Posted on 08/13/2014 9:43:24 AM PDT by Welchie25
Pope Francis formally asked U.N. agencies and the entire international community “to take action to end the humanitarian tragedy now underway” in northeastern Iraq.
In a letter signed Aug. 9, but released by the Vatican only after it had been delivered, Pope Francis told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon immediate action was needed “to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities.”
The papal letter was sent after militants of the Islamic State terrorist organization had captured Mosul in late July and Qaraqosh in early August, killing hundreds of people and forcing tens of thousands of Christians, Yezidis and other religious and ethnic minorities from their homes.
The U.S. military began airstrikes against the Islamic state Aug. 8 as well as airdrops of food and water for Iraqi minorities who had been forced to flee.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Aug. 13 that Pope Francis was using language in line with the development in Catholic social teaching and international ethics on humanitarian intervention and the “obligation to protect” people facing widespread massacres and outright genocide.
He pointed to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 2008: “Recognition of the unity of the human family, and attention to the innate dignity of every man and woman, today find renewed emphasis in the principle of the responsibility to protect. This has only recently been defined, but it was already present implicitly at the origins of the United Nations.”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicreview.org ...
The Pope will find out that hard way that Christians come second to Muslims at the UN.
RE: Pope to U.N.: Act to end the tragedy in Iraq
ALAS, he’s calling on the wrong group.
The Pope should go there in person and stand with the martyrs. That would get everybody’s attention.
There are no Catholic or Christian armies any more.
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