For Iraq’s Christians, “the Surge” has been more like “the Purge” as ethnic and religious fighting continues to decimate this ancient and once-thriving Christian population. Before the U.S. invasion, Iraqi Christians numbered about 1.5 million. Now the figure is less than half that, due to expulsion, exodus, and murder. The situation has forced Iraq’s Christians into desperate decisions, and in March, the leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, died while being held by kidnappers.
Now the situation in Mosul is growing especially dire. Reuter’s Vatican correspondent, Phil Pullella, reports today that the Vatican is calling on the Iraqi government and human rights groups to do more to protect Christians in Mosul, where half of the minority community has fled after attacks and threats.
In an interview with Reuters, Pope Benedict’s spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican was asking itself if there was “insufficient willingness” on the part of Iraqi authorities to protect Christians.
“We are extremely worried about what we are hearing from Iraq,” Lombardi said
Last Friday in Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said about half of the Christians in Iraq’s northern town of Mosul, nearly 10,000 people, had fled in the period of about a week.
“The situation in Mosul is dramatic. The victims are Christians and many thousands of people are fleeing precisely because they are subjected not only to the fear of periodic attacks but a systematic campaign of threats,” Lombardi said.
“This is extremely worrying and we ask ourselves if these people are sufficiently protected by the authorities or if the authorities are not able to protect them or if there is scarce willingness to protect them,” he said.
The Reuters photo above shows a displaced Christian woman with a sleeping baby in a room inside al-Saida monastery in Al-Qosh village, 28 miles north of Mosul. “Such is the plight of some 1,500 Christian families who in the past two weeks have fled homes in Iraq’s ethnically mixed, and stubbornly violent, city of Mosul.”
Amazingly, religious freedom in Iraq was only incorporated as a goal of the U.S. and Iraqi governments last year, after five years of war. This Monday is the 10th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). There would be no better opportunity, and no better example than Mosul, to take up the cause of Iraq’s church.
posted October 22, 2008 at 7:07 pm
This is an outrage. Where is our government here? Why are they allowing religious persecution of Catholics and other Christians? I am ashamed of our government for allowing this to happen.
Mark from PA
posted October 25, 2008 at 4:55 pm
OH,Good God Almighty,We are SOOOO in the End times.All I do is PRAY to the LORD.No matter what I read,its nothing but very nasty news.& yes, I too, am ashamed of this goverment now & WE DO need a change.I,m a catholic & Born Again Christion very interested in this WORLD Crises.Lets all take care. Carole
posted October 26, 2008 at 9:42 am
Please join me in a prayer. Father, I humbly ask that you will guide the heart, minds, and will of those who lead us. Protect and comfort those who serve your greater purpose. And help the rest of us to understand that Your plan is not always within our simple way of understanding. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
posted October 26, 2008 at 10:21 am
we are fighting un-believers here in the states that want to take away our god-given rights. Where is the government in iraq? sleeping i suppose.
DUFF1930.
posted October 26, 2008 at 11:39 am
In point of view what happens in Iraq and elsewhere is related to wrong policies adopted and followed by the American Leaders, on top of them is Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush pushed the world forward to a groundless fake farudulous war on Iraq. The real reason for it is the Oil of the Country.
Mr. Bush promised the ME region a New Country with prosperity and democracy, but we just see and watch violence, hatred, explosions, terrorism, stupid ethnic dogmas, destruction and corruption nearly everywhere in Iraq.
It is not only a war against the Christians in Iraq. It is a war against life and the innocent people everywhere in the Country. Shiites slaughter the Sunnis. The Sunnis slaughter the Shiites in return. Both, may be, plan to do the same for the Christians. It is the Creative Chaos scene that Mr. Bush and his gang put the scenario of it to prove that the American Dream is possible but only throgh the language and way of a Cowboy!
I conclude with this:
If religions are the seeds and roots of this foolishness, please for any of your Gods’ sake, burn them up or toss them into the garbage to let Man live in peace and harmony with any other man. I say this because Mr. Bush claims that it was the Lord who led him and commanded him to take that path. Alas! There are many other fools who calim the same but everyone in his own way and Devil, not God (if any!).
posted October 26, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I laugh a lot when I see an extremist from any religion, especially the three religions of the Jews, Chrisitians and Muslims. They nearly share a lot of things including even terrorism. In the Old Test. the Lord (They claim) commands Moses and his successors to kill every living creature including children, women, aged people and even plants and animals. 18000 people were killed in one city: ‘Ay in the name of the Good Loving Kind Lord. Christ, the God of Love (The same God of Murder and Violence in the Old Test.)prmoises those who are different with him a Sulphurous Lake and likwise does Mohammad. They both promise Eternal Torments and Turtures to those who are different to/with them. I am deliberately saying “Different” and deliberately avoided the fake fraudulous cunning term of “unbeliever”!
