In the near future, I will introduce a resolution condemning—in the most unequivocal terms—the worldwide persecution of Christians. What we are witnessing today is not mere intolerance or unrest. It is a human rights catastrophe—and, in many nations, a coordinated campaign of religious genocide.

Across the globe, more than 380 million Christians live under the threat of persecution, making them the most targeted faith community on Earth. This persecution takes many forms — imprisonment, forced conversion, mob violence, and systematic suppression of worship. Yet the goal is the same everywhere: to silence the Gospel and erase its followers.

In Pakistan, blasphemy laws are wielded as weapons of terror.

A single accusation — often false, often politically or personally motivated — can ignite mobs, destroy families, and bring death to the innocent.

Christians have been lynched in public squares, their homes burned, their communities razed. Entire Christian neighborhoods — like Joseph Colony in Lahore and Gojra City — have been set aflame while authorities stood aside.

In 2023, rampaging mobs burned more than 20 churches and hundreds of Christian homes in Jaranwala. Crosses were torn down, Bibles were trampled, and terrified families fled through the night with only the clothes on their backs.

 In April 2018, during Easter celebrations in Quetta, Pakistan, gunmen attacked an innocent Christian family, killing Imran Masih, Tariq Masih, Pervaiz Masih, and Firdus Bibi, and injuring a young minor girl, Sehar Pervaiz. The following day, assailants on motorcycles opened fire on innocent Christians outside a church in Essa Nagri, killing Rashid Khalid and Azhar Iqbal and wounding three others. These back-to-back attacks underscored the grave persecution faced by Christians in Pakistan.

Young Christian girls are routinely kidnapped, raped, forced into marriage, and coerced to convert — a crime often ignored by local courts in Pakistan. Those who dare to seek justice face threats or death. These acts are not random. They are part of a climate of impunity where to be a Christian is to live one accusation away from execution.

In China, the world’s most powerful authoritarian regime has declared open war on faith itself. The government has spent years dismantling the visible symbols of Christianity — demolishing church buildings, tearing down crosses, and imprisoning pastors who refuse to place Communist propaganda in their sanctuaries.

Entire “house church” networks — the underground gatherings of ordinary believers — have been infiltrated, raided, and shut down. Children are barred from attending services. Bible apps have been removed from the internet.

In some provinces, Christians are ordered to replace images of Christ with portraits of Xi Jinping. Pastors who refuse are detained and disappeared into China’s prison system, many never heard from again. The Chinese Communist Party now uses artificial intelligence surveillance to track who attends church — creating the first digital persecution system in history. Faith itself is being monitored, graded, and punished.

In Haiti, the collapse of civil order has unleashed lawlessness against the faithful.
Christian institutions — once the lifeline of hope, education, and charity — are now under siege from heavily armed gangs who rule entire neighborhoods.

Churches have been burned, looted, and occupied. Priests and nuns have been kidnapped at gunpoint, often during services, held for ransom or killed.

In 2023, a gang stormed a Christian orphanage in Port-au-Prince — abducting children and workers, burning vehicles, and threatening to kill any who resisted. Even funerals are no longer safe; pastors have been kidnapped while burying victims of violence.

These gangs operate with impunity, targeting Christian missions precisely because they serve the poor — the very ministry that Christ commanded.

And yet, in the midst of terror, the Church in Haiti continues to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and shelter the displaced — proving that faith shines brightest in darkness.

Nowhere, however, is the persecution of Christians more intense than in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and home to one of the world’s largest Christian communities. Here, the slaughter of believers has become routine — and largely ignored by the global community.

Over the past decade, tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered by Boko Haram terrorists and Fulani extremist militias. Churches have been bombed during Sunday worship; entire villages burned to ash; priests executed in front of their congregations.

In 2023 alone, more than 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith — more than in all other countries combined. Women and children have been abducted by the hundreds, forced to renounce Christ or face death. In the Plateau and Benue States, mass graves mark villages wiped out in a single night. The Nigerian government has repeatedly failed to act — and at times, turned a blind eye. This is not random violence. It is religious cleansing, plain and simple. If left unchecked, Nigeria may soon witness the largest-scale genocide of Christians in the 21st century.

Behind every statistic lies a life — a mother shielding her children from a mob, a pastor preaching forgiveness as his church burns, a child clutching a Bible while fleeing through smoke and rubble.

This resolution reaffirms Pennsylvania’s solidarity with persecuted Christians and renews our Commonwealth’s historic commitment to religious liberty as the foundation of human dignity. It calls upon the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress of the United States to:
 

1. Formally recognize the persecution of Christians worldwide as a grave human rights crisis and, in many cases, as genocide under international law.
2. Fulfill America’s obligations under the Genocide Convention by preventing atrocities and protecting victims.
3. Impose diplomatic and economic measures, including targeted sanctions, against regimes and organizations that enable persecution.
4. Provide humanitarian aid and security assistance to displaced and endangered Christian populations.
5. Lead global efforts to bring perpetrators of religious violence to justice.

William Penn wrote: “True godliness doesn’t turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it.”

Let us honor that legacy — not with words alone, but with courageous, decisive action.
Let us speak for those who cannot.
Let us stand for those who suffer for the name of Christ.
And let us ensure that Pennsylvania’s voice rings clear — on the side of freedom, faith, and human dignity.

If you have any questions, please contact my Chief of Staff, Donald Beishl (dbeishl@pasen.gov).