Pope Leo XIV calls for religious freedom in Nigeria amid escalating violence. Trump redesignates country for persecution, warns of swift US military action if killings continue.
Newsroom (19/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Pope Leo XIV has called attention to Nigeria’s intensifying humanitarian and security crisis, urging the government to protect genuine religious freedom as allegations of widespread Christian persecution collide with US President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention.
In off-the-cuff remarks to reporters at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo on Tuesday evening, the Pope acknowledged acute dangers facing Christians while emphasising that the violence claims victims from all communities.
“In Nigeria, in certain areas, there is certainly a danger for Christians, but for all people,” Pope Leo XIV said. “There is terrorism. There is the economic question and land-control question. Unfortunately, many Christians have died.”
The Pope’s intervention follows President Trump’s late-October decision to redesignate Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” for severe religious freedom violations — a status it held during his first term but lost under Biden. Trump has accused Abuja of tolerating the “mass slaughter” of Christians by Islamist extremists, declaring that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Africa’s most populous nation.
In characteristically blunt language, Trump told supporters that any US response would be “fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs,” confirming he has directed the Pentagon to draw up contingency plans and threatening to withhold aid unless Nigeria acts.
Nigerian authorities have condemned the claims as “false and despicable.” President Bola Tinubu’s administration insists the violence — which has claimed thousands of lives this year — arises from banditry, herder-farmer clashes, ethnic tensions and criminality, not targeted religious persecution. Officials stress that Muslims, Christians and traditional believers alike fall victim.
Yet accounts from the ground paint a starkly different picture for many Christians. Speaking to the Catholic Herald, Orazagas Sov, a parishioner at Full Gospel Revival Crusade in violence-wracked Benue State, pleaded: “Christians are killed every day by Fulani jihadists, and the government isn’t doing anything. Trump should come for our rescue.”
Fellow Benue resident Tersoo Anjila described the attacks as “jihad” and “an Islamist expansionist agenda.” Fr Paschal, a Nigerian priest ministering in Britain’s Brentwood Diocese, said Trump’s spotlight “highlights an atrocious situation” and offers “hope to millions living in fear.”
At the Vatican, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin struck a cautious note during the October launch of Aid to the Church in Need’s Religious Freedom in the World Report. He framed the conflict primarily as socio-economic — notably herder-farmer disputes — and noted that many Muslims are also victims, with extremists showing “no distinction” in their violence.
Advocacy groups rejected that characterisation. The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa called it a “myth,” citing datasets showing Christians comprise over half of civilian fatalities in many documented attacks.
Aid to the Church in Need documented an “severe and escalating” campaign driven by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), with Christians facing disproportionate extrajudicial killings, abductions and church destruction — even while Muslims suffer in extremist-controlled areas. Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List ranked Nigeria the deadliest for Christians, recording at least 3,100 killed and 2,830 kidnapped for faith-related reasons in 2024.
A landmark 2019 UK government review led by Bishop Philip Mounstephen had warned that Boko Haram sought the “total Islamisation” of northern Nigeria and that persecution in parts of the country approached “genocide” under international definitions.
Pope Leo XIV avoided both the genocide label and Abuja’s outright denial of religious motive. Rooted in Catholic social teaching, his message emphasised minority protection, inter-religious cooperation and freedom of conscience.
After 15 years of insurgency, mass abductions, clergy murders and church burnings across Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt, the crisis is hardly new. What is new — and potentially explosive — is the convergence of papal moral authority, grassroots Christian desperation, and a US president openly contemplating unilateral military action in West Africa.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Catholic Herald
Related Images:
