Christian Persecution 2019 a Scourge of ‘Mammoth Proportions’

June 2019 is an “especially menacing time” for Christians both on the domestic and international fronts, writes Christian persecution expert John L. Allen in a report Sunday.

The U.S. Catholic Church is facing “one of the most serious potential violations of religious freedom in its history in the form of SB 360 in California,” writes Allen, author of the 2013 bestseller The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution, since the bill would compel priests to reveal information learned while hearing confessions as evidence against possible sex offenders.

“The bill passed the California senate in late May by a 30-2 vote and is expected to be considered by the State Assembly in September,” Allen notes.

On the international scene, “the scope of anti-Christian hostility is staggering,” Allen continues, with the number of Christians facing “harassment, physical assault, arrest and imprisonment, torture, and even death” on a daily basis estimated at around 200 million.

Longest-serving US prisoner dies at 101 after escaping death penalty 8 times

Charter plane crashes near remote radar site in western Alaska, killing all 8 aboard

Video: Teenage Girl Charged with Assault After Attacking Middle School Football Player During Game

Jury awards teens $550K after Oregon amusement park ride left them hanging upside down: report

Fake Hate: School Board Member Created Story About HS Football Coach – Took Years and $350k in Legal Fees for Truth to Surface

Surrogate says baby ‘ripped away’ 60 seconds after birth as custody fight erupts after abortion refusal

Watch: Scott Jennings Goes Nuclear on Democrats ‘Punching Down’ on Top Trump Aide

Vice President JD Vance blasts Mamdani, El-Sayed, AOC and Ossoff in rapid-fire TikTok roast

Lindsay Clancy Blamed ‘A Male Voice’ for Ordering Her to Kill Her Children: Court Testimony

Newspaper Columnist Quits After Editors Kill Story on a Teen Sophie Cunningham Fan Who Thanked Her for ‘Speaking Up for Girls’

Carville unloads on DSA socialists: ‘Don’t use our god—- name’

Bodycam video shows Oklahoma secretary of state’s arrest outside McDonald’s on public intoxication allegation

Obama strategist turns on rising Dem star over viral Trump attack: ‘Gratuitous and unnecessary’

Republicans Score Crucial Court Win on Redistricting Just Before Midterms

El-Sayed booked for major Islamic convention alongside clerics with radical pasts

Christians in North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and a host of other countries live under a constant threat of active persecution, as documented by Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog group.

Even in Latin America, the world’s largest “Catholic” region, the number of Catholic clergy and personnel killed each year frequently tops the list of continents.

While the defense of religious freedom should apply equally to all creeds, Allen asserts, anti-Christian persecution deserves particular focus “given the wall of silence that still too often surrounds the subject.”

“Just as one didn’t have to be Jewish to sympathize with the plight of dissident Jews in the Soviet Union, and didn’t have to be black to be outraged by apartheid in South Africa, similarly today one shouldn’t have to be Christian to recognize anti-Christian persecution as a human rights scourge of mammoth proportions,” Allen writes.

Saturday marked the beginning of the U.S. bishops’ yearly “Religious Freedom Week,” which runs this year from June 22-29.