Religious freedom severely restricted for 5.4 billion

The 2025 Religious Freedom Report compiled by the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need was released on October 21. Covering the 2023 and 2024, the report found that “grave and systemic violations, including violence, arrest and repression, affect more than 4.1 billion people in nations such as China, India, Nigeria and North Korea”.

Aid to the Church in Need listed another 38 countries – including Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam – as nations where “religious discrimination” is common. The foundation said that, in those countries, “religious groups face systematic restrictions on worship, expression and legal equality. While not subject to violent repression, discrimination often results in marginalisation and legal inequality”.

The report also found that “religious nationalism is on the increase, fuelling exclusion and repression of minorities. National identity is increasingly shaped by ethno-religious nationalism, eroding minority rights”.

“In India and Myanmar,” for example, it said, religious nationalism “drives persecution; in Palestine, Israel, Sri Lanka and Nepal, it fuels discrimination.”

The report also found that “religious persecution increasingly fuels forced migration and displacement”, with victims around the world fleeing “violence, discrimination and the absence of state protection”.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the fact that the 2025 report runs to 1248 pages, the largest in its 25-year history, “indicates that violations of religious freedom are increasing year on year”.

Religious freedom is not only a fundamental and essential human right, “it is also a pathway to truth and deeper communion with God and neighbour”, Cardinal Parolin said.

While all people have a “moral obligation” to seek the truth, Cardinal Parolin said, no one can be compelled to do so.

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Attacks on religious liberty rise, say cardinal, foundation (By Cindy Wooden/CNS)