Vatican City (AFP) - Pope
Francis on Tuesday hailed the bravery of Nigerian priests who have stood
strong in the face of Boko Haram violence and worked to build bridges
with the Muslim community.
"How
can we fail to remember the priests, religious men and women,
missionaries and catechists (lay teachers) who, despite untold
sacrifices, never abandoned their flock, but remained at their service,"
the Argentinian pope said in an open letter.
"I
wish here to express my heartfelt thanks to you, because in the midst
of so many trials and sufferings the Church in Nigeria does not cease to
witness to hospitality, mercy and forgiveness," he said.
Boko
Haram has seized swathes of territory in Nigeria's northeast in an
Islamist insurgency that began in 2009 and has killed more than 13,000
people, displaced 1.5 million, and destroyed churches and mosques.
Francis
slammed the militants as "people who claim to be religious, but who
instead abuse religion, to make of it an ideology for their own
distorted interests of exploitation and murder."
But he urged the
African country's Church to continue "to favour reconciliation, to
promote experiences of sharing, to extend bridges of dialogue, to serve
the weakest and the excluded."
Boko Haram's violence has intensified over the six-year conflict, with attacks into Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
A
four-country joint offensive against the militants, part of efforts to
stabilise northeast Nigeria in time for general elections set for March
28, has claimed a string of successes in rebel-held territory in recent
weeks.
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