“I will die but I will not let you go in” – these were the last words of Akash Bashir, a young man who saved the lives of more than a thousand worshippers nine years ago, on the fourth Sunday of Lent. The 20-year-old volunteer security guard sacrificed himself when he blocked a suicide bomber from entering St John’s Catholic Church in Lahore, Pakistan. The Vatican has declared him a Servant of God, paving the way for him to become the country’s first saint.
Christians in Pakistan suffer for their faith every day. Making up only two perc ent of the population, they are routinely treated as second-class citizens, and the threat of physical violence is often palpable. The nation’s draconian blasphemy laws are also frequently misused against them as part of personal vendettas.
