15
November 2024
In-Person Event
Martyrs of Communism

Event will also air live on this page.

 

Inquiries: msnow@hudson.org

Martyrs of Communism

In-Person Event
Hudson Institute
November 15, 2024
Members of the organization Mothers of April hold portraits of their late loved ones outside the Cathedral in Managua on February 23, 2020. (Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images)
Caption
Members of the organization Mothers of April hold portraits of their late loved ones outside the Cathedral in Managua on February 23, 2020. (Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images)
15
November 2024
In-Person Event

Event will also air live on this page.

 

Inquiries: msnow@hudson.org

Speakers:
Archbishop-Cordileone
Salvatore J. Cordileone

Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco and Founder and Chairman, Benedict XVI Institute

Nina Shea
Nina Shea

Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Religious Freedom

Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
George Weigel

Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Victim of Nicaragua’s Persecution
Marco Novoa

Victim of Nicaragua’s Persecution

Strategic Communications Specialist
Helen Aguirre Ferre

Strategic Communications Specialist

Moderator:
Director, Martyrs of Communism Project, Benedict XVI Institute
Maggie Gallagher

Director, Martyrs of Communism Project, Benedict XVI Institute

Earlier this year, international headlines reported that Nicaraguan human rights leader Bishop Rolando José Álvarez was exiled. The Nicaraguan regime had recently thrown him and hundreds of Nicaraguan priests into prison without basic due process for spurious, political reasons. But media coverage did not evaluate how this persecution fits into a pattern of repression found today in China, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Communist and Marxist governments. Religious persecution has been a feature of such regimes since the Soviet era, when the Communist government envisioned the eradication of all religious organizations.

For most of the twentieth century, Soviet and Eastern European Communism imprisoned priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams. Members of religious communities disappeared by the thousand into gulags and execution cellars. In Eastern Europe, resistance heroes included Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Hungarian Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, and Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac—the latter two of whom were subjected to show trials and long prison sentences. They became famous in the West for their faithful courage.

Across the Soviet bloc, places of worship were closed and destroyed unless they belonged to approved, Communist-controlled religions. Police relied on surveillance, threats, coercion, regulation, cooptation, and atheistic education. These tools were used to varying degrees from Joesef Stalin’s reign of terror and Nikita Khrushchev’s crackdown, to the more selective persecution between 1965 and 1985, and straight through to the end of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost. These same tools, enhanced by high tech, are used today in Beijing, Managua, and Havana.

To discuss modern religious persecution by far-left regimes and the martyrs and heroes of these systems, a panel of experts will examine common ideology and practices of the repression of churches in China and Latin America. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will open the discussion with a keynote address titled “Why Marxist and Neo-Marxist Regimes Fear Religion.” Then Nina Shea will speak about her forthcoming Hudson report Ten of China’s Persecuted Catholic Bishops, which details the Chinese government’s oppression of Catholic clergy.

Related Events
17
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Strengthening the Allied Industrial Base
Featured Speakers:
Representative Rob Wittman
Ambassador Hyun-dong Cho
Steve Brock
Sang-bong Lee
Jim Schirmer
Michael Kuenzli
Mike Smith
Rob Murray
Moderators:
Nadia Schadlow
Bryan Clark
An employee checks 155 mm caliber shells at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 16, 2024. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
17
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Strengthening the Allied Industrial Base

Join Hudson Senior Fellows Bryan Clark and Nadia Schadlow for an event exploring the opportunities and challenges in implementing a more unified allied industrial base with Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA), Ambassador Hyun-dong Cho of South Korea, senior US Navy and Army officials, and leaders of major Asian and European defense firms.

An employee checks 155 mm caliber shells at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 16, 2024. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Representative Rob Wittman
Ambassador Hyun-dong Cho
Steve Brock
Sang-bong Lee
Jim Schirmer
Michael Kuenzli
Mike Smith
Rob Murray
Moderators:
Nadia Schadlow
Bryan Clark
17
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Africa in the New Cold War
Featured Speakers:
Joshua Meservey
Cameron Hudson
Aaron Zelin
Moderator:
Zineb Riboua
Somali National Army soldiers graduate from a basic training course led by US Navy Seals on August 3, 2023, in Baledogle, Somalia. (Jonathan Torgovnik via Getty Images)
17
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Africa in the New Cold War

Join Hudson for an expert discussion on these critical issues.

Somali National Army soldiers graduate from a basic training course led by US Navy Seals on August 3, 2023, in Baledogle, Somalia. (Jonathan Torgovnik via Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Joshua Meservey
Cameron Hudson
Aaron Zelin
Moderator:
Zineb Riboua
24
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
The Visible Hand: Positioning America to Compete | Political Studies Policy Certificate Program
Featured Speakers:
Nadia Schadlow
Rachel Mackey
(Getty Images)
24
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
The Visible Hand: Positioning America to Compete | Political Studies Policy Certificate Program

The Hudson Institute Political Studies Policy Certificate Program gathers talented early career professionals for advanced study of American foreign and domestic policy and national security, led by policy experts and experienced government officials.

(Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Nadia Schadlow
Rachel Mackey
29
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Left Out in the Cold? Reviving US-Canada Relations
Featured Speakers:
Matthew Boyse
Dr. Christian Leuprecht
North American Aerospace Defense Command CF-18 Hornet flies in formation with a KC-135 Stratotanker after escorting a B-52 Stratofortress across Northern Alaska, June 18, 2024. (DVIDS)
29
October 2024
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Left Out in the Cold? Reviving US-Canada Relations

Join Senior Fellow Matt Boyse for a conversation with Professor Christian Leuprecht of the Royal Military College of Canada and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. They will take stock of the US-Canada relationship and evaluate its implications for security and prosperity in North America, the Euro-Atlantic, and the Indo-Pacific.

North American Aerospace Defense Command CF-18 Hornet flies in formation with a KC-135 Stratotanker after escorting a B-52 Stratofortress across Northern Alaska, June 18, 2024. (DVIDS)
Featured Speakers:
Matthew Boyse
Dr. Christian Leuprecht