15 Shocking Quotes from Catholic Bishops About Muslim Aggression in the Middle East

Posted By Lisa Graas On October 20, 2010 @ 8:00 am

At the Vatican’s Synod Hall, over 250 Catholic bishops are meeting for the Special Assembly for the Middle East for the Synod of Bishops. It is intended that out of this meeting will come guidance for bishops on dealing with issues specific to the Middle East, but what we hear most clearly are the voices of Catholic bishops crying out about Muslim aggression, mass emigration of Christians and the attempt by Muslims to bring full domination of the Holy Land and all of the Middle East by Islam. Here are fifteen troubling quotes from Catholic Bishops, including one from Europe, participating in the Middle East Synod.


#15. RAYMOND MOUSSALLI, VICAR GENERAL OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF BABYLON OF THE CHALDEANS, JORDAN.

There is a deliberate campaign to drive Christians out of the country. Fundamentalist extremist groups have satanic plans against Christians, not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East. … We want to make the international community aware that it cannot remain silent in the face of the massacre of Christians in Iraq, and to encourage countries of Catholic tradition to do something for Iraqi Christians, beginning with placing pressure on their own governments. We are experiencing a catastrophic moment, with the emigration of families and the loss of our people who still speak the Aramaic language spoken by Our Lord Jesus Christ.


#14. ARCHBISHOP LOUIS SAKO OF KERKUK OF THE CHALDEANS, IRAQ.

The fatal exodus afflicting our Churches cannot be avoided, emigration is the biggest challenge which threatens our presence. The data is worrying.


#13. ARCHBISHOP RUGGERO FRANCESCHINI O.F.M. CAP. OF IZMIR, TURKEY, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF ANATOLIA AND PRESIDENT OF THE TURKISH EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE.

“The little Church of Turkey, at times ignored, had her sad moment of fame with the brutal murder of Bishop Luigi Padovese O.F.M. Cap., president of the Turkish Episcopal Conference. In a few words I would like to close this unpleasant episode by erasing the intolerable slander circulated by the very organisers of the crime. It was premeditated murder, by those same obscure powers that poor Luigi had just a few months earlier identified as being responsible for the killing of Fr. Andrea Santoro, the Armenian journalist Dink and four Protestants of Malatya. It is a murky story of complicity between ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics, experts in the ‘strategia della tensione’. The pastoral and administrative situation in the vicariate of Anatolia is serious. … What do we ask of the Church? We simply ask what we are lacking: a pastor, someone to help him, the means to do so, and all of this with reasonable urgency.

[...] The survival of the Church of Anatolia is at risk. … Nonetheless, I wish to reassure neighbouring Churches – especially those that are suffering persecution and seeing their faithful become refugees – that the Turkish Episcopal Conference will continue to welcome them and offer fraternal assistance, even beyond our abilities. In the same way, we are open to pastoral co-operation with our sister Churches and with positive lay Muslims, for the good of Christians living in Turkey, and for the good of the poor and of the many refugees who live in Turkey.


#12. ARCHBISHOP EDMOND FARHAT, APOSTOLIC NUNCIO.

The Middle Eastern situation today is like a living organ which has received a transplant it cannot assimilate, and with no specialists capable of healing it. As a last resource, the Muslim Arab East turned trustingly to the Church, believing her capable of obtaining justice. But this has not happened leading to disappointment and fear. Confidence has turned to frustration and the crisis has become deeper. … Today, the Church endures injustice and calumnies As in the Gospel, many leave, others lose heart or flee. The frustrated and desperate take their revenge on the innocent. But lying behind the physical assassinations and the most disastrous failures is sin. … The action of God continues throughout history, and the Church in the Middle East is now experiencing the way of the Cross and purification, which leads to renewal and resurrection. The present suffering and anguish are the cries of a newborn infant. If they persist it is because the demons that torment our society can be chased away only by prayer. Perhaps we have not prayed enough!


#11. BISHOP PAUL HINDER O.F.M. CAP., APOSTOLIC VICAR OF ARABIA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES.

There are strict immigration laws (restricting the number of priests). … There is no freedom of religion (no Muslim can convert but Christians are welcome into Islam), and only limited freedom of worship in designated places, granted by benevolent rulers (except in Saudi Arabia).


#10. HIS BEATITUDE NERSES BEDROS XIX TARMOUNI, PATRIARCH OF CILICIA.

[N]obody emigrates [to the Middle East] to look for a better Christian life.


#9. ARCHBISHOP ELIE BECHARA HADDAD B.S. OF SAIDA OF THE GREEK-MELKITES, LEBANON.

