The CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONFERENCE OF THE PHILIPPINES joins Catholics everywhere in mourning the deaths of the Missionaries of Charity, the sisters, who died the death of martyrs in Yemen.  With the rest of the world, we express our profound regret at this outrage.  The Sisters were defenseless.  They were neither combatants, nor were they acting in behalf of any government.  They were serving God’s people, and were fulfilling the precepts of charity, living the lives of consecrated persons, when they were brutally cut down.

 

In this respect, the CBCP also calls on all governments to agree on the characterization of the attacks on Christians by extremists as “genocide”.  The assault on Christians is born out of hatred for their religion and is by no means sporadic and isolated.  More than enough Christian blood has been shed in this troubled part of the world to make it clear that the assailants are determined to decimate Christian populations and to make living conditions next to impossible, if not impossible for them.  By all recognized standards of international law, this is genocide, and should be dealt with the governments of the world as genocide.

 

We your bishops ask all Filipino Catholics to pray for the Sisters of Bl. Teresa’s order, but also to invoke their own prayerful intercession, for our faith teaches us that those who lay down their lives for the faith immediately share in the reward of the just.

 

 

(SGD)+ SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
    Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan
   President, CBCP

11 March 2016