Vatican’s Campaign For U.N.’s Recognition Of ‘Christianophobia’ Receives Mixed Responses

Vatican City – In the world of human rights advocacy, anti–Semitism and the more recently coined, "Islamophobia" are the subject of hundreds of books, international conventions, even treaties and agreements between governments. But the anti–Christian sentiments that have grown up in the years since the second world war, have often passed without comment or censure. The phenomenon is now being brought out in the open in the international realm by the Vatican's foreign minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, who gave a speech at a conference in Rome.

However, the Vatican diplomatic campaign to have "Christianophobia" or anti–Christian sentiments recognized as an evil equal to hatred of Jews and Muslims is causing concern among some Christian activists and diplomats who draft new human rights rules.

The discreet drive, which the Roman Catholic Church first mentioned in public recently, seeks official recognition by the United Nations and other international organizations of discrimination against and persecution of Christians.

The Vatican is pressing this point despite two setbacks this year when the European Union refused to refer to the continent's Christian heritage in its new constitution and turned down a traditionalist Catholic as a new commissioner.

In discussing religious bias, the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva now speaks of "anti–Semitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia" – terms the current General Assembly in New York is due to approve later in December.

"Obviously we have seen many countries where Christian minorities are in danger, but we don't think this is the appropriate way to ensure protection," said Alessandra Aula of Franciscans International, a Catholic pressure group.

"What we fear is that this is the way to start eroding universal human rights," Aula said. "You will then have Sikhs and Buddhists and all the others coming and claiming rights. Where does it end?"

This campaign has been so discreet that the term was hardly known until the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said last week that the Holy See had insisted that the UN list it along with anti–Semitism and Islamophobia.

"It should be recognized that the war against terrorism, even though necessary, had as one of its side–effects the spread of 'Christianophobia' in vast areas of the globe," he told a US–organized conference on religious freedom in Rome.

In fact, it is axiomatic in the pro–life community that any sort of bigotry and intolerance is forbidden unless it is pointed at Christians. So many examples are illustrative of the problem, but it became front page news last year when secularist groups attacked Mel Gibson's film the Passion of the Christ – even before it had been released – on the sole grounds that it was an unambiguous presentation of the Christian view of the death of Christ.

Archbishop Lajolo said that in its relations with the UN, the Vatican was attempting to make international bodies aware of the problem of what he called, "Christianophobia." The uproar at the European Parliament over some comments made by an Italian candidate for the European Commission that reflected a Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality is a case in point. Radical secularists in power in the EU hounded a man out of high office on the grounds that he was a Christian.

Lajolo echoed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a leading contender to be the next Pope, who said, after the EU's refusal to recognize the Christian heritage of Europe in its Constitution, parts of Europe were now so secularized that Christianity is "being pushed to the margins."

He also said Christianity was often mistakenly seen as being inextricably linked with Western political policy, and had suffered as a result in the backlash against the West.

His comments, at a conference in Rome, were primarily aimed at Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, where insurgents have bombed a number of churches.

Speaking to reporters after his speech, the archbishop, however, added that anti–Christian and anti–Catholic sentiments were not only to be found in Muslim countries. Hostility also existed in India and other Asian nations where Church–sponsored schools or charities were perceived as thinly–veiled attempts at proselytism.

The World Council of Churches, which is also based in Geneva and unites more than 340 Protestant and Orthodox churches around the globe, said it was not consulted on the new term.

"There is always a risk with these kinds of labels," said WCC international affairs director Peter Weiderud. "It's not helpful to look at the problem as one religion against another."

In the US, a major evangelical Protestant publisher and a prominent religious rights activist also said they had never heard the term.

The Vatican has suggested that the Organization for Security and Co–operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna include Christianophobia as an evil to be monitored, diplomats there say. But the OSCE's annual session that was under way in Sofia, Bulgaria in December, was unlikely to fully back that.

"We don't want any more terms ending in 'phobia'," a diplomat there said. "Once you single out something beyond racism and xenophobia, you have to list so many of them."

Doudou Diene, the UN special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia, said specifying certain religions was acceptable if the universal nature of religious discrimination was also noted. He said the problem arose because some countries tried "to put a hierarchy among different forms of discrimination".

Vatican officials say they could not stand aside while Judaism and Islam got special attention at the UN, which demands regular status reports from member countries on issues recognized as problems of international concern.

A US Jesuit expert on religious freedom noted that Christian minorities were persecuted in countries like Pakistan and India.

"I think there is Christianophobia out there and it's not recognized," said Drew Christiansen, deputy editor of America magazine in New York. "Christians have a sense of being a privileged majority, so we don't see ourselves as victims."

But even he had to confess he had not heard the term Christianophobia until the Human Rights Commission invited him to discuss the issue at a meeting in November.