Maiduguri, 08 January, 2021 / 5:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Increased Boko Haram attacks meted against Christians in Nigeria are not undermining the practice of Christian faith in the West African country, a Catholic Bishop in one of the worst hit regions of the country has said.
Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Nigeria’s Maiduguri Diocese told Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International that the number of Catholics in his Diocese had risen during the Boko Haram insurgency.
“Last year in my Diocese we had more Catholics than when there was no Boko Haram crisis. As long as the kingdom of God continues, no evil human forces will overcome it,” Bishop Doeme said in a report published by ACN Thursday, January 7 and added, “Over 200 churches have been burned down, as well as schools, but we will not be defeated.”
He continued, “We are a people of faith and, in terms of the Church, Boko Haram is not the only evil we have faced. We are deeply devoted to Mary. God will crush Boko Haram in his own time.”
The Nigerian Bishop noted that a large number of people had been baptized at a Parish in the Diocese on Christmas Eve in the wake of an attack that left at least 11 dead and two church buildings razed to the ground.
