Latest / The Catholic Current / Tehran’s War on Christianity (Gia Chacon) 5/7/26

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Tehran’s War on Christianity (Gia Chacon) 5/7/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current, with Father Robert Mottaig.
0:04
We do have to recover the sense that the fathers had of the danger of being Christian, because
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it is a danger.
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This is a real struggle that we're facing today.
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It may not be persecution, but man, something's going on, and we better respond the way our
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fathers did.
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Well, yeah, and you know, because otherwise we become God's frozen people.
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And you know, I think of Nietzsche, who was a madman, but not a stupid man, and he said,
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I'd be more inclined to believe in the Savior if the Christians, if the Christians looked
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and sounded like they were saved.
0:34
Praise be Jesus Christ.
0:35
This is Father Robert Mottaig of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic
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Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
0:42
You're listening to us from the station of La Crosse Studios, your local radio station,
0:46
the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
0:52
As always, let's start with prayer.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Almighty God, through the intercession of St. Ignatius Ola, we ask that you pour forth
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your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment, that we might hear your voice and obey your
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command.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Amen.
1:09
Well, friends, on again, off again, depending upon how you define those things, war with
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Iran, the United States, Israel, and the surrounding neighbors.
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It's in the news continually, rightly so, and its effects ripple across the world, and
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it should be talked about from a variety of angles, but there's one angle that I think
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doesn't get the attention it deserves, and it's what Tehran has been doing and is doing
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to Christians.
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I can make a very good case that the group that's the most abused around the world is
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Christians.
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And I'd like to talk about it for a variety of reasons, but I want to zoom in on what's
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going on with Christians in Iran and how the Tehran regime views Christians.
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So my returning guest is very well qualified to speak on that.
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She's a human rights advocate and founder of For the Martyrs, a leading voice for persecuted
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Christians worldwide.
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Gia Chacon, welcome back to The Catholic Current.
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Father, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for bringing attention continually
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to the crisis of Christian persecution around the world.
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I have a commitment, and I'm descended from a long line of Jesuit missionaries and martyrs,
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and I can't be silent about this.
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We know that the Iranian regime, under the various mullahs, has not necessarily been
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besties with the United States since about 1979 when I was in high school.
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But what about Christians there?
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We talk about things with Israel, we talk about terror, we talk about all sorts of things.
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We don't talk about Christians very much.
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What is the history of the present Ayatollah regime been with Christians since it took
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power in the 70s?
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Well, Christians have been persecuted since the Ayatollahs took power in the 70s.
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What's interesting is we see two prongs of their narrative against Christians.
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Number one is the outright hatred of Christians, calling them infidels, conversion away from
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Islam is a crime, punishable up until death, you cannot evangelize, distributing Bibles
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and Farsi is also a crime.
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So there's that angle.
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But there's also this narrative that Christianity is somehow a Trojan horse, so to speak, as
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excuse me, a Trojan horse for Western values being imported into Iran.
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So they kind of take it from those two angles, but they've been persecuted for decades.
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You know, it reminds me, I mean, I've done work in Asia.
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And one of the reasons that different regimes have an animus towards Christianity is because
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it's considered a Western invention and a covert way of, I don't know, bringing in the
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CIA or something outrageous like the education of women, and so on.
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So we've been viewed with suspicion.
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And sometimes it goes from unwelcome, the persecution gets kinetic, and people die.
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Can we talk about that, please?
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Yes.
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Not only is it pressure, because a lot of times when we are looking at countries in
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the Muslim world, perhaps we think of ISIS level persecution, where it's, you know, constant
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violence, church bombings, you know, attackers coming in and gunning down churches.
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So I think oftentimes we have that lens of persecution.
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However, when it comes from the government in the Middle East, it is immense pressure.
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They utilize the law and weaponize it against Christians, and then they'll imprison Christians
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and sentence them to death.
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So I actually knew a woman, I still know her, she's in the United States now, her name's Marzia.
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Her and her friend had a vision of Jesus and converted by themselves, then sought out the
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gospel, sought the Bible, sought to get connected to a community of believers.
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And they were so on fire for their faith after their conversion that they actually began
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to distribute Bibles and Farsi throughout Tehran.
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And these young girls, they were in their early 20s at the time, started handing Farsi
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New Testaments.
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And they were giving them to people on the street, they were putting them in mailboxes,
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and they actually distributed over 20,000 Bibles across Iran in just a short period
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of time.
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And when they were found out by the authorities, they were arrested, held in one of the most
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infamous prisons in the world, which is Evin Prison, where they, Tehran uses that basically
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as a dungeon and a place where people face unbelievable crimes against humanity.
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They're tortured, they're oftentimes beat, abused in ways that are just unbelievable,
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especially for Westerners to begin to grasp.
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So these women were held in Evin Prison along with one of their friends, and they were sentenced
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to death.
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Their crime was apostasy.
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So while she was in prison, the authorities were saying, if you just convert, if you just
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renounce your faith, if you just renounce Christ as Savior, we can let you go.
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And ultimately, one of her friends was sentenced to death.
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But this is just one of the tens of thousands of stories of Christians who are imprisoned
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by the government, and then either they disappear and are never heard from again, or they're
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just outrightly executed.
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Did I get it right?
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Tens of thousands?
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Yes, that's right.
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Tens of thousands over the many decades.
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So we don't always hear the stories of what is happening in these countries, because a
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lot of it, we have a disconnect from the communities underground.
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And again, for our listeners, I want them to understand, when we think of Iran, perhaps
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we're thinking of a primitive country, right?
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We're thinking, we're looking at it, we're saying their values are different than the
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West, it looks different, it looks underdeveloped.
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But the Iranian regime is very advanced in their approach to governance.
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And what I mean by that is that they are a dictatorship that uses advanced technology
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to monitor and control their citizens, especially Christians and then those who oppose the regime.
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So as part of that, they keep their citizens under control in terms of social media, in
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terms of what websites they can access.
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So a lot of the stories of imprisonment and execution haven't even effectively broke out
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of the Iranian regime's control of communications into the West.
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That's why we don't see a lot of what's happening there in the mainstream media.
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Well, I know Winston Churchill said that in any war, the first casualty is always the
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truth, and that if you want to clamp down on access to truth, you have to begin to clamp
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down on the internet, of course, all those forms of communications.
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And you know, our great trading partners, the Chinese, have really brought to a level
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of high science, you know, basically stalking their own citizens, monitoring all their communications
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and so on.
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We got about two minutes left in this segment.
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I imagine in this context, the church for the most part has to function underground.
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Is that correct?
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That's right.
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And in fact, Iran has the fastest growing underground church in the world.
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Wow.
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We're going to have to talk about why that is.
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See, the funny thing is, in the United States, especially with the college students that
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I taught for many years, Christianity was really the cult of self-esteem.
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I like Jesus because he helps me to feel good about myself.
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And I met many Catholic students at self-identified Catholic universities who describe their religious
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identity as Catholic, I guess, but you really can't fake it in Iran.
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You've really got to be all the way in or all the way out.
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Is that correct?
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That's right.
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In places like Iran and throughout the persecuted world, let's say in places like China and
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places like Pakistan and throughout the Middle East, in communist countries, when you make
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a decision to be Christian, you are making a life or death decision.
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And what happens is when you make that decision, yes, I'm willing to die for my faith, it changes
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how you live.
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And being Christian is your full identity.
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Sharing the gospel is your mission in life.
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It's incredible to see.
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And as a result of that, the church begins to grow, and that's what we see happening
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in Iran.
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Well, you know, I'm so very grateful to hear that there are people who are living the faith
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half-heartedly.
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I've talked about serving at a parish called, that I call St. Typicals, where people drag
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themselves to church as if they were going to the dentist to be tortured, and then they
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scramble out like the building is on fire the split second they think that they can
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leave, because apparently they just don't want to spend any time with God.
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And for people to say, I will stake my life on worshiping Christ, those people need to
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be heard from.
10:57
Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Gia Chacon
11:01
of For the Martyrs.
11:02
We're talking about Tehran's war on Christianity.
11:06
It's a story that needs to be heard, and it's a story that needs to be told, which
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Praise be Jesus Christ.
12:21
This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic
12:25
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My returning guest today is Gia Chacon.
12:58
She is founder of For the Martyrs, a leading voice for persecuted Christians worldwide.
13:03
We're talking about the suffering of Christians in Iran.
