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….Says Holy See’s Inconsistencies Endanger 113 Million Nigerian Christians And 2.4 Billion Others Worldwide

In a scathing and unprecedented statement issued on Christ the King Day, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) declared that strong suspicions have emerged linking Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, to what it describes as the Holy See’s dangerous doublespeak regarding the systematic massacre of Christians in Nigeria.

According to Intersociety, the Vatican’s increasingly contradictory public messaging on the atrocities—messaging that began on October 21, 2025—has not only undermined global advocacy for persecuted Christians but has also placed Nigeria’s estimated 113 million Christians, including 60 million Catholics, as well as the world’s 2.4 billion Christians and 1.4 billion Catholics, at heightened risk.

The statement was signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, the board chair, a criminologist and researcher; Chidinma Evangeline Udegbunam, Head of Campaign and Publicity; and Comrade Samuel Kamanyaoku, Head of Field Data Collection and Documentation.

Intersociety expressed deep worry and dismay over what it calls a disturbing alignment between the Vatican’s recent statements and the Nigerian Government’s long-standing narrative denying the ongoing Christian persecution and genocide perpetrated across Nigeria.

The group explained that the Holy See’s stance sharply contradicts its own historical foundation as the first global defender of religious freedom, recalling that International Religious Freedom was proclaimed as the “First Human Right” in 313 AD through the Edict of Milan under Popes Constantine and Licinius.

The organisation said the Vatican’s contradictions became most evident during the October 21, 2025 launch of the 1,248-page 2025 Religious Freedom Report by Aid to the Church in Need in Rome and the Vatican.

Intersociety alleged that Cardinal Parolin and Father Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto “extraneously delved into the direct opposite” of the report’s findings during the event. The report had clearly established Nigeria as one of the worst countries in the world to be a Christian, yet the duo were accused of publicly downplaying the nation’s severe religious persecution and defending the Nigerian Government’s position that “there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria.”

Intersociety added that the duo’s actions derailed the core message of the widely referenced report, which featured victims of persecution and religious leaders who had gathered to highlight one of the most pressing human rights challenges of the modern era.

The group said that since the Rome event, the Vatican has issued a series of contradictory statements amounting to speaking “from both sides of its mouth.” This confusion reached new heights when Pope Leo XIV, on November 17, 2025, listed Nigeria, Congo DRC, Sudan and Bangladesh among nations experiencing severe Christian persecution.

Yet, only three days later, Nigeria’s Daily Trust published a report claiming that the Pope had pushed back against the assertion that Christians in Nigeria were facing genocide, stating instead that violence in the country affects Christians, Muslims and other groups alike.

Intersociety maintains that this contradictory messaging reflects a false narrative crafted and aggressively exported by the Nigerian Government, which has also found replication in more than 300 local and international platforms reviewed since October 2025. These platforms include the Vatican itself, the Sharia Council, the Sultanate of Sokoto, the Muslim Rights Concern, certain United States Democratic Party interests, pro-government Christian and Muslim preachers, some leaders of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, leaders of Fulani bandit groups, Fulani cattle herder organisations, Northeast-based jihadist networks, and Nigerian Government functionaries including the Ministers of Information and Foreign Affairs as well as presidential advisers on communication.

Intersociety argued that the alleged collusion and doublespeak by the Vatican leadership—particularly under Cardinal Parolin who once served three years in the 1980s at the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos—has placed global Christianity at risk.

The organisation therefore issued a strong call for the immediate resignation of Cardinal Parolin as Vatican Secretary of State. It also announced the suspension of his official title, “His Eminence,” in all advocacy references and publications by the group until further notice. Intersociety further demanded that Pope Leo XIV remove or transfer Cardinal Parolin out of the Vatican if he fails to resign voluntarily, insisting that such action is necessary to halt the deterioration of global confidence in the Holy See’s moral leadership, declaring emphatically: “Catholicism is everybody’s property!”

The group drew global attention to a series of mass killings and abductions in Nigeria between September and November 2025 which it said were “worse than the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ Boko Haram abduction of 276 Christian girls.” It revealed that in just five days between November 17 and 21, 2025, political leadership-protected Islamic Fulani jihadists abducted 388 Christians, including 314 Christian school children, 12 teachers and 62 others, while killing scores more who remain unacknowledged and whose attackers remain untracked and uncaught.

These incidents included the November 17 abduction of a Catholic priest and ten others in Southern Kaduna; the abduction of 26 schoolgirls, including at least ten Christians, in Wasagu/Danko of Kebbi State on the same day; the abduction of 38 parishioners, including a pastor, of the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara State on November 18; the November 19 abduction of a Catholic Church leader in Southern Kaduna; the horrifying seizure of 315 persons—including 303 school children and 12 teachers—from a Catholic nursery, primary and secondary school in Agwara County of Niger State on November 21; and the abduction of 13 Christian women, including an elderly woman, by Boko Haram insurgents in Christian-held Askira-Uba in Southern Borno on November 20.

Intersociety reported that a total of 280 Christians were killed and 623 others abducted within the 90 days spanning September to November 2025. It said these figures were part of a larger and more troubling trend reflected in its August 10, 2025 report which found that more than 7,000 Christians had been killed by Islamic jihadists and approximately 7,800 others abducted within the first 220 days of 2025, from December 2024 to August 10, 2025.

The organisation added that the 280 Christians killed and 623 abducted in the three-month period included 100 killed and 120 abducted between the third week of August 2025 and October 26, 2025; as well as an additional 180 killed and 503 abducted by jihadist Fulani militants (90 percent) and Boko Haram insurgents (10 percent) between October 28 and November 21, 2025. In particular, it highlighted the killing of between 70 and 80 Christians in Ussa County and Chanchanji in Takum County of Taraba State.

In its November 19, 2025 statement, Intersociety had earlier reported that 115 Christians were killed and 170 abducted in the short three-week period between October 28 and November 17, 2025.

The organisation also issued special appreciation to several outspoken Catholic bishops, clergy and Christian leaders who have continued to raise alarm over what they describe as “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. These include the Catholic Bishops of Makurdi (Anagbe), Nsukka (Onah), Abakaliki (Nworie), Wukari (Nzukwein), Maiduguri (Bakeni), Kontagora (Bulus Yoha), the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (Christ Holy Church Bishop Okoh), Pastor Ezekiel Dachomo of Plateau State, Rev. Father Dogo Amadu of Taraba, Rev. Father Simanyian of Aye-Twar in Katsina-Ala, Benue State, Rev. Father Tobe Nnamani of Enugu State, Rev. Father Emefieani of Anambra State, and Anglican Canon Onyiuke of Enugu State, alongside other conscientious individuals and groups.

In sharp contrast, Intersociety strongly condemned what it described as the conspiratorial roles and public denials by certain leaders of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria and heads of major dioceses in Enugu, Owerri, Onitsha, Abuja, Awka, Ekwulobia, Jos, Sokoto, Umuahia, Nnewi and Lagos, among others.

The rights group concluded with a warning that Nigeria is facing a rapidly worsening security and humanitarian catastrophe. Intersociety insisted that unless there is an urgent shift in the Vatican’s stance backed by firm global action, the attacks on Christians in Nigeria will escalate further, threatening not only the nation’s Christian population but the integrity of global religious freedom advocacy.

StreetReporters.ng

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