It seemed like an ordinary moment, but when Eric Ueland looks back, the hour he spent washing dishes with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a profound lesson on faith in action and a life of service.
Ueland was a student at the Jesuit University of San Francisco. He can’t remember if it was 1985 or ’86, when the future Pope Benedict XVI was having dinner with students during a tour of the United States. “He got up from the table, put an apron on, and we washed and dried together,” said Ueland. “He was very humble and unassuming.”
The same description is apt for the soft-spoken Ueland, who has devoted his entire career to public service and today serves as one of six commissioners on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Since its establishment in 1998, the USCIRF has witnessed a steady uptick in oppression of people of all faiths, corresponding directly to advances in technology. “Religious freedom and the opportunity for individuals to practice their faith is under a more significant threat than (they have) ever been since the commission was founded,” said Ueland.
“Countries have adapted repressive tactics toward people of faith and then found ways to exploit technology to further extinguish faith opportunities,” he said. “The ability for bad actors to track, interrupt, mislead, mischaracterize and attack by using technological tools can lead to terrible outcomes.”
The USCIRF designates 17 “Countries of Particular Concern,” including Russia, China and Cuba, which were all on the list 25 years ago. “They are still on the list, still violating the ability of individuals and faith communities to gather and worship and freely express their faith, without fear of retribution, imprisonment, exile, or in some cases, even death,” said Ueland, who cited Nicaragua for being particularly hostile toward Catholics.
“In Nicaragua, a despotic regime already had been put under a spotlight by the Catholic Church in the 1980s,” said Ueland. “The same leader, Ortega, is now aggressively at war imprisoning Catholics, exiling Catholics, and going after other faith communities, because he sees the ability to freely express religious belief as a threat to his regime.”
Nigeria continues to be one of the world’s most dangerous places for Catholics and other Christians. The 2024 USCIRF Annual Report cites evidence that violent insurgent groups and armed gangs, along with Nigerian government forces, accounted for 8,222 Christian deaths across Nigeria in 2023. The report criticizes the police and army for not intervening against violent insurgent groups such as Boko Haram, Islamic State in West Africa, and Fulani gangs that often worked in collaboration with them.
Ueland visited Nigeria as an election observer in February 2023. Witnessing the unshakable faith of persecuted Catholics stands out as the most unforgettable moment of his three years as a commissioner. “That was a privilege because you’re hearing from people who make the effort to attend Mass, to faithfully observe the sacraments at great personal risk, with their lives on the line to come to church,” he said.
“They know there may be a moment in time where the ability to practice their faith and freely live their lives might not only be threatened but their lives ultimately taken away, and yet they remain determined. That’s just amazing. It’s something that always sticks with you.”
According to the Open Doors World Watch List report for 2023, 365 million Christians are under active persecution, the most of any religious group. “Without question, the significant majority of anti-religious behavior by tyrannical regimes has been displayed against Christians,” said Ueland. “Christians and Catholics have been put under particular harassment, imprisonment, exile or threats of death, execution, murder, assassination in some very significant countries around the world.”
The Catholic Church has always been a particular threat to tyrants. “The Catholic faith really is an expression of free exercise of conscience,” said Ueland. “That is incredibly intimidating to any regime whose founding precepts have little to no relationship to what God has created, and in some cases, stands in strict opposition to that.”
The evil that Ueland confronts in his work has not left him discouraged. He talks about the virtue of hope and the need for Catholics to speak out against all forms of religious persecution. “You’re called to something larger than yourself,” he said. “This challenge is ongoing and prevalent. It’s invigorating to see where we’ve come in the last 25 years, appreciating the challenges that we face, but nevertheless, we double the efforts to press ahead on behalf of free exercise of faith around the globe.”