13:07
So if someone somehow hears of Gia, I've heard different reports from around the Muslim world
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that there's an astonishing number of people who are converting to the Lord.
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I've also heard talk that, you know, it's not a party for men or for women to live in
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the Muslim world.
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It's not the kind of thing that makes you happy.
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And people are turning to Christ.
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So what happens?
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Someone hears a gospel passage, gets a copy of a Bible.
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How does that conversion work?
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Yes.
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So there's two primary ways conversions are happening.
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And if we're speaking particularly about Iran, there was actually a study that was done where
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seven out of 10 Muslim background believers had a dream of Jesus that led to a conversion,
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which is really, really, I mean, just unbelievable and incredible.
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So Marziyeh, for example, the one I was sharing about in the beginning of the show.
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So she had a dream that led to Iran, but she's really not the only one.
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And there's an organization that we're friends with, led by a pastor.
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He's a Protestant pastor.
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His name is Fawad Mazri, and he leads an organization called the Crescent Project.
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And the Crescent Project's whole goal is to bring the gospel to the Muslim world.
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And so he meets underground believers in countries like Iran, but also like even Saudi Arabia,
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in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in countries where the Bible is so heavily restricted.
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And also, there's such a tight grip from the government on evangelism.
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So aside from the Bible being heavily restricted, we have very strong apostasy laws or blasphemy
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laws.
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So even saying Jesus Christ is Lord is considered blasphemy in a lot of these countries.
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So believers are risking their lives to share the gospel and to bring the joy and the life-changing
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experience of knowing Christ to Muslims throughout their country.
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So it's really incredible to see.
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And then we also have these breakthrough apps where they're apps that look like you are
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downloading something else.
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It could be something in Farsi, something in Arabic, but when you download it, it's actually
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a translation of the Bible that makes the Bible accessible.
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And then they have secret communities through these apps as well that are becoming accessible.
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So they're really evolving and becoming quite smart in their expansion of the community
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of underground believers.
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Dr. Jonathan Rafferty
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So I know that there are, again, lots of technological edges and dimensions to this.
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And that's why, for example, very strict control of the internet.
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And even if the war ends this afternoon, I think it's going to be difficult for the government
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to open up on internet and communications because of all the things that you've described.
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And at the same time, that has a financial impact as well.
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And I'm aware, too, that when times are difficult, governments look for a scapegoat.
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I know that in every war, civilians suffer.
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Civilians are suffering in Iran now.
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Is this heightening persecution, the sense of we've all got to stick together and you've
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got to watch those Christians?
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They're going to betray us.
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How has the current war affected the fate of Christians in Iran today?
17:05
Dr. Sarah Van Horne
17:06
In some cases, the answer would be yes.
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I would say what's happening in Iran is a little bit more nuanced because I've spoken
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to my contacts on the ground in Iran from the underground church, and they've said that
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they feel safer now during the war, during this extreme instability with bombs falling
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from the sky, they feel safer now than they did eight months ago, 10 months ago, or when
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the regime was at its full strength.
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So in some degree, yes, the Iranian regime is now cracking down on the protesters, the
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freedom fighters, those who oppose the regime as a whole.
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And part of that movement is our Christians.
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So yes, there are Christians who are being executed along with other civilians.
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But I think that at the same time, the church in Iran is very hopeful about their future.
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They're looking forward, you know, and praying, believing God that one day there will be an
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Iran where they can practice their faith freely and without fear.
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Dr. Peter T. Levitin
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Well, that's something that we all need to pray for as well.
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Can we talk, it sounds to me like it's house churches, it's a very underground,
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furtive way of living, kind of a Catamcombs approach to Christianity.
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Are there formal Christian structures?
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Is there a Catholic Diocese of Tehran, for example?
18:33
Dr. Melissa Nelson
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There are formal structures.
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There are Catholic churches.
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There are Orthodox churches that the government refers to as historic churches.
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So those are approved.
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And granted, while those are approved, they're heavily restricted.
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So, you know, what's being preached is being monitored.
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Homilies are being monitored.
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Priests are absolutely being watched very closely.
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And then if you are not part of the approved churches, then there are underground churches.
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So the underground church is really where we see the arms and hands of Christ moving
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because they're operating in that secrecy.
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So that's when we refer to the underground church, yes, it seems like it would be Catacombs,
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but really it just means the body of Christ operating to evangelize their communities
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and meet together without the watchful eye of the government.
