Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Stephen Schneck lamented the worsening situation in India and China, the world’s two most populous nations.

Schneck said that India “is among the worst countries in the global community in regards to religious freedom from the analysis that has been done by the commission over the last decade or so.”

The plight of religious believers in China “gets worse and worse,” he added, and “itʼs not just limited to individuals. Weʼre talking about whole populations here—the Uyghur Muslims, the Tibetan Buddhists, Christians.”

Noting that 2026 is the Year of Saint Francis, Bishop Antonio Suetta recalled St. Francis of Assisi’s desire to evangelize the sultan of Egypt in 1219, as well as St. Francis’s instructions on the evangelization of Muslims in his 1221 rule.

“Hospitality and collaboration are, in themselves, two ways of bearing practical witness to true faith in Jesus,” Bishop Suetta wrote. “Muslims arriving in Western countries are often bewildered by the secularization of society, as they tend—mistakenly, to be sure, yet understandably—to equate public immorality with the Christian faith. Only when they come into contact with Christians who live consistently with their faith do they realize that secularization is a corruption of Christianity; thus, they begin to discover the true face of Jesus and to perceive—often without even consciously thinking about it—the depth of God’s love.”

Such acts “must always be accompanied by our spiritual identity, speaking of Jesus Christ not through imposition, but with love,” the prelate continued, adding:

To neglect the proclamation of Jesus Christ would be to disregard His saving Cross and His universal mediation. Ultimately, it would be to betray our mission as the baptized.

If we see someone struggling to climb out of a river, yet being swept away by the current—and we happen to have a rope to assist them—it would be an act of grave negligence not to throw that rope, simply thinking that perhaps they might manage to get out on their own, and thus feel “freer”: for the rope is their liberation!

How many Muslims living among Christians will turn to them on the Day of Judgment and ask: “Why did you not throw me the rope? Why did you not make the truth known to me?” Thus, one understands the urgency of the mission that led Saint Paul to exclaim: “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16).

Pope Leo XIV encouraged the bishops of Italy to sow the Gospel tirelessly and look upon the harvest with the gaze of Christ, rather than “lament the hardened ground.”

Pope Leo XIV said that evangelization “must remain the fundamental motivation behind every action of the universal Church and of local communities” and warned against “watering down the content” of the faith “or softening the demands.”