The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sparked controversy following his comments Tuesday in which he said that the decades-long violence in Nigeria, which has disproportionately affected Christians, is a “social conflict” rather than a religious one.
Parolin’s remarks, at a press conference for the release of Aid to the Church in Need’s report on religious freedom, were first reported by Vatican News.
“I think they’ve already said, and some Nigerians have already said, that it’s not a religious conflict, but rather a social conflict, for example, between herders and farmers,” Parolin said, according to a recording obtained by the National Catholic Register.
“Let’s keep in mind that many Muslims who come to Nigeria are victims of this intolerance. So, these extremist groups, these groups that make no distinctions to advance their goals, their objectives, use violence against anyone they perceive as an opponent,” he said.
The cardinal’s comments, rather than adding clarity, add to the varied interpretations and competing narratives surrounding the violence in Nigeria, which, according to an Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) report, has claimed the lives of 30,880 civilians killed in the country between 2019 and 2023. Over half were Christian (16,769), while 6,235 were Muslim.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, is 53% Muslim and about 46% Christian, with the predominantly Muslim north and mostly Christian south reflecting this divide. According to the 2025 annual report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, 30,000 Fulani bandits — members of a semi-nomadic herding community — operate in northwest Nigeria. These militant Fulani have carried out large-scale massacres in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” region, killing Christian farmers, burning their homes, and seizing their land. In the past 10 years,145 Catholic priests have been kidnapped in the region.
The leaders of Christian and humanitarian groups signed an Oct. 15 letter to President Trump, calling for him to redesignate Nigeria a CPC because of the government’s failure to protect the victims of the violence or punish the perpetrators.
“The last several years have seen a burgeoning of violent attacks specifically targeting rural Christians in the country’s Middle Belt, while the government in Abuja barely lifts a finger to protect them,” the letter read.
In recent months, several Catholic prelates and clergy in Nigeria have gone on the record to say that the situation is complicated, with one prominent bishop urging the United States not to seek sanctions against the Nigerian government.
Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), introduced legislation calling for the Trump administration to redesignate Nigeria a “country of particular concern” for its religious freedom violations. Cruz accused the Nigerian government of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist Jihadists,” prompting a denial from the Nigerian government.
The State Department designates countries as “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs) for severe violations of religious freedom, in compliance with the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The designation is used to inform U.S. foreign policy, including sanctions against countries that make the list. Nigeria was named a CPC during the first Trump administration, but President Joe Biden took the country off the watchlist in 2021.
After Parolin’s comments were shared on X, there was immediate outcry from watchdog groups that have monitored the violence in Nigeria and advocated for better government security measures to protect Christians.
In a post on X, Sean Nelson, of Alliance Defending Freedom International, called the cardinal’s comments “particularly shocking.”
Nelson quoted Aid to the Church in Need’s own report, documenting the disproportionate number of crimes committed against Christians in Nigeria.
“Radicalized Fulani herdsmen continue to be implicated in attacks against Christian communities, often involving land seizures and displacement. While some analysts frame the conflict in environmental terms, local Church leaders described it as a deliberate strategy to expel Christian populations,” the ACN report stated.
Nina Shea, a human rights attorney with the Hudson Institute, also took issue with the cardinal’s characterization of the violence in Nigeria.
“Cardinal Parolin is repeating the Nigerian government’s talking points that obfuscate and downplay the persecution of the Catholic faithful and other Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt,” Shea told the Register. “Those Christians are suffering intense persecution at the hands of Fulani Muslim militants who murder, rape and torch children, homes and crops in rural Christian communities, such as those in Benue state.”
In 2022, Irish President Michael Higgins was rebuked by Bishop Jude Ayodeji Arogundade of the Diocese of Ondo for suggesting that climate change was a contributing factor in the massacre of dozens of parishioners at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo on Pentecost Sunday.
The Vatican Secretariat of State did not respond to a request for clarification of Cardinal Parolin’s comments before publication.
Cardinal Parolin’s brief comment, made in response to a shouted question from a reporter, refers to reports by “some Nigerians” that the conflict is not a religious one.
Several Nigerian Catholic bishops have characterized the violence in their country as sectarian.
Testifying before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this year, Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi cited the murder of Christians in his hometown as evidence of religiously motivated violence.
“The experience of Nigerian Christians today can be summed up as that of a Church under Islamist extermination … the persecution of Christians generally and Catholics in Nigeria is the work of an Islamic agenda to conquer the territory and make it become an Islamic state in West Africa,” Bishop Anagbe told the panel.
However, in recent days, several Nigerian Catholic leaders have made statements emphasizing that the conflict is complex, and not necessarily religiously motivated.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, at the release of ACN’s report on Tuesday, said that the violence wracking the region is not entirely motivated by religion. In his remarks, he said that designating Nigeria a CPC and imposing sanctions on it would only serve to “increase tensions.”
“We are not dealing with people going around wielding machetes to kill me because I am a Christian,” he said, according to a Vanguard news report.
“Nigerians are dying unacceptable deaths across the country — not only because of their religion but also their ethnicity. We are on the cusp of a weak state with a clear lack of capacity to arrest the descent into anarchy,” Kukah said.
Bishop Gerald Mamman Musa of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Katsina similarly told ACI Africa, EWTN’s Africa-based news service, that the causes of the country’s ongoing violence are multifaceted, but include religious persecution.
“Many people have been victimized, attacked, kidnapped, and killed in Nigeria in recent years,” Bishop Musa said during the Oct. 19 interview. He added, “These incidents can be interpreted in many ways, but we are aware that violence in Nigeria has multiple drivers.”
He continued, “Some are driven by crime, banditry or land disputes. But it would be wrong to deny that some of the killings are based on religious motives.”