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And it's very encouraging to see.
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And what's interesting is that the underground church in Iran is growing quickly,
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and it's led predominantly by young women.
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So the young women are so transformed by the gospel, so set on fire for their faith,
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that they're actually the ones going out like my friend Marzia and her friend,
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distributing the Bibles, sharing the gospel, holding Bible studies and living rooms.
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And what I will say, Father, is that it's very evangelical, the church that's growing in Iran,
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meaning Protestant.
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So I would love to see more of an underground Catholic community in Iran emerge as well.
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Jeff Sure.
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You know, I said I've done some missionary work myself that required a great deal of discretion
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because I would have some consequences to pay, but other people would have severe consequences
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to pay.
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But I'm mindful of a friend of mine who is a priest who worked in a very predominantly
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aggressively Muslim country, and when he would offer mass, it was like something out of a movie,
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he would go in one car and different elements of the mass kit would go in other cars.
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So if one got caught, it wouldn't be counted, and they would just drive all over for hours
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to make sure they weren't followed, and then all end up at the same place and so on.
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And I don't think we have an appreciation of the risks that people take and the consequences
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that they face.
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You've talked to those folks.
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What's their testimony?
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Why do they think it's worth it?
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Jennifer Jesus is everything to them.
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I think that in the West, we have become so focused on the self and even focused on just
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the Church of the West or parish community, and we're thinking about what's happening now,
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but really what we see from the persecuted church and what we can learn from is they are
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really focusing their eyes on the eternal.
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They're focusing their eyes on heaven and being in full communion with Christ.
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And as a result of that focus and that fire within them, their whole life is centered
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around their faith.
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It's not a side note.
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It's not a footnote in their life.
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It really is everything.
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And what is so compelling is that despite the persecution, despite the risk of imprisonment,
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of torture, of death, especially in these countries where they face such heavy persecution
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like what you were talking about, Father, I mean, the lengths that they go to, despite
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the risk and the reality, there's such a church of joy.
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And I believe it's because they know Christ so deeply and they've made that full commitment
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to give Him everything, the joy and the closeness of Christ is almost tangible when you're around
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them.
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I'm sure you had that experience when you were with the persecuted church.
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Oh, no, no, no.
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That is certainly true.
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There was a gladness there.
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And at one point, people came up to me, I was getting ready for Mass, and they would
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just kiss their hands and touch the hem of my album and then kiss their hands again.
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And I said, you know, no one said, Oh, my God, look at that.
23:11
It's Bob McTague from Newark, New Jersey.
23:13
I want to get some of that.
23:15
It's because they knew that as a priest, I was in the person of Christ.
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And Christ gives meaning to their suffering.
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And it gives them a confidence in victory that the party, the state, the persecutors
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don't have the final say over their lives, that Christ has the final say, and He is worthy
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of worship, and He is worth my best.
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And they have the experience of God Almighty saying, You are worth my son.
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And they want to make, as the Bible says, they want to make that glad return to the
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Lord.
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They know that they have been blessed.
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They have experienced mercy.
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They know what they've been saved from, and they know what they have been saved for.
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The other day was the birthday of Soren Kierkegaard, and he said the greatest enemy of Christianity
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wasn't atheism.
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It was comfort.
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And I think of Dr. Samuel Johnson looking at the great palace in Versailles, who said
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the trouble with places like this is that it makes it too hard to die.
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So these people who are persecuted remain faithful.
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Know that the world can't have an absolute claim on them, that the world can't contain
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their soul, and that Christ our Lord will guard them, body and soul, into a victory
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that extends beyond this life.
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And when you're exposed to that, I think that spurs a really painful examination of
24:53
conscience.
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Am I taking Christ for granted?
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That's what I want to talk about in the next segment.
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Friends, we come back.
24:59
We're going to continue our conversation with Gia Chacon.
25:02
She's a human rights advocate and founder of For the Martyrs, a leading voice for persecuted
25:07
Christians worldwide.
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My returning guest today is Gia Chacon.
26:57
She is founder of For the Martyrs.
27:00
Leading voice for persecuted Christians worldwide.
27:03
Gia, to meet the people that you've met, and to hear their stories, and to see their
27:08
determination to learn about their costly fidelity, that can't leave you unaffected.
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I don't believe that you can hear and see all that and be up close to these courageous
27:24
people and then kick back and say, yeah, I'm doing just fine.
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I let God interrupt my weekend for as long as an hour some weekends.
27:35
What's that been like for you?
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What has the challenge been to meet with such people?
27:39
You're so right.
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It completely changes you and convicts you.
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I mean, I felt so convicted the first time in my adult life that I was surrounded by
27:50
Christians who were willing to die for their faith.
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To even grasp that, it was unimaginable to me as a Catholic coming from California.
28:02
So in 2017, I kind of had somewhat of an identity crisis.
28:10
And I really, truly, I just said, what am I doing with my life?
28:15
I know I need to do something different.
28:17
And so I said a simple prayer, I said, Lord, I know that anyone who is in you is a new
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creation and I want that new creation life.
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And I was very much at the time a Sunday only Catholic, exactly like what you're describing.
28:30
And I called my grandmother who has run a organization that focuses on international
28:37
crisis relief for over 40 years.
28:39
And I said, Grandma, do you have any trips coming up?
28:42
And she said, yes, we do.
28:44
We are going to Egypt in two weeks and you're welcome to come.
28:47
So I, in my mind, thought, OK, I'm just going to kind of get out of town, experience a new
28:54
culture, and then come back to Orange County and figure out what I'm going to do next.
28:59
And two weeks later, I was in Egypt and I met Christians who just weeks prior to me being there
29:08
had lost members of their church to an ISIS claimed attack in Upper Egypt.
29:15
And when I met them and I was talking to them about how they described their
29:21
lost members of their church, they were so proud of them.
29:26
They said, we're so proud that they died as Christians, that they died with the name of
29:31
Jesus on their lips, that they didn't renounce their faith, which just rocked me that that
29:36
was their perspective.
29:37
And then to realize that it wasn't just the older generation.
29:41
It wasn't just my mom's age and my grandma's age that was so on fire for their faith and
29:46
that their whole identity was to be Christian and to live for Christ.
29:50
But it was people my age and even younger that had this radical dedication to their
29:57
faith.
29:58
It completely rocked me.
29:59
It convicted me so deeply.
30:01
And I said, what am I doing with my freedom and my comfortable Christianity while my brothers
30:08
and sisters are living this persecution every day?
30:12
So it was actually in Egypt that I said, Lord, I never want to live another day of my life
30:19
not fully committed to you and dedicated to you.
30:22
So help me God.
30:23
Right.
30:24
But it was that witness from the persecuted church and father, if I may, just for a couple
30:29
more seconds here.
30:29
I'm sure.
30:30
Sure.
30:30
Yeah.
30:31
I think when we talk about the persecuted church, we often view it through the lens
30:38
of they need our help, which is true.
30:40
They need our support.
30:41
They need our prayer.
30:42
They need our voice.
30:43
But we need the witness, the courage, the faith of the persecuted church, especially
30:49
as the West, as things continue.
30:51
And we don't face persecution, but we certainly face pressure, some of us more than others.
30:57
And as things continue to heat up, what are we going to do?
31:01
Where are we going to stand?
31:03
And we can look to the persecuted church for boldness and courage under pressure.
31:11
See, I think that is tremendously important.
31:14
I think there is the hostility towards Christians in the United States and the West is often
31:20
not as kinetic as it is in other parts of the world.
31:25
But we can become kind of comfortable.
31:28
The image I use very often is that at St. Typical's, the business model is something
31:34
like this.
31:34
Look, if you allow God to interrupt your weekend for an hour and you throw a couple of bucks
31:41
into God's tip jar, you get a week-long subscription to anti-hell insurance.
31:46
So if you get hit by a bus that week, God owes you heaven.
31:50
And it's nice to have that kind of insurance, but you got to renew it every week.
31:55
And there are people who seem to think that's enough.
31:59
That's all that there is.
32:00
And Father Cheerful over at St. Typical's, he cooperates with it because, you know, Sunday
32:06
Mass is where you take the collection.
32:08
And as long as it doesn't take longer than an hour and you take up the collection, everybody
32:13
is happy.
32:15
And I've met, and you've met even more, people who can't and won't live that way.
32:21
And like you, when I realized what I have been saved from and what I've been saved for,
32:26
I was willing to turn my life upside down.
