation that, thanks to its history, is all too well aware of persecution from its own experience be it socialism or the invasions from the Ottomans. We can only hope that more allies will emerge as the persecution intensifies. 

Among our own in the Church there are some who are working hard to relieve the sufferings of the persecuted. Foremost among them is Aid to the Church In Need, and the heroic Fr Benedict Kiely, founder of nasarean.org. Fr Benedict spends his life trying to highlight the plight of the persecuted. Both of these organisations are worth supporting and come Lent, they would be worthier than others to receive your Lenten alms (please take note). Today we might offer the alms of our prayers for the persecuted and perhaps reflect on how we can become advocates for them with our governments and public representatives. 

In Ireland, we will be facing a general election next year - the months coming up to that provide an excellent opportunity to put pressure on our representatives to do something. It also provides us Christians with an opportunity to look at who is in our government and parliament and the role they have been playing in the suppression of free speech and the public expression of Christian belief. Given the way things have gone, we Christians must try to ensure that people who respect our views get to parliament to represent us. This will mean we have to rethink traditional support for certain political parties and get together with other Christians to figure out how we can work and vote strategically to ensure certain candidates are elected. Given the possibility of another coalition that will need support following the election, a party or alliance of orthodox Christians could be kingmakers and that could prove valuable. Remember the words of Our Lord: 'be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves'. 

The fact that we are coming under increasing pressure to stay silent, to withdraw from public life, reveals that those who govern us fear what we believe and what we say. And why is that? The great ideologies of the world in recent years have failed to create utopia and human happiness Socialism destroys economies and lives; rampant capitalism without conscience creates greed and inequity; secularism produces a spiritual desert and starves the human soul; promiscuity and permissiveness eats away at human dignity and peace: the Word of God in the Christian faith brings the human mind, heart and soul to life and it exorcises those ideologies which control and destroy. It is no wonder that those who profit from the ideologies of the world want to destroy the Christian faith and silence her adherents. Of course, that means we have something precious to offer the world, and we must be determined to fulfil the Lord's mandate to do so; our enemies in their very persecution betray the fact that what we have to offer can transform lives and even the world.

Today the Church invokes St Stephen and commends to him all our brothers and sisters who are enduring the weight of the cross, most especially those who may fall beneath it. As we have a duty to stand firm in our society and proclaim the Gospel in season and out of season, we must also seek to console and support our fellow Christians in their sufferings. Even if governments refuse to do anything, even if our pastors fall silent, we must not.