{"id":26892,"date":"2025-10-24T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explorecatholic.nl\/nieuws\/author-of-religious-freedom-report-weighs-in-on-cardinal-parolins-nigeria-comments\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:40:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T10:40:57","slug":"author-of-religious-freedom-report-weighs-in-on-cardinal-parolins-nigeria-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explorecatholic.nl\/en\/news\/author-of-religious-freedom-report-weighs-in-on-cardinal-parolins-nigeria-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Author of religious freedom report weighs in on Cardinal Parolin\u2019s Nigeria comments"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marta Petrosillo, editor-in-chief of the Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Religious Freedom Report. \/ Credit: Gael Kerbaol\/Secours Catholique<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 24, 2025 \/ 09:14 am (CNA).<\/p>\n

The author of Aid to the Church in Need\u2019s 2025 Religious Freedom Report, Marta Petrosillo, is coming to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin\u2019s defense after remarks he made regarding persecution of Nigerian Christians prompted pushback.<\/p>\n

Parolin sparked pushback after stating at a press conference on Tuesday that ongoing violence and unrest in Nigeria is a \u201csocial conflict\u201d rather than a religious one. He told Vatican reporters during the presser for Aid to the Church in Need\u2019s 2025 Religious Freedom Report<\/a> release event: \u201cI think they\u2019ve already said, and some Nigerians have already said, that it\u2019s not a religious conflict but rather a social conflict, for example, between herders and farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s keep in mind that many Muslims who come to Nigeria are victims of this intolerance,\u201d he continued.\u201d So, these extremist groups, these groups that make no distinctions to advance their goals, their objectives, use violence against anyone they perceive as an opponent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The remarks prompted immediate pushback<\/a>, including from Sean Nelson of Alliance Defending Freedom International, who called them \u201cparticularly shocking.\u201d Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute further characterized them as \u201crepeating the Nigerian government\u2019s talking points that obfuscate and downplay the persecution of the Catholic faithful and other Christians in Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt,\u201d in comments to the National Catholic Register, CNA\u2019s sister news partner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As author of the report<\/a>, Petrosillo weighed in on the controversy in an Oct. 23 interview on EWTN\u2019s \u201cThe World Over with Raymond Arroyo,\u201d<\/a> telling Arroyo: \u201cCardinal Parolin didn\u2019t say [the conflict was solely between farmers and herders] in his speech in our conference. His speech was really strong, underlining the importance of religious freedom.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Cardinal Parolin is one of the most important people on religious freedom,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe has a huge knowledge on this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regarding the controversy that has ensued over Parolin\u2019s comments, Petrosillo said: \u201cI can only suppose that \u2026 it was referring to the complex situation there.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI think that this topic [is] too complex and too elaborate, just for one journalist to take one sentence outside a conference in a very rushed way. So I would not consider that as a statement from his eminence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petrosillo further pushed back against claims that the focus of the ACN report was to highlight Christian persecution alone, stating: \u201cNo, the focus of our report is not that Christians are the only group affected.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our report, we [documented] a violation of religious freedom against all the religious groups,\u201d she told Arroyo. \u201cOf course, in the case of Nigeria, there are specific anti-Christian incidents, but we are not saying that only Christians are targeted in Nigeria, because as I also said before, in some cases, we have also many Muslims that refuse extremist ideology … being killed.\u201d<\/p>\n