VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is under fire for remarks that downplay the terror attacks that Christians in Nigeria have been suffering at the hands of Islamic extremists for decades.
Parolin was the keynote speaker for an event held at the Vatican on Tuesday. The gathering focused on the recently released 2025 Religious Freedom Report published by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
ACN surveyed 196 countries for its report. It found that just under two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries with “serious or very serious violations of religious freedom.” Twenty-four countries, including Nigeria, received the “worst” category in its report: persecution.
The report notes that “organized crime is a key driver of persecution or discrimination” in Nigeria. It also found that persecution in Nigeria “results from a combination of authoritarian governance and religious extremism.”
“Nigeria has experienced a sharp rise in religiously motivated violence, especially in the North and the Middle Belt,” it recalls. “Armed groups like Boko Haram, ISWAP, and radicalized Fulani herdsmen have targeted churches, villages and religious leaders, leading to widespread displacement, land seizures, and attacks on Christian communities.”
“Nigeria witnessed a surge in religiously motivated violence between January 2023 and December 2024” it adds, noting that “religious freedom in Nigeria is under assault from jihadist attacks, sectarian conflict, and poor state protection.”
Despite the ACN report’s clear findings, Parolin diminished the influence that Islam has played in the attacks.
The violence is “not a religious conflict, but rather more a social one, for example, disputes between herders and farmers. We should also recognize that many Muslims in Nigeria are themselves victims of this same intolerance,” he claimed. Parolin also argued that, “these are extremist groups that make no distinctions in pursuing their goals. They use violence against anyone they see as an opponent.”
Parolin’s comments prompted many prominent persons to issue statements on social media.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who served as apostolic nuncio to Nigeria from 1992 until 1998, denounced Parolin’s remarks as yet another sign of the hierarchy betraying faithful Catholics.
“The shameful words of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin on the alleged ‘social conflict’ in Nigeria misrepresent the reality of a ferocious and genocidal persecution against Catholics, martyred while Rome rambles on about synodality and inclusiveness,” His Excellency remarked. “No, Your Eminence: Nigerian Catholics are being killed in hatred of the Faith they profess, by Muslims and in obedience to the Koran. Those same Muslims who are transforming your churches into mosques, with your cowardly and courtesan complicity, and who will soon overthrow governments to impose Sharia law on the ‘infidels.’”
I am well aware of and carry in my heart every day the suffering and persecution of Nigerian Catholics, having lived in Nigeria for six years, from 1992 to 1998, as Apostolic Nuncio.
The shameful words of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin on the alleged “social… pic.twitter.com/R49xkcuKSc
— Arcivescovo Carlo Maria Viganò (@CarloMVigano) October 22, 2025
Carl Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, also expressed dismay.
“This is embarrassing, insulting, angering, and worse,” he remarked, while sharing a list of incidents his website has published in years past that clearly show the attacks that Boko Haram and other Islamist groups have carried out on Christians in the country are motivated by their religious views.
This is embarrassing, insulting, angering, and worse.
Meanwhile, over @cworldreport, where I am Editor, we’ve had the following pieces, almost all from the last year and most by correspondents in/near Nigeria:
• “Nigeria bishop addresses the evils of Islamist extremism at… https://t.co/zPEdQ6Yw3y
— Carl E. Olson (@carleolson) October 21, 2025
Olson further shared an in-depth report published in April 2024 for his website about the violence in the country.
“Year after year, Islamic extremists in Nigeria have been perpetrating massacres. And, year after year, major media outlets in the West tend to frame these incidents as general banditry or climate change-related land struggles between largely Muslim herders and largely Christian farmers,” the article reads. “However, a series of murderous attacks on Nigerian Christians over the Christmas 2023 holiday left virtually no doubt as to the presence of religious motivation. Violence between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria extends back to the early 1950s, but became more prevalent in the 1980s.”
A Catholic from Nigeria on X also expressed profound frustration with Parolin’s comments.
“As a Nigerian Catholic, this is a slap on our face. Numerous priests, religious sisters, seminarians and parishioners have been killed and kidnapped over the years in a systemic manner. Political correctness will be the end of the church in the west,” he remarked.
As a Nigerian Catholic, this is a slap on our face. Numerous priests, religious sisters, seminarians and parishioners have been killed and kidnapped over the years in a systemic manner. Political correctness will be the end of the church in the west.
— Ade (@philstinction48) October 21, 2025
Others said they were happy that Parolin was not chosen as pope earlier this year.
This guy really thought he was going to be Pope. And I’m glad, every day, that he’s not. https://t.co/ld08ErnS8E
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) October 22, 2025
Attacks on Christians in Nigeria have grown exponentially in recent years, so much so that atheist comedian Bill Maher expressed sympathy for them during a recent episode of his HBO program.
“The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar – it’s pretty amazing,” he said. “They are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches.”
As previously noted by LifeSiteNews contributor Jonathan Van Maren, Christians in Nigeria have faced sporadic persecution since the 1950s, but since 2000 have seen wave after wave of violence that has essentially become a slow-motion genocide. Persecution of Christians in Nigeria began to spike after 1999, when 12 northern states adopted Sharia law. The rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram in 2009 marked a dramatic escalation in attacks. Famously, the group kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in 2014; 87 of them are still listed as “missing.”
Recent attacks in Nigeria have witnessed the abduction and even murder of Catholic priests and seminarians. In a July press release, the Diocese of Auchi in Edo State reported that several gunmen attacked the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary, killing one security guard and kidnapping three seminarians.
The incident marked the second time the seminary was attacked within a year. On October 27, 2024, assailants attacked the seminary and attempted to abduct two seminarians. In a courageous act, Father Thomas Oyode, the seminary’s rector, offered himself in their place. As a result, Oyode was held captive for a total of 11 days before being released.
In August, Islamic militants attacked a Christian village, killing three and injuring several more, this just two months after Islamists massacred over 200 people in the same area. The assault targeted a community which was nearly 100 percent Christian and consisted mostly of subsistence farmers.
Findings published by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) highlight many of the state-sponsored attacks on Christians in the country. In its 2025 report, the USCIRF urged the U.S. government to designate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern.” It also noted that “the Nigerian government remains slow or, at times, appears unwilling to respond to this violence, creating an environment of impunity for the attackers.”
The situation in Nigeria has deteriorated so much that the 2025 Global Christian Relief (GCR) Red List report named Nigeria as one of the most dangerous places for Christians in the entire world. The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law reported in spring 2023 that over 50,000 have been killed in the country for their Christian faith since 2009.
