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PAKISTAN: Your support sustains us in our hour of need, bishop tells benefactors
By John Pontifex
Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, Peter Sefton-Williams (chairman of the charity's board of trustees), Neville Kyrke-Smith, Bishop Joseph Coutts and Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Friends and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need have received a heartfelt thank you from Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad in Pakistan, who told them how their prayers and support are desperately needed at a time of increasing suffering for Christians and other minorities.
Speaking at the annual Aid to the Church in Need Westminster Event on Saturday, 17th October, Bishop Coutts told a packed Westminster Cathedral Hall that the faithful in Pakistan were enormously encouraged by the charity’s ongoing aid.
At the climax of his keynote address, Bishop Coutts said: “Aid to the Church in Need is very special in that it not only provides material help but gives spiritual help.
“We feel very encouraged when we know that we are not alone, when we see that there is somebody behind us, helping us, praying for us.”
Listen to Bishop Coutts’s keynote speech
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Listen to questions and answers with Bishop Coutts
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Bishop Coutts, who has received death threats for his efforts towards inter-faith cooperation, went on to underline that Christians were under greater threat than ever because of worsening oppression and a rise in religious extremism.
He said: “We [Christians] always experienced some form of discrimination but what we are seeing now is far more serious. We are living in a state of constant tension.
“But,” he added, “we will continue to give witness to Christ despite the difficulties that come from extremists. Even our suffering is a witness to Christ.”
The bishop said the problems for Pakistan’s three million Christians centred on “the misuse” of the country’s notorious Blasphemy Laws whereby the faithful are targeted by extremist mobs enraged by alleged offences against the prophet Mohammed and the Qur’an.
The day began with Mass celebrated by Bishop Coutts in Westminster Cathedral and continued in the cathedral hall, where 400 Aid to the Church in Need supporters heard Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster welcome Bishop Coutts.
Praising Aid to the Church in Need’s “remarkable” founder, Father Werenfried van Straaten, who died in 2003, Archbishop Nichols said: “I want to thank and encourage Aid to the Church in Need for the work that it does, especially in countries like Pakistan where the Church is in great need of help.”
He described the charity as having a “very specific and precisely Catholic character,” and underlined the importance of “charity rooted in a sense of shared faith but expressed through practical help and maintained through prayer and love”.
Father Martin Edwards, Aid to the Church in Need’s Ecclesiastical Assistant, gave a meditation on the Year for Priests as proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI and the papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate.
Aid to the Church in Need UK National Director Neville Kyrke-Smith then went on to introduce Bishop Coutts who concluded his talk by being invited by the charity’s Head of Fundraising and Marketing, Patricia Hatton, to formally launch the new Aid to the Church in Need UK website.
The event also featured a talk about the priorities and challenges facing Aid to the Church in Need’s projects department, given by Regina Lynch, the charity’s Head of Projects.
Mr Kyrke-Smith reported back on his recent trip to Russia and the charity’s UK Head of Press and Information, John Pontifex, described his visit to both north and south Sudan where he said there were continuing tensions and problems despite the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, the Apostolic Administrator of the Apostolic Exarchate of Ukrainian Greek Catholics in Great Britain, read out a message of thanks to Aid to the Church in Need written by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
During his week-long visit to the UK at the invitation of Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Coutts presided at the opening of the charity's new office in Motherwell, Scotland, and had meetings with the Foreign Office, politicians and Church leaders as well as BBC, STV and other media interviews.
Reflecting on Bishop Coutts’s visit to the UK, Mr Kyrke-Smith said: “It is a great encouragement to the friends of Aid to the Church in Need to know that our prayers and help for oppressed Christians in Pakistan are deeply appreciated in today’s polarised world where faith is so much under attack.
“Aid to the Church in Need is helping to carry the cross.”