Posted on 01/10/2020 6:34:44 PM PST by marshmallow
The invasion of ISIS in 2014 triggered a mass exodus of the region’s Christians.
Reporting on his December 2019 fact-finding mission to northern Iraq, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan said that Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town on the Nineveh Plains, is “slowly returning” to what it was before the invasion of ISIS in the summer of 2014, which triggered a mass exodus of the region’s Christians to Kurdistan.
The Patriarch celebrated Mass in Mosul’s rebuilt Syriac Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation. It was the first Mass said there in more than five years. More than 500 faithful from across the Nineveh Plains attended. The church is the first, and so far only, rebuilt church in the city since it was taken by ISIS in June 2014.
The Patriarch recently spoke with Aid to the Church in Need about his priorities for 2020:
“At least 50 percent of the 12,000 Syriac Catholic families who were uprooted have returned to Qaraqosh. Schools are open, some of them are rebuilt.
However, charitable assistance is still needed to rebuild houses and to create jobs, since the Iraqi government is unable to respond to the needs of those who have been hurt, oppressed or uprooted.
Our big challenge now is to convince the young generation to stay in their homeland to share in the restoration of peace and progress in the country. They have lost hope for the future. This is our biggest challenge: how to tell them that their presence is needed to bear witness to the Lord, living among a majority not sharing the faith with us.
We are the remnants of Apostolic Churches and our very survival is threatened. If these Churches do not exist anymore in the Middle East, it will be a big loss not.....
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
They need to return armed to the fooken teeth.
WHY would anyone go back? Religious persecution drove people HERE because THERE is where people were persecuted and killed for their faith.
If they feel brave enough to go back and beachhead Christianity in a land that really needs not to be abandoned to the anti-Christ then I say more power too them.
But they should know what they are doing by now.
I would think in this case to wait to see who the next head honcho is and that regime is would be more prudent.
Look -believe in Jesus !!! but keep your mouth shut if you live in an Islamic or a communist country!
that’s my advice-take it for what it’s worth !
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