Catholic missionary endeavor in Pakistan shares Gospel, frees Christians from slavery

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Oct 24, 2024 / 07:00 am

There are young people who are called to serve in dangerous places, not just in the military but also as missionaries. The latter call has been heeded by a select few, willing to go where the faith has been oppressed or even absent for centuries. 

Project Omnes Gentes is a Catholic missionary initiative of the Order of St. Elijah, based in Argentina, to share the Gospel for the first time to nations who do not know Christ. It organizes short-term missions to the most remote places, including Malawi, Pakistan, Tibet, and Yemen.

CNA interviewed missionaries who recently returned from Pakistan, where they freed nearly 200 Christians from slavery. Rico and Diego are not further identified because of the peril it represents for them and persecuted Christians. 

Diego, a young lay Spaniard who recently reconverted to the faith, bravely threw himself into one of the most perilous missions yet undertaken by the order. “Since my conversion about five months ago, I have felt a great need to spread the Gospel,” he told CNA.

Recalling his conversion, he said once leaving Mass as an unbeliever, he suddenly felt an “oppressive presence, like an immense and heavy blanket.” Diego cried out to God for help. 

“After having let God be part of my life again, multiplying its value exponentially, I could not remain silent, I had to go on a mission. With the Order of St. Elijah, I could. I couldn’t be more grateful to God for putting them in my path and being able to help them preach the Gospel,” he said.

Diego accompanied Rico, a priest of the order, to the Punjab region of Pakistan, a country dominated by Islam. According to International Christian Concern, at least 1,000 girls and women in that country are annually abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. A report by InfoVaticana claimed some 700 of these are Christians. Many are forced into hard labor or domestic slavery.

Father Rico told CNA: “Thanks to God and the holy Virgin, the mission accomplished its goals. We rescued five illiterate female sex slaves, who were raped for 10 years by four different men. When the rapists went looking for them, we were able to take them into hiding. We also rescued 75 debt slaves: among whom, there were people who were tortured and many little girls. We ‘bought’ them with the money donated to us by a bishop.”

“After the rescues, we assist them with what they need to survive. We want to start a small safe neighborhood for freed slaves — why not dream if ‘nothing will be impossible with God,’” he said, quoting Luke 1:37. The new Christian enclave, he said, will be called “Pax,” Latin for “peace.”

It was no coincidence, Father Rico said, that he began his work on the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Aug. 15, and finished on the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, Sept. 12. He will return within a few months to liberate more.

“Of the 80 freed slaves, six Christian families had fallen into unwilling apostasy because they had renounced Christ and become Muslims,” he said. “The men were tortured and women raped in the process. When we went to rescue them, they said they were sorry. Those families were Protestant Christians.” He was under nearly constant surveillance by Muslim informants, whose testimony could have meant death.

A local volunteer (left in photo) speaks to an extended family of Pakistani Christians liberated from slavery. Credit: Courtesy of Order of St. Elijah

“We saw malice so extreme that it could not be merely human malice. I think it was a preternatural, demonic malice. How else can it be explained that they drug a man to rape his wife and kill the baby generated in the rape through an abortion?” Father Rico said.

He added that he hopes to consult with Catholic psychologists and social workers to help the healing of the liberated slaves. “Above all, we will place the victims before the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,” he said.

The priest said the unbaptized and Protestant Christians requested admittance to full communion with the Catholic Church. He baptized according to the traditional Rituale Romanum, which includes several exorcisms.

“We gave them images of the Holy Family, Bibles, and rosaries. We celebrated holy Mass for them and put them in contact with a priest who will catechize them. They entered the Catholic Church full of joy,” he recounted.

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“Seeing the Holy Spirit work such miracles, and seeing how Christians prefer death rather than renounce the faith, united me with the mystical body of Christ on levels that I could not have imagined,” Diego said. “It is truly overwhelming to talk to these persecuted Catholics about their conversions, their faith, their experiences. I am sure that many of them, living through that hell, will earn heaven.”

According to a 2023 report by WalkFree, approximately 10 out of every 1,000 Pakistanis are engaged in forced labor. In other words, 2.3 million Pakistanis are subjected to forced labor or forced marriage. The nonprofit watchdog says Pakistan ranks 18th in the world and fourth in Asia for these practices. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that forced labor is notable in brickmaking, carpet weaving, coal mining, and agriculture.

Pakistan’s Christians are frequently targeted by Muslims and authorities for violating the country’s strict Muslim blasphemy laws that forbid denouncing Islam and its founder, Muhammad. In September, Aid to the Church in Need reported that a Pakistani woman, a mother of four, was sentenced to death for the alleged crime.