At the End of the Century of Martyrs

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, Dec. 21—“The 20th century is the age of martyrs,” began a dramatic recitation of statistics in the Ottawa Citizen. “Since 1900, more than 35 million Christians have died for their faith,” said the report.

“That's at least half of all the Christians martyred since the beginning of the Church in about 33 A.D., according to an upcoming edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia.” Even now, said the article, “every year an estimated 163,000 Christians are still dying for their faith.”

“The largest single persecutor of Christians in this century was the Soviet Union. It is estimated that at least 18 million Eastern Orthodox and Catholic believers died between 1917 and 1980, most of them in the Soviet Union's prison camps.”

“Among them were hundreds of thousands of Russian Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns. Approximately 200,000 were slaughtered in the 1920s and 1930s. Another 500,000 Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns were imprisoned or deported to Siberia, where most of them died. Altogether, 15 million Christians are believed to have died in Soviet prison camps because of their faith.”

The article continued, “A team of research specialists told the U.S. Congress in 1964 it estimated 2.5 million Catholics, including 55 bishops, had been killed by the Soviets.”

It cited Paul Marshall, an expert on religious persecution, who said the slaughter of Christians has not been confined to the Soviets. According to the paper, relying on Marshall's data: “North Korea had 2,000 Christian churches and hundreds of thousands of Christians in 1948, when it became Communist. Today, three churches remain — but dubiously, under government control.

“Uganda saw the destruction of 100,000 to 300,000 people during the 1970s.” In Rwanda, up to 500,000 of the 700,000 people slaughtered in ethnic conflicts in 1994 were Christians and are considered martyrs. “In the Sudan, up to a million Christians have been slaughtered since 1970.”

The article concluded with this chilling statistic: “The Christian Encyclopedia team predicts that by the year 2025, the Christian population will rise to about 2.8 billion, and the number of martyrs per year will rise from the current 163,000 to 210,000.”

Men Will Vastly Outnumber Women in Asia's Future

ECONOMIST, Dec. 19—A recent issue of the Economist reported that more boys than girls are growing up in Asia, and attributed the phenomenon to feminism.

“On average, women around the world give birth to 106 baby boys for every 100 girls; more boys than girls are then lost in childhood. In China, the sex ratio for first births matches that average… but for every subsequent birth, the surplus of boys increases. This imbalance has been growing rapidly since 1979. In 1982, there were 107 boys aged under 5 for every 100 girls; in 1990, 110; in 1995, 118,” the magazine reported.

“China is by no means the only Asian country where the ratio of boy to girl babies is on the rise; the same is true in South Korea and Taiwan.

… But in China, the dearth of daughters is a particular problem; it will help to create the world's biggest group of frustrated bachelors,” said the magazine.

“By 2002 … the surplus of Chinese males in their 20s will exceed the entire female population of Taiwan,” it said, noting two causes. “Female infanticide clearly continues in China, even though it is illegal and condemned by the government. … [But new] technology now offers Chinese parents an alternative to … infanticide as a way of dealing with unwanted girls: sex selective abortion,” it said.

“There is indeed an irony in the fact that, in this matter, the traditionally feminist ‘pro-choice’ position has meant encouraging discrimination against women.”

Oceania Synod Plagued by Misleading Reports

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Dec. 19—Sensational headlines in newspapers around the world during the Oceania Synod in Rome gave the impression that the bishops there were reconsidering their fidelity to the Church on several important practices. Not so, says Edward Cardinal Clancy, archbishop of Sydney, Australia. He blamed “confused and ill-informed comment” by the media for the misinformation, said the daily paper there.

According to the Herald, Cardinal Clancy said that local commentators gave “far too much weight” to the speeches of individual bishops in a forum meant to address many issues. He also said the final list of propositions from the bishops to the Pope “was overwhelmingly supported by the synod participants.”

Cardinal Clancy said that the synod's official message will be a statement arising from many discussions, with “all the shortcomings of any document prepared in that manner. … However, its substance is quite clear and it is to be taken with the utmost seriousness. It has the character of ‘guidelines.’” he is quoted saying, but it “is expected that the Catholic Church in Australia will conform to those guidelines to the extent that it has not already done so.”

Cardinal Clancy also clarified comments he made to the London Catholic weekly The Tablet about priestly celibacy — comments he said were meant to speak to issues in small, isolated islands where priests can visit only once a year. “I said that the proposal to ordain selected married men [catechists] so that people might have the Eucharist regularly had some merit,” the paper quoted him saying.

“I went on to say, however, that there were significant counter arguments by reason of which I did not favor a married priesthood even in those circumstances.”