Mandatory military service in Eritrea deprives Church of seminarians

(Vatican Radio) Government requirements in Eritrea requiring Catholic and Orthodox seminarians to serve in the military are depriving the Church in the region of pastoral care, says a report by the humanitarian agency, Aid to the Church in Need. Some seminarians, as well as lay Catholic workers, have been kept in military service for more than 10 years. Even though seminarians were technically exempt from military service between 2008 and 2011, reports received by Aid to the Church in Need show that many conscripted in 2008 were still in training camps. Those who have refused military service are among more than 2,000 Christians currently imprisoned for their religious beliefs.

Vatican Radio spoke with Aid to the Church in Need’s Dr John Newton about the consequences of required military conscription for the Church in Eritrea. The military conscription not only effects seminarians, he said, but also lay people “who take pastoral roles in the Church, be it people who have a social capacity or a pastoral capacity or a catechetical capacity, that a lot of younger people who are doing these sorts of roles are just not there anymore to be doing the service of the Church.”

“You’re trying to run parishes without catechists, without people doing the social work that the Church does, and – yes – without the seminarians there to help out the priests.”

“It’s a very difficult situation in the country,” Newton continued, asking for prayers that the Church be allowed to function in the region.

Listen to Ann Schneible’s full interview with Aid to the Church in Need’s Dr John Newton: