A top Vatican official has said around 100,000 Christians are killed every year
for reasons linked to their faith and pointed to the Middle East, Africa and Asia as the biggest problem areas.
Monsignor Silvano Maria Tomasi was quoted by Vatican
radio on Tuesday as saying that the figures were "shocking" and
"incredible".
Tomasi said Christians were also forced to leave their homes and see their
churches destroyed in some parts of the world, and were often subjected to
rapes, kidnappings and discrimination.
The Vatican official made particular reference to the kidnapping of two
Orthodox bishops near Aleppo in Syria last
month.
Religious freedom is beset by "sectarianism, intolerance, terrorism and
exclusionary laws," he said, while also pointing to exceptions like Bangladesh
where he said rights are protected.
Another senior Vatican figure, the secretary
of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Mario Toso, said recently that
discrimination against Christians "should be countered in the same way as
anti-Semitism and Islamophobia