Red Wednesday will be celebrated on 28th November 2018.

On Red Wednesday we stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and faith minorities who suffer unjustly for their peacefully-held beliefs.

Anticipating the occasion of Red Wednesday 2018, Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, Bishop of Raphoe and Chair of the Council for Justice and Peace, said:

The term ‘persecution of Christians’ always conjures up horrific and barbaric images from ancient history. Quite wrongly, then, it seems indelicate to apply that same term to contemporary realities. We westerners have a difficulty with thinking of our fellow Christians as the victims of persecution. The truth is that in our modern world Christians are more likely than ever before to suffer being imprisoned ‘disappeared’, sexually harassed, tortured or executed. 

Recently Pope Francis and Mar Gewargis III, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, signed a common statement calling for an end to violence against Christians in the Middle East in particular. In the face of such violence, they affirmed the need for interreligious dialogue ‘grounded in an attitude of openness, truth, and love.’ Dialogue, they said, ‘is also the best antidote to extremism, which is a threat to the followers of every religion.’

On Red Wednesday, we remember the horrific reality of religious violence and intolerance in our world and we state definitively that those who do not respect freedom of thought, conscience and religion must be held to account.

Image: Knock Shrine illuminated in Red for Red Wednesday 2017. Source: Knockshrine.ie