Remembering Pakistani Catholic martyrs this Lent

The Church in Pakistan should not remain silent while waiting for the Vatican to recognize Shahbaz Bhatti and Akash Bashir

Mar 22, 2025

By Kamran Chaudhry
Lent arrives each year as a season to focus on Christ, his suffering and his sacrifice. But for Pakistani Christians, it is also overshadowed by painful memories of violence, which has taken away many of their own.

The assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic minister for minorities, in Islamabad in 2011, a mob attack on Joseph Colony in Lahore in 2013, followed by church bombings in the same city in 2015, all happened in March.

This was followed by the horrific Easter carnage in 2016, when a suicide bomb attack targeted Christians in a park in Lahore, killing at least 72 people.

For Christians, March has become the deadliest month, particularly in Lahore, the capital and largest city in Punjab province, home for 80 percent of Pakistan’s 2.4 million Christians.

Lahore has become a hotbed of religious intolerance following decades of institutionalized discrimination, targeted violence, and state inaction.

It is ironically known as the cultural capital or “Heart of Pakistan.” The city was once known for its hospitality, intellectual diversity, and openness to other cultures.

But in the past few decades, it has come to serve as the base for many hardline organizations that thrive on the misuse of blasphemy laws, religious nationalism, and anti-Western and anti-liberal rhetoric.

However, the anti-Christian violence is not limited to Lahore.

In 2018, four members of a Catholic family were killed in a militant attack in Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province, a day after Easter.

The so-called Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

In the national capital, Islamabad, the 2011 killing of Bhatti was claimed by the Taliban al-Qaida Punjab.

Pakistani Catholics mark Bhatti’s assassination anniversary at home and abroad on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

Candlelight vigils are held, and prayers are offered for the Catholic activist-politician every year. Pakistani Catholics remember Bhatti as a fearless fighter of minority rights and as someone who dared to defy the blasphemy laws and paid the ultimate price.

They are yet to reconcile to the fact that his killers still roam free, 14 years after the brazen killing.

It also hurts them that his cause for sainthood remains in limbo.

Why has the Vatican not moved forward? Why has the Church in Pakistan not pursued his case for sainthood? Will he, too, be forgotten?

The delay is evident, and some suggest his cause is stalled.

The Community of Sant Egidio, a Catholic lay organization that continues to honor his legacy, believes he is a modern-day martyr for peace and social justice.

But the recognition he deserved, many believe, was denied except on Wikipedia, which ranks him as the first native Pakistani Servant of God in the history of the Catholic Church.

It’s not him, but Akash Bashir who became the first native-born Pakistani put on the path to sainthood by the Catholic Church.

Bashir was just 20 years old when he was killed on March 15, 2015, while preventing a suicide bomber from entering a packed St. John’s Catholic Church during Sunday Mass. Both Bashir and the bomber were killed when the bomb exploded outside the church.

It was the second bomb attack on a church that day by Islamic militants in Youhanabad, a Christian-majority neighborhood in Lahore. The other attack was on Christ Church, a Protestant church about a kilometer away, which killed 17 people and injured hundreds.

However, very few Pakistani Catholics visit his grave in a nondescript Catholic cemetery in Youhanabad. People do not remember him and his sacrifice.

The Church in Asia often hesitates to highlight its sainthood candidates, perhaps due to the Vatican’s stringent requirements and the associated costs.

The Church in Pakistan could take the lead here, not merely follow. It must break free from clericalism, hesitation, and indecision.

It cannot wait for the Vatican to recognize these two martyrs while remaining silent. The bishops' conference, religious communities, and lay leaders must declare them heroes.

Specifically, Bashir’s heroism proves that young Pakistani Christians, despite being subjected to discrimination and intolerance, have refused to cower and have stood for the dignity of their faith.

How many more martyrs will it take for justice to be served? How long will the Church continue to turn a blind eye to its own fallen heroes?--ucanews.com