Rome to host official launch of Religious Freedom Report 2025
On October 21, religious and public leaders will gather at the Pontifical Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome for the worldwide presentation of the latest edition of the Report on Religious Freedom (RFR) 2025, prepared by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The program will include the participation of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, who will deliver the inaugural address. Victims of religious persecution will also give first-hand testimonies, including two women who spent years on death row for their faith.
Alfredo Mantovano, Undersecretary of State of the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers, will participate in the opening program. The opening session, moderated by Alessandro Gisotti, Deputy Editorial Director, Vatican Media, will include a keynote speech by Cardinal Parolin, followed by the official unveiling of the findings of the latest edition of the RFR by its editor-in-chief, Marta Petrosillo.
Since 1999, ACN has published the RFR and currently releases the report every two years. The RFR is the only report produced by a non-governmental organization that covers religious freedom in all the countries in the world and for all faith groups.
In an interview published in August, Marta Petrosillo said that “since the beginning of the RFR, the situation has tended to get worse, and unfortunately, this is expected to be the trend for this next edition,” adding that Africa is a continent of great concern, where jihadist groups are perpetrating more attacks in countries like Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where interfaith violence was previously not a problem.
A panel will then be held with voices from the suffering Church, including Bishop Matthew Kukah from Sokoto, Nigeria, Archbishop Jacques Mourad from Homs, Syria, and Archbishop Linus Neli from Manipur, India. Religious freedom expert for Latin America, Marcela Szymanski, will also take part.
In the afternoon, a second panel will focus on religious freedom in the West, with Jose Luis Bazán, the legal advisor for Migration, Asylum, and Religious Freedom for the Commission of the Bishop’s Conferences of the European Union; Mark von Riedemann, Director of Advocacy and Religious Freedom for ACN International; and Roger Kiska, an international religious freedom advocate. The session will be moderated by Elisabetta Piqué, the Vatican correspondent for Argentinian newspaper La Nación.
During the event, two brief testimonies by female victims of religious persecution will be heard: Mariam Ibrahim, who was sentenced to death in Sudan for converting to Christianity in 2014 and later managed to secure asylum in the USA, and Shagufta Kausar, who was sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan in 2014 and spent eight years in jail before being released.
The day will conclude with a Mass, with a prayer for persecuted Christians, to be celebrated at 5:00 P.M.
– Filipe d’Avillez & Maria Lozano
