Posted on 10/27/2004 6:24:27 AM PDT by NYer
Thousands of Christian Families Reportedly Have Fled Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Iraq, OCT. 26, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Iraq is seeing the rise of a new version of an old phenomenon: the catacombs.
"Iraqi Christians are obliged to celebrate Mass in churches' basements. They live under the constant threat of death," said Elias, a young Baghdad Catholic. He spoke with the Vatican agency Fides, raising the alarm and appealing to the international community and universal Church for help.
Elias, a committed Catholic whose family lives in Baghdad and Mosul, described the trauma of Christians in the Iraqi capital. "We cannot leave the house because the street is very dangerous," he said.
"At all hours of the day and night there are mines and mortar strikes that the insurgents launch against the Americans and against all those who work with the government," he added.
From the young man's description, a picture emerges of a "real civil war," characterized by the daily killings of "Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians."
"When one of us Christians leaves the house, one doesn't know if he will return safe and sound," the young Iraqi said. "Christian families are afraid for their children and women. Because of this, many are fleeing from the country."
Elias said that "after the first attack on churches in Baghdad," "more than 4,000 Christian families have fled to Syria and Jordan. Other faithful say that they want to stay and that they are not afraid of dying. In the history of Iraq, there have already been killings against the Christian community."
"In 1915, in the Christian city of Mardine, in the north of the country, there was real ethnic cleansing. My grandparents lived there. Around 1950, Christians suffered other persecutions and today this tragic history is being repeated," Elias said.
Christians have described the Aug. 1 attacks on six of their churches, four in the Iraqi capital and two in the city of Mosul, as a "day of blood." Seventeen people died and more than 100 were wounded.
Since that date, there have been further incidents of persecution. On Oct. 16, five bombs were detonated in five Christian churches in Baghdad.
"We lay Christians are also threatened because we often go to the churches to help the priests," Elias continued. "Today we celebrate Mass as the early Christians, in the basements of churches, with a few courageous faithful. We are in the modern catacombs."
Elias made a strong appeal to the international community and the universal Church to do "something to resolve this unbearable situation for us. We want only peace and tranquility!"
"The Muslim fundamentalists want to expel us from Iraq because they say that Iraq is Muslim land," he said.
"They call us, contemptuously, 'crusaders,'" he continued. "The radical groups draw other Muslim faithful and they are often encouraged by their own leaders. I believe that 80% of the mullahs are preachers of hatred and fuel fundamentalism.
"This is very serious. Sadly, if this tendency continues, Iraq will soon be a land without Christians."
Christians in Iraq belong to the Assyrian-Chaldean group, the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, after the Arabs and Kurds.
The total number of Christians is about 800,000, or 3%, of the population. They are subdivided in Catholics and Orthodox. Chaldeans represent 70% of the total number of Christians.
Religion of Peace ping!
They have their own hierarchy distinct from the Latin Rite, system of governance (synods) and general law, the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches. The Supreme Pontiff exercises his primacy over them through the Congregation for the Eastern Churches.
ANTIOCHIAN
The Church of Antioch in Syria (on the Mediterranean coast) is considered an apostolic see by virtue of having been founded by St. Peter. It was one of the ancient centers of the Church, as the New Testament attests, and is the source of a family of similar Rites using the ancient Syriac language (the Semitic dialect used in Jesus' time and better known as Aramaic). Its Liturgy is attributed to St. James and the Church of Jerusalem.
1. WEST SYRIAN
• Maronite - Never separated from Rome. Maronite Patriarch of Antioch. The liturgical language is Aramaic. The 3 million Maronites are found in Lebanon (origin), Cyprus, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Canada, US, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Australia.
• Syriac - Syrian Catholics who returned to Rome in 1781 from the monophysite heresy. Syriac Patriarch of Antioch. The 110,000 Syrian Catholics are found in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Canada and the US.
• Malankarese - Catholics from the South of India evangelized by St. Thomas, uses the West Syriac liturgy. Reunited with Rome in 1930. Liturgical languages today are West Syriac and Malayalam. The 350,000 Malankarese Catholics are found in India and North America.
2. EAST SYRIAN
• Chaldean - Babylonian Catholics returned to Rome in 1692 from the Nestorian heresy. Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans. Liturgical languages are Syriac and Arabic. The 310,000 Chaldean Catholics are found in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and the US.
• Syro-Malabarese - Catholics from Southern India using the East Syriac liturgy. Returned to Rome in the 16th century from the Nestorian heresy. Liturgical languages are Syriac and Malayalam. Over 3 million Syro-Malabarese Catholics can be found in the state of Kerela, in SW India.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Prayer Ping!
Mohammedans.....May God forgive me, but I want to see those animals get the treatment they deserve! I want to have happen to them what happens to our Christian and Jewish bretheren who live under the tyranny of the Mohammedan heathens!
May God bless and keep them... they may be living in hell, but they are close to heaven.
Ironically, Christians were protected under Saddam. They are having a harder time now than before.
There is no doubt that the invasion of Iraq has made life worse for our fellow Christians in Iraq. Wayne Allensworth warned this would happen in Chronicles, before the invasion. Under Hussein, Christianity was even taught in public schools in areas where Christians were in the majority. Now, it appears that an Islamist of some type or other is likely to win the January election in Iraq.
Most Moslems in the Mideast disdain America, the West, and Christianity. Democracy in the Mideast is likely to result in governments less friendly toward us and to the Christians who live in the Mideast.
Thanks for this post and ping.
The Iraqi Christians are in a bad place and in need of our prayers. Nonetheless, they can and will keep the faith alive under persecution. They are not the first to suffer and require catacomb churches. They will not be the last.
They should also rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is their reward in heaven.
The same may well be said for France soon. (You realize, of course, that Roman collars and religious veils come under the headscarf ban where Secularist governments are concerned.)
=== Nonetheless, they can and will keep the faith alive under persecution. They are not the first to suffer and require catacomb churches. They will not be the last.
Given the way the ADL, ACLU and others have sought to strip Christ in particular from the Public Square, we may end up sharing in the suffering ourselves.
We're not allowed to be a "Christian" nation, after all. It's offensive to so many who -- like Patriarch Alexei, proponents of faithbased funding and the commissars at home and abroad who determine who will and will not be Permitted to use property, radio, television, or transportation -- believe in allowing others to practice their faith ONLY SO LONG as they stick strictly to social work, political organizing and neither witness in public nor seek to actually convert anyone to Christ.
Kinda rules out practice of authentic Christianity, no?
=== Kinda rules out practice of authentic Christianity, no?
Well, save for where the use of Scripture in Prime Time helps gild the State's decision to fund human experimentation on "already-been-killed" embryos until such best-use of Unwanted Potential People hits Paydirt.
We goofed with this invasion. Every passing day shows that we've overturned a rat's nest.
I agreed with the Pope's warnings on the folly of this war and the current state of affairs shows how right he was.
May God sustain and strengthen these good Christian people.
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