32:30
But that's a high-maintenance venture, isn't it?
32:35
So you prayed your prayer, offered your life to God.
32:40
You didn't just kick back after that.
32:44
That commitment needs to be renewed and refreshed regularly, doesn't it?
32:48
It does.
32:49
And it's not just, you know, an experience overseas to go and, you know, to be revitalized,
32:54
although that is something that continues to motivate me in my work.
32:59
Anytime I'm on the ground with the persecuted church, I'm reminded why I started my organization
33:04
and why I believe the work that we do is so vital.
33:08
But it's most difficult when we are in the day-to-day and I'm, you know, driving past
33:16
PCH and Orange County and living my comfortable life.
33:21
I really have to seek God with intention.
33:25
And I think that is also one of the things that I'm, like, constantly thinking about
33:31
the persecuted churches.
33:32
If even under the most unbelievable pressure, they are going through great lengths to go
33:38
to mass, to go to Bible study, to share the gospel.
33:42
How much more should I be doing it when I don't have any pressure or obstacles in front
33:47
of me?
33:48
But I think, really, it's up to us to seek that lifelong conversion, to keep our eyes
33:55
on heaven, and to make a commitment and mean it.
33:58
And I think, to your point, something that you said earlier in the show is that what
34:02
the persecuted is so connected to is eternity, that this world is not forever, it's but,
34:10
you know, a moment in where our souls will be going for eternity.
34:16
And I think when we remind ourselves of that perspective, it helps us make better decisions,
34:22
you know, every day of the week instead of just one hour on Sunday.
34:26
Right, it is something that is comprehensive.
34:30
And, you know, when I look at, and I've met people like you who are persevering gladly
34:37
in the face of persecution, I'm reminded of a line from a spiritual journal I read
34:43
once that said, Lord, let me live my life such if this be the servant, what be the master.
34:49
So if Christ our Lord can inspire that kind of fidelity, that kind of fervor, there's
34:56
part of me that says, I want to be part of that.
35:02
I want that kind of life.
35:05
I always forget if it was Emerson or Thoreau who said that most men lead lives of quiet
35:12
desperation.
35:14
That's not true for the persecuted Christians that they've met.
35:17
Don't they have a really, not only a strong sense of identity and purpose, but that's
35:24
actually rare compared to the West.
35:27
How is it that persecuted Christians in the Middle East are happier than comfortable
35:32
Americans?
35:33
Yeah, that was something that rocked me as well when I met them and they were so, on
35:39
my first trip to Egypt and I was speaking with the Christians who had just lost members
35:43
of their community to an attack by ISIS.
35:46
I mean, it's like the extent of violence that we can imagine against humanity is what
35:53
ISIS committed and they had just witnessed an attack and lost members of their community
35:59
to such violence and they had joy despite that and they were proud of the members of
36:05
the community that died as Christians.
36:07
It's almost paradoxical, but I, again, believe it's because when Jesus said everything to
36:15
you and you believe that with every fiber of your being that he is what is worth living
36:23
your life for and he's everything and he's our goal and he's our reward, how are you
36:27
not joyful, right?
36:28
It's like if all the promises of the Bible and of Christ are true, then my God, what
36:36
else do we need in this life?
36:37
I love this quote by Corrie ten Boom who was a Christian who hid Jews in her home during
36:44
the Holocaust and eventually was turned in and went to a concentration camp, lost almost
36:49
every member of her family.
36:50
She thought she was going to die in this concentration camp and when they asked her about her time
36:57
in imprisonment, she said, you never fully realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus
37:05
is all you have.
37:06
And it's hard for us to remember that as Christians of the West, but I think so true.
37:15
I have a favorite quote here from St. Peter Julian Amart and friends, if you haven't read
37:21
his meditations before the Blessed Sacrament, they're sublime.
37:25
You almost feel yourself levitating as he writes, but he says this, love cannot triumph
37:30
unless it becomes the one passion of your life.
37:34
Without such passion, we may produce isolated acts of love, but our life is not really won
37:40
over or consecrated to an ideal until we have a passionate love for our Lord and the
37:46
most blessed sacrament.
37:47
We shall accomplish nothing.
37:50
That power.
