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.

American woman missing after husband says she fell overboard, swept to sea during Bahamas boat trip: police

Newsom’s California rail project now expected to cost $126B, official admits, with still no tracks laid

Israel hits South Pars natural gas field as Trump deadline looms

Children of Illegal Aliens Linked to Attempted Bombing at U.S. Air Force Base

Martinez: Why President Trump’s War On Fraud Exposes National Scandal

Ceasefire proposal could reopen key oil route amid US-Iran tensions and more top headlines

Behind ‘No Kings’ St. Paul protest: $250K production machine equal to a Def Leppard concert

Lindsey Graham turns ire toward rivals at home amid Iran and DHS shutdown fallout

Iranian intelligence chief and militia commander among those killed in Israeli strikes

GOP races to pass ICE, Border Patrol funding bill as priorities pile up, divisions emerge

Why the Strait of Hormuz matters as Trump issues fresh ultimatum to Iran

Pair of Democrat lawmakers slam ‘blockade of fuel’ to Cuba, ‘economic bombing’ after visit to island

New Hampshire suspect who shot officer and triggered massive manhunt killed in police gunfight

Savannah Guthrie’s Easter message reveals anguish as mom missing 63 days

Greene says Trump isn’t Christian in slamming Easter threat to reopen Strait of Hormuz

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.