‘Among the Persecuted and Displaced’

Photography exhibit at Saint John Paul II National Shrine brings visibility to Christian persecution in Iraq and Nigeria

By Katie Yoder

Dec. 19, 2025

Stephen Rasche, an expert on religious persecution and violence, speaks at the opening of a photo exhibit on Christian persecution at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., Dec. 2. (Photo by Avi Gerver) — The original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe imprinted on the cloak of St. Juan Diego is seen in the basilica in Mexico City. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Editor’s note: A version of this article was previously published by OSV News and has been adapted and published here with permission.

As Father Thabet Habib Al-Mekko stood in the sanctuary of a church in Karamles, Iraq, he looked around. Pieces of broken stone and ripped cloth littered the floor, the altar was smashed in half, and bullet holes surrounded the tabernacle.

Most prominently, in the middle of the church recently recovered from ISIS, stood a decapitated statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The priest tried to comprehend the scene before looking up. That moment, from 2016, is one of many captured by award-winning photographer Stephen Rasche and displayed in a new exhibit sponsored by the Knights of Columbus at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C.

The exhibit, Among the Persecuted and Displaced: The Christian Experience in Iraq and Nigeria, presents nearly 100 black-and-white photos taken by Rasche, a religious freedom expert and member of Bishop John King Mussio Council 9804 in Steubenville, Ohio. The photos feature the faces of persecuted and marginalized Christians in Iraq and Nigeria.

Dozens gathered at the shrine Dec. 2 to hear Rasche and other experts speak during a panel titled “Seeing the Persecuted and Displaced: Experts Tell Their Stories,” which launched the exhibit. Joining Rasche in the discussion were Father Athanasius Barkindo, executive director of the National Peace Committee and the Kukah Center in Abuja, Nigeria; and Father Karam Shamasha, provost of the Catholic University in Erbil, Iraq. The exhibit will remain open through Feb. 8.

“I hope that you’ll find within all of these faces a spark of human dignity,” said Rasche, a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington and director of the Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, where he also teaches theology. “And in that spark of human dignity, that you will see some commonality of the human experience — of the solidarity that we as Catholics, as human beings, believe is so important.”

‘THE PERSECUTED AND DISPLACED’

It was the Knights that made Rasche’s work in Iraq and Nigeria possible. Among other things, Rasche led the Nineveh Reconstruction Project, for which the Order announced its support in 2017 — with aid coming from the Order’s multimillion dollar Christian Refugee Relief Fund, established in 2014.

The project helped rebuild cities so that persecuted Iraqi Christian families could return home. With the Knights’ assistance, Rasche also began visiting Nigeria to help persecuted Christians and coordinate the Order’s aid there.

A visitor views photographs documenting Christian persecution during the opening of the exhibit at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine. (Photo by Avi Gerver)

In addition, the Order supported the Catholic University in Erbil, where Rasche is a founding officer. Supreme Director Stephen Kehoe accepted two gifts on behalf of the Knights from Father Shamasha as an expression of gratitude: a volume containing the New Testament in Arabic and a photo book documenting the first 10 years of the university, which opened in 2015.

The panelists invited American Catholics to see the human dignity of Christians suffering in Iraq and Nigeria and asked them to pray and remember the persecution their brothers and sisters face worldwide.

While commenting on photos, Father Shamasha and Father Barkindo shared stories from Iraq and Nigeria. Both countries appear on Open Doors’ World Watch List 2025, which ranks the 50 countries where Christians suffer the most severe persecution. The global network places Nigeria in seventh place and Iraq in 17th.

Drawing from their own experiences, the priests described the persecution and discrimination Christians face in their respective countries.

Before helping to establish the Catholic University in Erbil, Father Shamasha’s seminary was forced to close multiple times in the early 2000s. He was displaced in 2014 when ISIS invaded Nineveh.

“We were more than 120,000 Christians,” Father Shamasha recalled. “We were forced to leave our towns, our church, everything that we have.”

Father Barkindo spoke about the persecution Christians in Nigeria face through government policies and physical violence. Christian churches, schools and hospitals are targeted, and Christians are killed and kidnapped.

He said he hoped attendees would remember the victims in IDP camps — settlements of internally displaced persons who rely on humanitarian aid.

“Sometimes they have to give their bodies, particularly women, in exchange for food,” he said. “People should remember and pray for the Church, because most of these people in IDP camps are Christians.”

Priests, he added, must often go to IDP camps to celebrate Mass. “Most times they are kidnapped and taken away,” he said. “One of our priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna was taken last week by the kidnappers from his parish in the night.”

HOPE AMID SUFFERING

Father Karam Shamasha of Iraq speaks during a panel at the exhibit opening Dec. 2. He is seated between Father Athanasius Barkindo of Nigeria (left) and Christian persecution expert Stephen Rasche. (Photo by Avi Gerver)

Rasche also spoke from personal experience. He went to Iraq in 2014 to serve the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, which was responsible for nearly 150,000 homeless Christians. In 2020, his work expanded to Nigeria, where he helped with Catholic-run health care, education and catechetical teaching of displaced persons.

“These two countries are both countries in which the Knights of Columbus have had a history of involvement in supporting persecuted, marginalized Christians,” Rasche said.

Following the event, attendees explored the exhibit, viewing Rasche’s photos and reading posters describing the persecution of Christians in Iraq and Nigeria. In a back corner stood a decapitated and bullet-riddled statue of Christ the Redeemer from Nigeria. It came from a Catholic church in Bazza, after Boko Haram destroyed the town in 2014.

Cards provided by the Knights bearing an icon of Our Lady Help of Persecuted Christians and a prayer for persecuted Christians were available to take home.

Rasche’s 2016 photo of the ruined church is the most meaningful to him. The priest in the photo later became a bishop and died of pulmonary fibrosis after working to rebuild towns. But before he passed away, he witnessed a change. With assistance from the Knights, the statue of Our Lady was repaired, presented at the historic 2021 papal Mass in Erbil, and returned to its home, the church of Mar Addai. The Knights also restored the church and the surrounding town and supported the papal Mass.

Rasche’s photos capture this hope in the midst of suffering and pain. The exhibit places his photo of the destroyed statue next to photos of the restored one. They show the joy of the Mass in Erbil celebrated by Pope Francis.

“It was a very blessed moment for me and for all my people, because we felt this presence, this nearness of all the Church to us,” Father Shamasha recalled during the panel. “Having His Holiness with us in the Mass, saying, ‘We are with you. Don’t fear, don’t fear. You are not alone.’”

“This is the message of the exhibit — and all the words that we want to say,” he added. “We want you to not forget about us, to not forget about Christians in this persecuted land.”

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KATIE YODER is a freelance writer based in the Washington, D.C., area.