37:52
So I've told my students that you're really not ready for love until you've given Christ
37:57
every opportunity to be the first satisfaction of your heart.
38:01
We've got about two minutes left in this segment.
38:03
Could you address that statement, please?
38:05
I think it's absolutely true.
38:07
I mean, what model of love do we have if it's not Christ?
38:12
And if we have not sought to be devoted to our Lord with our whole being and it takes
38:20
the grace and it's not easy, but wow, what a reward it is to have that passionate love
38:27
for Christ.
38:28
And I almost laugh saying it, Father, because it is something that's become somewhat uncommon
38:35
in the church in the West.
38:36
But I see a revival happening in the future.
38:39
Well, I hope so, too, because I think people are figuring out that we can't continue the
38:45
way that we're doing.
38:47
The culture we're living in the West is a sick and sickening culture, and a culture
38:53
is sick and sickening to the degree that it is absent from Christ.
38:57
As we record this, I preached this morning about what our Lord said about vine and branches
39:03
and so on.
39:03
And apart from me, you can do nothing.
39:07
And the Bible is also very clear, fruitless branches are not gathered up and brought to
39:14
the fruitless branches' retirement home.
39:17
They have a very unhappy ending.
39:20
And the only way to be fruitful, the only way to be joyful, the only way that we can
39:26
live gratefully and with a sense of purpose is to live for something larger than ourselves,
39:34
and that can't just be an idea or an ideology.
39:38
Ultimate satisfaction, the love for which we were made, is the heart of Christ, our
39:45
Savior.
39:46
And I'm not interested in being coy about that or presenting Christ as one voice among
39:54
many.
39:55
Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Gia Chaconne
39:58
of For the Martyrs.
39:59
We've been talking about the persecution of Christians in Iran, and we're going to
40:03
talk about how you can help in the next segment.
40:06
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41:01
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41:20
Praise be Jesus Christ.
41:21
This is Fr.
41:22
Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current,
41:26
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41:28
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Support us at thestationofthecross.com.
41:54
My returning guest is Gia Chacon.
41:56
She is founder of For the Martyrs.
41:58
We've been talking about the persecution of Christians in Iran.
42:02
Gia, I know Mark Twain says,
42:04
everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.
42:08
We can all agree that tragedies are taking place,
42:11
that noble brothers and sisters in Christ need to be supported,
42:16
but what can people do practically, and how can supporting For the Martyrs be part of the solution?
42:21
The first thing that I would say, and I really want to encourage listeners,
42:25
is to please pray for the persecuted church.
42:29
I know even myself, sometimes I'll say,
42:31
oh, well, there's nothing left to do but pray, and we think of it as a last resort.
42:36
But really, our responsibility as Christians of the body of Christ
42:41
should first be to respond with prayer for the persecuted.
42:46
And throughout my years traveling, I've been on the ground over 20 times throughout the Middle East.
42:51
I have sat with the Christians who have suffered under ISIS.
42:55
I was just in Egypt with the persecuted church last week,
42:59
and I've talked to Christians from China, I mean, all over the world.
43:04
And the first request from the persecuted church was not aid, it was not a visa, it was not security.
43:12
When I ask, how can we help you most?
43:16
The number one thing that they say is, please continue to pray for us.
43:22
And the second thing they say, Father, is, thank you for knowing and caring about our suffering.
43:28
I know we kind of honed in on Iran, but if I may just take a moment to share about the statistics.
43:34
Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world.
43:37
One third of the world faces religious oppression,
43:40
and an overwhelming 80% of those facing religious oppression are Christian.
43:46
Christian persecution has now increased for the sixth year in a row.
43:51
Now over 388 million Christians face high levels of persecution.
43:57
What does that mean when we say high levels?
43:59
It means what we were talking about in this show,
44:01
imprisonment, torture, death, kidnapping, marriage for forced conversions,
44:08
becoming political prisoners.
44:09
I mean, just unbelievable atrocities.
44:13
I think part of what we are trying to combat at For the Martyrs,
44:18
and what we've really transitioned into as we are looking at the next five years is,
44:24
how do we break the silence on this issue?
44:29
Aside from prayer, I'm asking every person listening to this podcast or this radio show
44:36
to begin talking about what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
44:43
We cannot undervalue the impact of simply sharing a post, of asking our community of,
44:53
whether it's at our parish or a Bible study or whatever your community of believers is,
44:58
to talk about the persecuted and pray for them.
45:02
That is the top two that we can do.
45:05
When we can garner public attention and break the silence about the crimes against Christians,
45:13
that moves the levers of power to then take action to change the circumstances on the ground,
45:19
whether that be through high-level government action,
45:23
aid, or whatever else could be the solution, depending on the country.
45:28
Then, of course, we have projects at For the Martyrs that are directly supporting
45:34
persecuted Christians on the ground.
45:36
Right now, we're supporting the survivors of the Christian genocide in Nigeria.
45:41
Oh, yes.
45:42
We're taking care of about 400 widows and their orphans, or excuse me, and their children.
45:50
We also have orphans in that community by providing them groceries.
45:54
We are taking care of our newest projects.
45:57
We're also taking care of the disabled and the sick and the dying in partnership with
46:04
an order of missionary nuns in Egypt.
46:09
Those are a couple direct ways we can impact the persecuted church.
46:13
So for people who go to your website, For the Martyrs,
46:17
what can they find there and where are there opportunities to contribute to the work?
46:22
On our website, you'll be able to find some of our recent projects and more information
46:26
about our organization.
46:28
But if you really want to stay up to date on the persecuted church and what we're doing
46:33
to respond to this crisis, I would encourage those who have social media to follow us on
46:40
Instagram and Facebook.
46:43
We are putting out stories almost every single day of what we're hearing directly from the
46:49
ground from the persecuted church all over the world.
46:53
We also have educational resources where you can understand the issue more fully, and
46:59
then updates on our projects.
47:00
So you can find our social media on Instagram, at March for the Martyrs, or on Facebook,
47:06
For the Martyrs.
47:07
Okay, well, we'll certainly put links to that in the show notes.
47:10
You know, this is an uphill battle.
47:13
You know, you're not going to say my work is done here anytime soon.
47:17
I think we can confidently agree on that.
47:21
And, you know, you hear a lot that's uplifting.
47:24
You also hear that's a lot that's heartbreaking.
47:27
How do you sustain yourself day to day, dealing with the kinds of things that you're dealing
47:33
with?
47:33
I'm so encouraged by the people that I meet.
47:37
Father, when you have friendships with, I'm sure you relate to this so much, but when
47:44
you develop friendships with Christians, like the ones that we've been talking about in
47:49
this show, is what really sustains me.
47:53
Aside from that, the main thing is keeping my eyes on Christ and taking the time to read
48:01
the Bible daily, to pray my rosary, to go to Mass, and to keep Christ at the center,
48:07
number one, and continue to stay connected to the persecuted church.
48:11
Because if they're living it, if they're experiencing it every day, and they're joyful,
48:16
and they have hope, what an encouragement to me that, you know, these are the people
48:22
that we're supporting, and they're overcoming unbelievable atrocities.
48:26
We can keep going if they can keep going.
48:28
So that's really how I stay grounded, and I stay hopeful.
48:32
You see, I think that is tremendously important, because if the enemy can't trick us into
48:39
giving up, if he can't convince us to despair, then he kind of wears us down and grinds us
48:47
down and gets us to the sense of, you know, why do I even bother?
48:52
Why do I even care?
48:53
And I think it's very important for us to be happy warriors, to share with Christ not
49:00
only in his struggles, but also in his victory.
49:04
And St. Ignatius of Loyola had said that the real measure of Christian maturity is when
49:10
you no longer love a creature in its own right, but because of its relationship to its Creator
49:16
and Lord.
49:16
So I've said to the people that I serve, and I'm sure in your own way you say it too,
49:21
because of who God is, and because of who you are to God, I choose to love and serve
49:28
you.
49:28
And that's what can get us to put our bare feet on the cold floor every morning, even
49:34
when we're not in the mood to do so, because we love the people whom Christ loves, and
49:39
we want to love him as Christ loves them.
49:42
Gia Chacon, founder of For the Martyrs, God bless you.
49:44
Very good work.
49:46
This was a fascinating conversation, and I do look forward to next time.
49:49
Thank you again for having me.
49:51
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host every day of The Catholic Current.
49:54
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49:56
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49:56
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50:00
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50:02
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50:08
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50:10
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50:11
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50:12
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50:33
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50:37
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50:38
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