The long road to Christian unity in Pakistan

The general election is due in Pakistan this year, and Christian voters are expected to present their demands to political parties for a better, secure future in the elusive pluralistic state.

Some of their expectations are on display at the revamped St. John Catholic Church, one of the 26 churches attacked by Muslim mobs on Aug. 16 in Jaranwala, Punjab province. More than 80 Christian homes were also vandalized.

Some of their demands, posted in the form of sticky notes pasted under a Station of the Cross, range from the safety of young Christian girls who are abducted, forcibly married to Muslim men and converted to Islam, to restoring Christian institutions to their past glory and improving living conditions inside Christian colonies.

Stories of intolerance towards Christians, who make up just 1.27 percent of the 230 million overwhelmingly Muslim population, have been well documented over decades. But are the Christian denominations themselves united?

Every year, the Prayer Week for Christian Unity is observed from Jan. 18 to 25 with prayers, hymns, and ecumenical dinners for the church leaders.

“We will celebrate it as if all is well. Whereas the fact is nothing is well. We talk for eight days but for the rest of the days of the year, we remain divided,” said Father Bonnie Mendes, former executive secretary of the Catholic bishops’ National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP).

The reasons for the divisions are many, according to him. The divide within the Catholic Church of Pakistan was bad enough but now we have splinter churches making it worse. The split into very small neighborhood Churches has resulted in one preaching against the other.

The leaders of these small church groups spend time attacking each other on social media rather than doing something positive on the ground. Their followers can log on and watch the fighting. The Churches are divided so the faithful remain divided.

“There is no light at the end of the tunnel. It is the sad truth,” Mendes regretted.

The NCJP was instrumental in restoring the 2002 joint electorate system, under which the country's some 4 million minority voters, mostly Christians and Hindus, are expected to elect their local representatives in the national and provincial assemblies at the elections. This year's elections are scheduled for Feb. 8.

In the 342-seat National Assembly, only 10 seats are set aside for ethnic and religious minorities. The electoral system lets Muslim political parties select minority candidates in proportion to the general seats they have bagged in the elections. The party winning less than 5 percent of the general seats does not have this right.

Archbishop Joseph Arshad of Islamabad-Rawalpindi has demanded direct voting to choose MPs in Pakistan. "The aspirations of religious minorities should be taken into account in elections. All political parties should bring forth minority candidates on general seats,” he argued.

Many Christians would want the election commission and political parties to provide religious minorities a chance to participate as candidates in the national and provincial assembly elections rather than selecting them at their whims and fancies.

But Christians remain divided here as well. Some groups support the joint electorate system and see the demand for direct participation in elections as an attempt to grab power and money. This has weakened the will to forge unity for the collective good of the persecuted community.

“Unity is our biggest need. The goal for the year 2024 should be to collaborate. Let us set targets and achieve them together,” said Bishop Azad Marshall, moderator of the Church of Pakistan, while addressing the annual Christmas Program of Christian Journalists on Dec. 14.

But despite suffering major attacks over the years, Christians remain divided. The clergy, intellectuals and activists from one denomination avoid attending other’s events. Internal power struggles, competition to get overseas funding and a race for resources result in division.

Historically, the community was broadly divided in two. The English-speaking Goans, concentrated in Karachi Archdiocese were one, and the Urdu or Punjabi-speaking Christians, mostly descendants of former socially poor Dalits, were the other. Some of these socially poor managed to get higher education and became elites.

As one Christian leader put it, “The love for Prophet Muhammad unites the Muslims. We also have common grounds like our faith elements, but lack a national leadership.”

The divide was no more conspicuous at the high-profile meeting of Church leaders with Pakistan Army’s Chief General Syed Asim Munir at the General Headquarters, Rawalpindi last September to discuss the fallout of the Jaranwala attacks.

The delegates included leaders of all mainstream churches recognized by the Pakistan government, except Catholic bishops. I was told by the president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference, that the Catholic bishops could not attend it as they had to attend the reception of Archbishop Germano Penemote, the Ambassador-designate of the Holy See, on the same day in Islamabad.

For the record, Rawalpindi is a twin city of Pakistan's capital Islamabad.

Participation of even a single Catholic representative could have sent a powerful message of solidarity, not only within the Christian community but also to the de-facto power center of the security state.

The Rawalpindi-based Christian Study Centre remains the only ecumenical institution supported by both the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Similarly, the Ecumenical Commission for Human Development in Lahore is the only charity that works in partnership with five major denominations.

More such examples of visible Christian unity could set a good example. After all, a divided Christian community serves the interests of the religiously biased state.

Pakistani Christians lack the unity required to assert their rights and negotiate effectively with government authorities. Church leaders must find ways to break the schism and silence within.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

By Kamran Chaudhry
Source: https://www.ucanews.com/news