The Archbishop of Karachi has thanked Catholics in Britain for their prayers following the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore, Pakistan.
At least 70 people were killed, including 29 children, and 300 injured in an attack targeting Christians who were celebrating Easter in a park. Most of the victims were Muslim.
Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton celebrated Mass for the victims of the bombing. The Mass took place last Saturday at St Nicholas of Tolentino church in Bristol.
In his message of thanks for Bishop Lang’s support, Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi said: “All of us in Pakistan live in a state of constant tension, even though the government has taken measures to counteract terrorism. Your words of solidarity and your prayers are therefore a great encouragement for us all. We feel that we are not alone.”
Bishop Lang, chairman of the bishops’ conference department for international affairs, said that the bombing in a public park in Lahore was only the latest such atrocity.
“Last year 100 homes of Christians were burnt down in one part of Lahore, and churches have been bombed,” he said. “We pray that the authorities in Pakistan will act decisively to guarantee religious freedom and to bring all forms of religious persecution of minorities to an end.
“We pray also for the Church in Pakistan which has shown such courage and faith, that their and our response to the atrocities they suffer will be truly Christ-like: expressing love’s victory over evil, in the words of the dying Crucified One: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do,’ ” he said.
In his message of thanks Archbishop Coutts said: “Thank you very much for your message of sympathy and solidarity as we in Pakistan once again suffered the consequences of a suicide bomb attack.
“In March 2015 it was a simultaneous attack on two churches, one Protestant and the other Catholic. In December 2014 it was a massacre of over 100 boys and some teachers in a public school which was 100 per cent Muslim.
“Christians as well as Muslims are being targeted. This time the terrorists chose a ‘soft’ target, a public park on a Sunday, because all churches and schools are now better guarded than before.”
Archbishop Coutts concluded: “Trusting in the hope and power of the Risen Lord, we shall continue to witness to our faith in this challenging situation. Sincere thanks for your prayer support.”
In the wake of the Easter Sunday attack in Lahore, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, asked for prayers for the dead and wounded.
“The perversity of evil knows no bounds,” the cardinal said. “It sinks to a new low of hatred in deliberately targeting women and children celebrating their Easter Day in peace. This despicable act, aimed at Christians, is utterly contemptible and condemned just as we fervently pray for those who have died and been wounded. Evil will never defeat goodness, as has been demonstrated, once and for all, in the Resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
Britain’s former chief rabbi Lord Sacks has said the “ethnic cleansing” of Christians around the world has been shamefully ignored.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Lord Sacks said: “The ethnic cleansing of Christians throughout the Middle East is one of the crimes against humanity of our time, and I am appalled that there has been little serious international protest.”
Lord Sacks, who has been awarded the 2016 Templeton Prize for his writing on religious extremism, noted that Christians face persecution in 50 countries.
Referring to the recent attack in Pakistan, he wrote: “The suicide bombings in Lahore are part of a pattern in which Christians have been terrorised across an ever widening swathe of countries across the world.
“To be sure, the attack was not on a Christian site but a park open to people of all faiths.
“But the bombers chose to attack at Easter, knowing that many victims would be Christians on their way to or from prayer.”
But Lord Sacks said the terrorists’ “real target is not Christianity but freedom”. He argued that ISIS aims, not just to re-establish the caliphate, but to “to silence anyone and anything that threatens to express a different truth, another faith, a different approach to religious difference”.
He added: “The calculation of the terrorists is that, in the long run, the West will prove too tired to defend its own freedoms. They are prepared to keep committing atrocities for as long as it takes, decades if need be.”
Last month Lord Sacks said that, in protecting Western societies, “if religion is not part of the solution it will assuredly be a large part of the problem as voices become ever more strident, and religious extremists ever more violent”.
The Archbishop of Glasgow has spoken of his shock following the murder of a Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow last week, after he wished Christians a happy Easter online.
Asad Shah, an Ahmadi Muslim, was stabbed to death after his comments were seen by hardline Islamists.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia said: “The outpourings of sympathy … are a tribute to him; they have come from Christians, Muslims, people of other faith traditions and those of no faith.”
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