Statement on the massacre in Nigeria
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
With a heart weighed down by sorrow and righteous anger, I join the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, in mourning the brutal massacre that took place in Benue State, Nigeria. Nearly 200 souls—many of them our own brothers and sisters in Christ, internally displaced and seeking refuge in the arms of the Church—were savagely slaughtered in Yelwata, Guma, during the night of June 13th.
They were not soldiers. They were not armed. They were poor. They were vulnerable. And they were targeted.
Let us be absolutely clear: this was not merely a tragedy. It was a targeted massacre of innocent Christians, many of whom had already lost everything. And they were murdered while under the shelter of the Church.
How long, O Lord? How long will the world remain silent as the blood of martyrs cries out from the soil of Africa?
We cannot look away. We cannot remain silent.
To the faithful of Benue—especially the survivors: we see you. We grieve with you. And we stand with you. The Body of Christ is one. When one member suffers, all suffer. Your blood is the seed of faith; your perseverance is a rebuke to the comfortable; your tears are mingled with the tears of Our Lady, who stood at the foot of the Cross.
I call on the Nigerian government to fulfill its sacred duty: to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. Justice delayed is justice denied. And when Christians are slaughtered in their hundreds with impunity, it is not only a failure of governance—it is a scandal before Heaven.
I call on governments around the world, especially in the West, to open their eyes to this ongoing persecution. Christian blood is being spilled in Nigeria with alarming regularity—and yet, the world’s conscience remains dormant.
Let us not be numbered among those who looked away. Let us not be the priest or the Levite who passed by on the other side. No. Let us be the Samaritan. Let us kneel in prayer. Let us fast in reparation. Let us raise our voices and demand truth, justice, and peace.
To my fellow shepherds in the episcopate: if we do not cry out now, we are complicit in the silence.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced and bleeding still, hold the martyrs of Benue close. And may the Immaculate Heart of Mary wrap the survivors in her mantle of consolation.
Let us pray:
“Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.”
— Psalm 30:16
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
In Christ our King,
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
When I taught a course on peacemaking in the seminary, a few of my seminarian students were from Africa, from Kenya and Nigeria. (And the same was true with a workshop I presented for new priests to the U.S.) To a one they demonstrated a devotion that was remarkably strong—and they were taken aback by the devotional laxity we find in our nation. The sentiments expressed by Bishop Strickland should find their way into the seminaries. There is great value to be achieved in our seminary training taking on an international "catholic " flavor. If we do not have a strong internal peacemaking foundation, we can do little to change the situation in this world.
PLEASE PRESIDENT TRUMP 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 The horrific scale of the massacre of Catholics in Nigeria drew a reaction from a Catholic religious freedom advocate in Washington, Jacqueline Halbig von Schleppenbach. “All accounts of those on the ground note that this is the bloodiest massacre on record. The military was aware this was happening and did nothing!” von Schleppenbach texted to TruthNigeria. “They did not show up until the massacre ended,” she continued. “The time is now for the Trump administration to name Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) and for the US Congress to pass H.R. 220 in support of the State Department’s CPC previous designation,” according to von Schleppenbach, Principal Consultant Sovereign Global Solutions, LLC, a public affairs firm focusing on international religious freedom and human rights.