Unshakeable commitment to the vulnerable

There are two witnesses of the faith of our time whose blood watered the land of Pakistan, where they lived and gave their lives for love of Christ: the young Akash Bahir and the minister Shahbaz Bhatti. The former was killed while protecting the faithful in his parish from a terrorist attack, which took place on 15 March 2015, in Lahore’s Catholic Church of Saint John, during the Sunday Eucharistic celebration. He threw his arms around the suicide bomber and pushed him, blowing up with him. The latter, Shahbaz Bhatti, well known globally for his public role, was a Federal Minister for Minority Affairs. He was killed on 2 March 2011 in Islamabad by a terrorist commando that was trying to stop his evangelical commitment to the poor, the marginalized and the most vulnerable. Among the “new martyrs, witnesses of the faith” of the last 25 ...