Pope urges Middle East Christians not to abandon homelands

Arab News ^ | May 14, 2025 | AFP

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday hailed Christian communities in the Middle East who “persevere and remain in their homelands, resisting the temptation to abandon them” despite war, marginalization or persecution.

“Christians must be given the opportunity, and not just in words, to remain in their native lands with all the rights needed for a secure existence. Please, let us strive for this!” he told a meeting of Eastern Catholic Churches at the Vatican.

On Sunday, the pontiff called for an "authentic and lasting peace" in Ukraine, a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages held by militant group Hamas, and welcomed the fragile ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

Leo spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday in his first known conversation with a foreign leader as pope. He offered to facilitate peace talks as world leaders come to his inauguration mass, the Ukrainian leader said.

---

TOPICS: Current Events
KEYWORDS: christians; holocausted; israeldidit; leoxiv; middleeast; pope; popebob; popeleo; toolate; vatican; zionism

[suasponte137]

The last pope would’ve told them to convert to Islam

[PGR88]

Western governments seem to be on a clear Islamization push. Out foreign policy has had a large role in ethnically cleansing the mid east of Christians, the mid east has definitely turned from secularism to Sunni supremacy, and we continue to Islamize Western societies, particularly Europe

[Carry_Okie]

Good move. The emphasis delivered by the message being so early in his tenure is significant. It’s high time the Church relearned that it will have to fight back against Islam. One has to be there to deliver a message of love; else the Muslims will stew in hate ever more aggressively.

Prayer five times a day, has its consequences.

[chopperk]

Leo is trying to keep native Christian to remain in their respective Countries to stop the muslims getting control. In Africa all Countries north of the Equator are now muslim.

[vespa300]

He also said this week that he wants to broker a peace between Russia and Ukraine.

The world marvels after the beast.

[Romulus]

Christian zionist freepers sorely conflicted.

[Campion]

Maybe the world is just relieved at having an authentic moral leader in Rome for a change

[BradyLS]

Maybe he should say that to the Muslims swarming Europe.

[laplata]

The last pope would’ve told them to convert to Islam

><

I was about to say the same thing.

[mewzilla]

Talk is cheap.

[ealgeone]

Rome may want to review this....not many Roman Catholics are aware of this statement.

I can assure the reader that the God of the Bible is not Allah.

******

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Before you start identifying End Times characters by name, maybe you should consider how many times it has been done before, and how it has always been wrong. I remember when King Juan Carlos and Anwar Sadat and even Ronald Reagan were identified as the Antichrist. I believe the Crown Prince of Morocco is the latest candidate.

A global religious and moral leader would be expected to address the carnage and fratricide between two allegedly Christian nations, especially since one of those nations contains members of his own flock.

[Campion]

I educated myself a bit on that... it's not quite that easy.

Do Chrisian and Jews worship the same God? (Saying "No" is a big problem.)

Do Jews and Muslims worship the same God? There is no shortage of Orthodox rabbis who will answer "yes" to that question. If they are wrong, why are they wrong?

If Jews and Christians worship the same God, and Jews and Muslims worship the same God, then Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I think Islam is a syncretism of Judaism, poorly-understood Christianity, and Arab paganism. It makes many errors about the nature of God, and does not worship Him in the way He wishes. But even Aquinas, who wrote a whole apologetic against Islam, had to concede this point.

[Carry_Okie]

I can assure the reader that the God of the Bible is not Allah.

Allah is the angel of Hagar.

[ealgeone]

Now, don't misunderstand me. I think Islam is a syncretism of Judaism, poorly-understood Christianity, and Arab paganism. It makes many errors about the nature of God, and does not worship Him in the way He wishes. But even Aquinas, who wrote a whole apologetic against Islam, had to concede this point.

It's not even close.

Islam denies Who Jesus is.

They deny the crucifixion and resurrection. That's the core of Christianity.

The writers are Catholic Answers try to put a positive spin on what Rome has dogmatically said in an attempt to downplay the massive error of Rome. It's really sad to read their apologetic attempting to rationalize this error.

Here's their spin.

"His [Francis] remarks to the latter recognized that Muslims “worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon him in prayer.” In this he echoed the 1964 dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, which gave a nod to “the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”

Now, both Lumen Gentium 16 and Pope Francis’s words from ten years ago have a pastoral rather than doctrinal purpose."

So which is it? Dogmatic or pastoral rather than doctrinal??

The spin is unreal.

But Roman Catholics have no choice but to accept it as it is what their denomination has written.

[ealgeone]

https://tyndale.tms.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tmsj13e.pdf

An interesting read for the serious minded on this issue.

[Campion]

But Judaism does all those things and more. (Don't research what the Talmud says about Jesus.) If that's your criterion, you have to go down the Marcionite path of saying that Jews worship a different God.

As I've tried to explain to you before, the Catholic magisterium can infallibly (= dogmatically) condemn errors which may (or may not) be held by another religion, but they cannot infallibly teach assertions about what another religion believes. (Because that other religion could reject that assertion tomorrow. Muslims decide what Muslims believe; Catholics don't.)

So there's no direct dogmatic assertion requiring Catholics to believe that Muslims worship the true God, nor can there be. However, as I said, there are theological traps that need to be avoided otherwise.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Immigrants, stay in your culture and home country and fix it. Your dump, like ours in many ways, will never get better if you abandon it. You just make another country like ours more powerful and your old people less capable.

[Organic Panic]

Tell it to the muzzies, Leo.