Why do we moan and weep today for the Christians in Iraq and there are many others of the same or different religions some where else in the world suffering even more!
I laugh in bitterness because God (if any) brought to the world people with different names, beliefs and religions but with shared targets (kill each other or at least, at the times of fake peace, struggle and be always in conflict for the Name of your Lord or Allah or .. or ..). I execlde the Buddhi and most of the tolerant religions of India from this religious turmoil for they respect life and care for life and they denounce and fight destruction. They are unbelievers in the eyes of the other blood-suckers related to the Right Religion.
I do not belong to any but surely I belong to life, nature and man. If there is God, I ask Him why so??? And why does it happen in such a violent and bad way? If God is not there, I pity this world even more. If He is there and does not make any thing to stop this Drama or Tragedy of life here in this world, he is an unjust God and surely the end is not any good to any of the fools who fight under his Name!
I conclude with this:
“I didn’t love the world, nor the world me,
I didn’t pay its idolatory a submissive knee”
Lord Byron
posted October 26, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Moataz Zaky-Egypt:
IMO, you made some excellent points.
posted October 27, 2008 at 12:06 pm
In response to you non believers….
I pity you, God is not one to be mocked and when judgement day comes
and you’re crying to him to help you,,,, just remember your words against him!!! If it wasn’t for all the sin in this world it wouldn’t be this way, but God gave us free will, so don’t blame him for what’s happening, blame the people who fail to follow what is right. As far as Pres. Bush… Congress has more to do with what happens than he..
They are the deciding factor, they can veto anything and everything that he puts out there. So don’t just blame (just) him. So, be it said
ONE Day… we will stand before our LORD and we will all be judged and before that day comes I pray you all will find truth and peace in his love. He is the only truth.
posted October 28, 2008 at 9:21 am
don’t blame GOD for what is going on in this world.he gave us free will.he lets us make our own choices.we can live right if we really want to.i am thankful that GOD is with us.there are many times that i don’t think i could have made it with out HIM.i don’t know where those people over there got that mohammad business anyway.it sounds like they worship him,and that is idolatry. as for the budda business i don’know where that came from either.read the 10 commandents.
posted October 28, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Sharon, as a proud “non-believer”, please don’t offer me pity. I certainly don’t need it.
jean:
Why is your religion superior to those that believe in Mohammad or Buddha? It isn’t. There is no superior religion. Each person finds what they are comfortable with and what makes them happy.
And the fact that many folks are completely happy with no religion is fine also. It’s that “free will” you speak so freely of. My free will tells me that there is no divine being, demanding to be worshiped. Your free will tells you something else.
It is tragic what is happening to the Christians in Iraq…and the tragic part is that the “born again” soon to be former “leader” of this country got us into it. However looking at much history, the “Christians” have killed a lot of “infidels” because they believed in what they considered a “wrong” divine being. In fact, Christians have killed each other…because they couldn’t accept different forms of that Christianity. Protestants were killed by Catholics, Catholics then decided to kill Protestants. Burning folks at the stake was a considered proper at one point. So, unfortunately there is a lot of “killing” history to go around.
posted October 29, 2008 at 1:03 am
This is a serious tragity to be going on in todays world. I live in a free country. The USA has religious freedom to all. You will not see this go on in the USA as you see it in Iraq.
I have family in Iraq and I find nothing funny in any of this.
I see no reason to fight about religion. I wish all could just accept the facts that we are not all the same. We do not all worship the same but that does not make any of us bad people.
There are differences in our religions yet that is nothing to fight over. Freedom of religion is something we all have a right to. I have friends of all religions. I love them all equally.
posted December 3, 2008 at 1:37 pm
When the ex-Soviet Union came to an end, hails and joy were common in the capitalist camp. However, no big falls affected the world as the case with the fall of capitalism. I am not a hundred percent communist, but I find capitalism (esp. in America) is so cruel that it provides the Americans nothing but more money to expend and pay for their mountain of bills. To me, capitalism is the selfishness of economy and the way of business owners to exploit their workers to the full. If America’s policy was right, why do some very poor Americans still look for their food in the rich’s garbage? And why the fall of one big bank leads to the fall of other banks, companies and consequently the fall of the global economy?
It is too selfish to keep more money in your purse or safe while others starve and die in their hunger. It is too cruel and evil to waste money in brightful warm festivals while others die in dark or shiver in cold. And the worst of evil deeds is to throw wheat in the sea to keep your rates as high as ever.
“A drum a drum,
thy fall doth come!”