Almost two-thirds of humanity—more than five billion people—live in countries where serious violations of religious freedom are taking place, according to the 2025 “Religious Freedom in the World Report,” which was released in Rome on Oct. 21.
The report covers the period from Jan. 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2024, and analyzes the state of religious freedom in 196 countries. It was compiled by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic organization founded in 1947 in response to the persecution and suffering of World War II. “[I]ts mission from the beginning has been to foster forgiveness and reconciliation, and to accompany and give a voice to the church wherever she is in need, wherever she is threatened, wherever she suffers,” Pope Leo XIV recalled when he met an A.C.N. delegation on Oct. 10.
For more than 25 years, the pope said, A.C.N.’s religious freedom report “has been a powerful instrument for raising awareness.” It not only provides vital information but also “bears witness, gives voice to the voiceless, and reveals the hidden suffering of many,” he said.
The pope recalled that “every human being carries within his or her heart a profound longing for truth, for meaning and for communion with others and with God.” For this reason, he said, “the right to religious freedom is not optional but essential. Rooted in the dignity of the human person, [who is] created in God’s image and endowed with reason and free will, religious freedom allows individuals and communities to seek the truth, to live it freely and to bear witness to it openly. It is therefore a cornerstone of any just society, for it safeguards the moral space in which conscience may be formed and exercised.”
Pope Leo emphasized that “religious freedom, therefore, is not merely a legal right or a privilege granted to us by governments; it is a foundational condition that makes authentic reconciliation possible.” But, he said, “when this freedom is denied, the human person is deprived of the capacity to respond freely to the call of truth” and “what follows is a slow disintegration of the ethical and spiritual bonds that sustain communities; trust gives way to fear, suspicion replaces dialogue, and oppression breeds violence.”
Leo recalled that Pope Francis, in his very last message “urbi et orbi” (to the city of Rome and the world), read by an assistant on Easter Sunday 2025, the day before Francis died, stated, “There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.”
The cornerstones of human rights
This year’s report is the longest ever—1,248 pages—and is a striking affirmation of what Francis said. It was presented at a daylong conference on Oct. 21 in the main hall of the Augustinian compound across the road from St. Peter’s Square. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, was the keynote speaker. Several victims of religious persecution were present at the event, including from Syria and Pakistan.
Vatican media reported that Cardinal Parolin “reflected on two important documents that point out the importance of religious freedom for our world.” The first is the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, “Dignitatis Humanae,” published 60 years ago this December.
The second is Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cardinal Parolin described as “the very cornerstone of the edifice of contemporary human rights in international law,” which was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 after “the unparalleled atrocities of World War II.”
Article 18 states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
The cardinal said the article explained with “crystalline precision” the importance of religious freedom and represented “a collective rejection of the totalitarian ideologies that led to the Holocaust and many other atrocities, where the sanctity of individual beliefs was systematically erased.” He emphasized, moreover, that “religious freedom is not a contingent privilege but an inalienable right, indispensable to the full realization of human potential,” and observed that A.C.N.’s 2025 report reveals that Article 18 is today “a fragile bulwark amidst a turbulent vortex of adversity.”
Threats to religious freedom today
According to the A.C.N. report, persecution is “the worst form of violation of religious freedom,” and it took place over the past two years in 24 countries where 4.1 billion people live, including China, India, Nigeria and North Korea. Moreover, in 18 of them, “the situation has worsened” in recent years, the report states.
It also reports that “religious discrimination” was documented in 38 countries where 1.3 billion people live, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam. It says religious groups in these countries “face systematic restrictions on worship, expression, and legal equality,” and such discrimination “often results in marginalization and legal inequality.”
According to the report, “authoritarianism is the greatest threat to religious freedom.” It says that “authoritarian regimes have systematically enforced legal and bureaucratic mechanisms to suppress religious life.” It charges that in countries such as China, Eritrea, Iran and Nicaragua, “the government represses religion through pervasive surveillance, restrictive legislation, and the repression of dissenting beliefs.”
The report notes that jihadist violence is escalating and destabilizing “on an unprecedented scale” and that “religious extremism” is “a main driver of persecution” in 15 countries and contributes to discrimination in 10 others, targeting both Christians and Muslims in countries from the Sahel to Pakistan.
According to the report, rising religious nationalism is “fuelling exclusion and repression of minorities in places such as India and Myanmar, and it fuels discrimination in Palestine, Israel, Sri Lanka and Nepal.”
The report also states that “religious persecution increasingly fuels forced migration and displacement,” driving millions of people to flee violence, discrimination and the absence of state protection. This is happening in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Sudan.
Religious freedom has also become “a global casualty of war,” the report states, and it documents how religious communities suffered in various ways because of armed conflicts in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Gaza and Azerbaijan.
“There has been a sharp rise in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes,” following the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. There has been a rise in such incidents in Europe, North America and Latin America, the report states.
On the other hand, the report notes a rise in “anti-Christian incidents” in Europe and North America. There has been a spike in attacks on churches in countries like Canada, as well as the desecration of places of worship, physical assaults on clergy and disruption of religious services in various countries, including Spain, Italy, the United States and Croatia.
The report notes that “AI and digital tools are being weaponised to repress religious groups.” Moreover, it adds that “from artificial intelligence to surveillance networks, new technologies are increasingly used to monitor, profile, and penalise religious expression.” The report charges that in China, North Korea and Pakistan, “both governments and non-state actors deploy digital tools to censor, intimidate, and criminalise believers—transforming religious faith into a perceived security threat.”
In addition to all this, the report states that “religious minority women and girls—some as young as 10—suffer systematic abuse,” including abduction, forced conversion and coerced marriages, in Pakistan, Egypt and Mozambique.
This wide-ranging report makes disturbing reading in the 21st century, and speakers at yesterday’s conference expressed the hope that it will awaken consciences everywhere to what is happening in the world today and spur people to take action.
This article appears in December 2025.
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