Nelson Memorial Mass for Bhatti - report

Fr Brian Murphy, Nelson priest, and assistant

We received the following report from Nathanael, who represented the BPCA at a Memorial Mass for Shabhaz Bhatti in Nelson, Lancashire.

'On Saturday3^rd March I attended a service of Holy Rosary’s in memory of Shahbaz Bhatti. The Rosaries were recited in a mix of English and Urdu.

On Sunday 4^th I attended a Memorial Mass for Bhatti, with about 50 in attendance. The Mass was taken by the local parish priest Fr Brian Murphy, assisted by a Pakistani Deacon from Halifax who gave the sermon in Urdu. Not knowing Urdu, I couldn’t understand it, but

Bhatti was mentioned numerous times. After the service, a number of the leaders and members of the Catholic Pakistani’s in the church gave talks, some in Urdu, some in English.

Some of the talks were quite powerful, set to music. One of the speakers admitted that he hadn’t heard of Bhatti until he was killed, and cited the estimates of 2 Christian girls a day abducted and raped, and exhorted the people to stand up for their brothers and sisters in Pakistan, because ‘if we don’t, who on earth will’. Several speakers quoted Jesus’ words about loving those who persecuted us.

The local priest, Father Murphy talked about how evil seemed like a mass of unstoppable water, but that by our prayers, protests and other actions we would build a wall of sandbags that would restrain evil and then diminish it.

I spoke briefly, quoting words from the start and end of an ancient Christian work I had been reading, the Didache, which is older than much of the New Testament - which was well received by the clergy present. I talked about continuing the work of Shahbaz Bhatti, promoting the March and the website – www.h4pc.com which is a great way of spreading the word about the march and the cause.

The deacon from Halifax then spoke, echoing the call to make links, to join with others who were laying down ‘sand-bags’ against evil.

Afterwards I did a little link-making of my own, getting to know several of the brothers there, and ended up talking theology!

Unfortunately I was not able to get many pictures as I had to rush for a train to get my connections home, but I did get one video of one of the Urdu speakers....'

Unfortunately Nathanael's video was too large to post, so we have a still image below