Scottish Catholic Observer

“Today, in Pakistan, because of a wrong choice, a decision of hatred, of war, there was an attack in which over 70 people died,” the Pope said in impromptu remarks at the end of his trip to Sardinia last Sunday.

“This choice cannot stand. It serves nothing. Only the path of peace can build a better world.”

At around noon last Sunday two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the midst of the hundreds of worshippers leaving the historic All Saints Church in Kohati Gate, a heavily populated area of Peshawar, Pakistan.

Witnesses of the attack, which killed at least 80 and wounded more than 120 people, said they heard two blasts from the bombs, the second being more powerful than the first. Suicide vests were later found outside of the church. Though Christians have endured mob rampages on their places of worship and arson attacks on their settlements in recent years, they have been largely spared the ravages of suicide bombings for a little more than a decade. The last wave of blasts in churches and Christian institutions came in 2002, in the months following the US invasion of Afghanistan.

It is unclear exactly who was behind the attack, with two militant groups claiming responsibility. Jandullah and the Junood ul-Hifsa—both with past links to the Pakistani Taliban —said they ordered the double bombing in retaliation for US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal north-west.

This attack comes as the latest in a series of assaults on Pakistani Christians, who represent about 1.6 percent of the country’s overwhelmingly Muslim population. There are about 200,000 Christians in the province, of whom 70,000 live in Peshawar.

Both religious and political leaders have condemned the attack, thought to be the deadliest ever on Pakistan’s Christians. Pakistan’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference (PCBC) has strongly condemned it.

Archbishop Joseph Coutts, the president of PCBC, expressed shock and sorrow over the brutal attack.

“Attacking innocent men, women and children while praying in the church is a shameful act of cowardice,” he said in a statement.

He demanded that the government takes immediate steps to apprehend the culprits and take measures to protect the worship places of all religious minorities.

Archbishop Coutts visited Scotland in 2009 and told the SCO then that being a Christian in Pakistan was like ‘living in the middle ages.’

“Life for Christians in Pakistan is very tense,” he said. “We do feel in danger and the government does not do enough to protect us.”

—This story ran in full in the September 27 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes