The chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace wrote a letter of solidarity to the bishop of Kontagora, Nigeria, following the kidnapping of 315 students and teachers from a Catholic school there.
“This Advent, we offer our prayers for our Nigerian brothers and sisters, in Niger state and elsewhere, who have been violently separated from their loved ones, and who await their return,” Bishop A. Elias Zaidan wrote in his letter to Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna. “Together, we pray for peace, security, and solidarity among all Nigerians, and for the particular care and protection of the nation’s young people.”