New report says extremism is forcing Christians from their homes
Aid to the Church in Need’s 2024–2026 report finds that persecution has worsened in 10 of the 18 countries surveyed, driving Christians from their homes. At least one million Christians have been displaced in Nigeria, while extremist violence is also forcing people to flee in Burkina Faso and Sudan; the report describes sub-Saharan Africa as one of the world’s most dangerous regions for Christians. The report documents state repression and other persecution in China, Nicaragua, Iran, India, and Pakistan, including restrictions on churches, arrests, attacks, and forced conversions. Christian leaders warn that Syria’s Christian population has fallen by 80 percent since 2011; ACN says persecution is reshaping communities and calls for greater international attention.
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A new report by Aid to the Church in Need says violence and religious persecution are driving Christians from their homes, with conditions worsening in 10 of the 18 countries it examined. It describes displacement in conflict zones alongside pressure and repression by governments, and identifies parts of Africa and Asia as areas of particular concern. 1
The report says at least one million Christians have been displaced from their homes in Nigeria. It also identifies extremist violence as a cause of displacement in Burkina Faso and Sudan; in Burkina Faso, militant Islamist groups have seized 40 percent of the country’s landmass, and one diocese saw 2,000 people leave within a year. 1
It describes sub-Saharan Africa as one of the world’s most dangerous regions for Christians, citing attacks in northern Nigeria, the Sahel and Mozambique. The report says six of the 10 highest-ranked countries in the Global Terrorism Index are in Africa. 1
In Syria, church leaders warn that the decline in the Christian population poses an existential threat; the article reports that the population has fallen by 80 percent since 2011. 1
The report also documents restrictions and repression by state authorities. It says underground churches in China face tighter government control, Christian leaders in Nicaragua have been exiled or imprisoned, and arrests of Christians in Iran have doubled. In India, it links attacks on Christians to anti-conversion laws and Hindutva nationalism. 1
In Pakistan, the report points to blasphemy laws and the forced conversion and marriage of Christian girls as sources of fear. Peter Bhatti, brother of Pakistani Catholic politician Shahbaz Bhatti, said Christians live under a “constant threat from extremism”; he alleged that girls are abducted and sexually assaulted before forced marriage and conversion are used to obscure the crimes. 1
John Pontifex, head of press and public affairs for Aid to the Church in Need in the United Kingdom, said persecution is driving communities from their homes and changing the religious makeup of some regions. He called the continuing oppression of Christians a human-rights catastrophe and said it remains insufficiently acknowledged internationally. 1
The report, Persecuted and Forgotten? A report on Christians oppressed for their faith 2024–2026, is the tenth edition of a series launched in 2006. 1
Religious persecution, forced displacement, and the Church’s duty to protect human dignity
Religious persecution and forced displacement are not merely political crises or humanitarian emergencies: they assault the dignity, freedom, and social life of persons and communities. Catholic teaching therefore calls the Church both to defend religious liberty publicly and to accompany displaced people through practical care. That duty extends to refugees of every religion and ethnicity, because their dignity does not depend on their beliefs, nationality, or usefulness to others. The materials available here do not identify a particular crisis, so they support a moral analysis rather than conclusions about specific events or responsibility.
The Church understands religious liberty as more than permission to hold private beliefs or worship in private. It includes the freedom to live publicly, individually and with others, according to one’s religious convictions, within due limits. Pope Francis grounds this freedom in the human person’s dignity and capacity to seek truth; he also argues that public authorities should recognize and protect it.
This is why persecution is not simply an unfair restriction on a group’s customs. Coercing people to renounce their faith, preventing them from worshipping or teaching their children, or punishing them for publicly professing their beliefs attacks a basic human freedom and can wound the person’s spiritual and communal life. John Paul II warned that when people cannot express, share, or practice their convictions freely, human dignity itself is endangered.
“It is unacceptable that real persecution is actually sustained for reasons of religious affiliation! Wars as well! This distorts reason, attacks peace and humiliates human dignity.”
The force of this statement is its breadth: religious persecution is condemned as an affront to human dignity and peace, not only when Christians are its victims. Catholic witness must therefore oppose persecution consistently, including when the victims belong to other religious communities. The Church’s interreligious principles expressly call Christians to denounce religious persecution and the political exploitation of religion.
When persecution drives people from their homes, the loss is more than geographic. Displacement can separate people from family, livelihood, language, community, and familiar patterns of life. Pope John XXIII recognized the hardships faced by those forced to leave their homeland because of religious persecution or intolerable conditions, including the difficulties of adjusting to life in a foreign country.
A refugee crisis also reveals a wider failure of solidarity. A Church document describes the suffering of refugees as a wound that exposes conflict and imbalance in the modern world. It calls the Church to assist them without distinctions of religion or race, recognizing in each person an inalienable dignity rooted in being created in God’s image. Thus, even when religious persecution is the cause of flight, assistance must not be limited to those who share the Church’s faith. Christian concern for victims is grounded in their humanity, not a requirement that they convert or reciprocate.
This also helps distinguish two related obligations. Religious freedom must be defended, because people should not be coerced in matters of faith; and displaced people must be cared for, because flight leaves people in need of protection and support. The first concerns the rights and conditions that persecution violates; the second responds to the human beings suffering its consequences. Neither replaces the other.
The Church’s response has both a public and a practical dimension. Publicly, she must name violations of religious freedom and defend the rights of believers and communities. John Paul II described safeguarding human dignity and inalienable rights—particularly religious freedom—as a task the Church must not neglect. John XXIII likewise spoke of a duty to defend the rights of the faithful and to seek lawful freedom, while insisting that prosperity need not be secured through violence or the oppression of people’s minds and hearts.
That public witness should be principled rather than partisan. The Church’s claim is not that religious communities may do anything without legal limits, nor that the state should impose a religion. Rather, the supplied teaching describes religious freedom as a basic right that should be protected in public as well as private life, while also emphasizing mutual respect and cooperation for the common good. Christians are called to denounce persecution wherever it occurs, including when religion is manipulated for political purposes.
Practically, the Church’s concern means serving displaced people in their concrete needs and treating them as persons, not as a burden, statistic, or instrument of political argument. The refugee text emphasizes love and assistance without distinctions of religion or race, and says that placing human dignity and people’s needs first helps overcome injustice. The excerpts do not prescribe a particular program or specify how resources should be allocated in any one emergency; those decisions require knowledge of the circumstances. But the principle is clear: aid must be shaped by respect for each person’s dignity.
Care for refugees and opposition to persecution belong together. Emergency assistance responds to the immediate suffering of those who have fled; advocacy seeks to defend the freedom and rights whose violation may have forced them to flee. The Church’s concern should therefore remain attentive both to displaced people and to those who cannot safely leave or return. John XXIII’s concern included people driven into exile as well as bishops, priests, and laypeople restrained or imprisoned for refusing to abandon their faith and responsibilities.
The Catholic response is not to reduce religious liberty to a privilege for Christians, or humanitarian care to a reward for those who share Christian convictions. Religious freedom belongs to human dignity, and the Church’s service to refugees is owed without distinctions of religion or race. Taken together, these principles call the Church to protect the freedom to believe and worship, speak truthfully about persecution, and stand in solidarity with people whose homes and lives have been shattered by it.