Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Citing data from the bishops’ conference, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung also reported that at least 66 Catholic churches in Germany were deconsecrated the previous year.

Twenty-three churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the nation’s leading Protestant body, were relegated to profane use in 2022, the most recent year for which EKD data are available.

The attack took place in Mararaba, a town in Nasarawa State.

In an interview with the Fides News Agency, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, a native of Nigeria, said that “numerous indications suggest that there are groups determined to systematically attack Christian communities”—a far different assessment from that of Nigerian Archbishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, who recently dismissed claims of persecution there.

Archbishop Nwachukwu also suggested that the recent US strikes in Nigeria might be justified. Asked to comment on whether the strikes were “appropriate and viable,” he said:

A country can find itself unable to cope with its own crises and divisions without external help. I see many Muslim friends who do not know how to react to what is happening, and the government’s inaction is evident. In this situation, external intervention, even indirect, to support the state and the government against extremist groups and help the country eliminate the causes of widespread violence, might not be entirely unjustified or out of place.

“I remember how we listened to the Voice of America radio station when I was a child under Soviet rule, and always knew it presented the truth, standing up for human rights and suffering people,” Bishop Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk, OFM, of Odesa-Simferopol said in an interview with OSV News. “To hear this same voice today defending the evildoer and demanding we reward him for his crimes is deeply shocking and hurtful. Yet we know this isn’t the true voice of Americans.”

Bishop Szyrokoradiuk said that those “who’ve taken power” in the US aren’t “interested in truth and justice.”

“Wickedness should be punished—to ensure its perpetrators no longer steal and kill,” the prelate added. “How can we trust people to defend us and uphold our rights when they’re clearly pursuing quite different interests of their own and are ready to do business with criminals? In the end, we can only pray for their conversion.”

On January 1, the Church commemorates the 59th World Day of Peace. Pope Leo’s message for the day, dated December 8 and released on December 18, is entitled “Peace be with you all: Towards an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace.“

In 2024, 1,682,100 people attended papal events at the Vatican, according to ZENIT News’s compilation of data from the Prefecture. The last time the attendance figure surpassed 3 million was in 2016.