The sale of Christian land in Lebanon is becoming a dangerous phenomenon. It threatens the Christian presence to the point of reducing it to a minimum in the future.


#8. ARCHBISHOP BERHANEYESUS DEMEREW SOURAPHIEL C.M. OF ADDIS ABEBA, ETHIOPIA, PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ETHIOPIAN CHURCH, AND PRESIDENT OF THE EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE OF ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA.

Ethiopia has about eighty million inhabitants, half of whom are below the age of twenty-five. The great challenge which the country faces is poverty and its consequences, such as unemployment. Many young people, aspiring to escape poverty, attempt to emigrate, by any means. Those who emigrate to the Middle East are mostly young women who go legally or illegally to seek employment as domestic workers because most of them lack professional training. In order to facilitate their journey, the Christians change their Christian names to Muslim names, and dress as Muslims so that their visas can be processed easily. In this way, Christians are indirectly forced to deny their Christian roots and heritage. … Even if there are exceptions where workers are treated well and with kindness, the great majority suffer exploitation and abuse. … It would seem that Christians who die in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to be buried there; their bodies are flown to Ethiopia for burial. Could the Saudi authorities be requested to allocate a cemetery for Christians in Saudi Arabia?


#7. BISHOP CAMILLO BALLIN M.C.C.J., APOSTOLIC VICAR OF KUWAIT.

In Muslim tradition, the Gulf is the land sacred to the Prophet of Islam, Mohammed, and no other religion should exist there. How can we reconcile this affirmation with the reality of our Churches in the Gulf where there are approximately three million Catholics? They come from Asia and other regions. The reality of their presence, which cannot be overlooked, questions the Muslim assertion. We cannot limit our assistance to these faithful only to celebration of Sunday or even daily Mass, and to our homilies.

[...] I would like to assure Your Beatitudes the Patriarchs, and all our brother bishops, that in the Gulf region we are doing everything in our power and that, if you themselves were there, you could do no more. We ask our Muslim brothers to give us the space to be able to pray properly.


#6. HIS BEATITUDE IGNACE YOUSSIF III YOUNAN, PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH OF THE SYRIANS, LEBANON.

For the past 2000 years, and especially during the last fourteen centuries, Christians have become a minority in their own lands and have been harshly tested in their witness of faith, even to the point of martyrdom.

[...] Our faithful, who have the right to hope as they live their lives in this tormented region of the Middle East, expect a great deal from this Synod. It is up to us to give them reasons for their faith, a faith inseparable from hope in our beloved Lord Who assures us: ‘Do not fear, little flock’. In living faith like this, with one heart and soul, we will learn how to bear courageous witness together to the One who said ‘I am the Truth and Life’. Only Truth can set us free.


#5. ARCHBISHOP BASILE GEORGES CASMOUSSA OF MOSUL OF THE SYRIANS, IRAQ.

In our Middle Eastern countries, we are small minorities, much ravaged by the following factors: (1) Unbridled emigration. Christians are losing more and more trust in their own historical countries. (2) Waves of terrorism inspired by religious ideologies, Islamic or totalitarian, which deny even the principle of equality to the advantage of a fundamentalist revisionism which crushes minorities, including Christians who are the most vulnerable. (3) The alarming decrease of births among Christians, faced with an ever growing natality among Muslims. (4) The unjust accusation against Christians of being troops loaned or led by and for the so-called Christian West, and thus considered as a parasite in the nation. … What is happening in Iraq today makes us think back to what happened in Turkey during the World War I. It is alarming!


#4. EUROPE. CARDINAL PETER ERDO, ARCHBISHOP OF ESZTERGOM-BUDAPEST, HUNGARY AND PRESIDENT OF THE CONSILIUM CONFERENTIARUM EPISCOPORUM EUROPAE.

In our times, when Christian refugees and emigrants arrive in Europe from various Middle Eastern countries, what is our reaction? Do we pay enough attention to the reasons that force thousands if not millions of Christians to leave the land where their ancestors lived for almost two thousand years? Is it also true that our behaviour is responsible for what is happening? We are truly facing a great challenge. … Do we know how to effectively express our support to the Christians of the Middle East? … The Christians who come from the Middle East knock on the doors of our hearts and reawaken our Christian conscience.


#3. ARCHBISHOP ELIAS CHACOUR OF AKKA OF THE GREEK-MELKITES, ISRAEL.

During the past twenty centuries our Christians from the Holy Land were alike condemned and privileged to share oppression, persecution and suffering with Christ. … Being the archbishop of the largest Catholic Church in the Holy Land, the Melkite Catholic Church, I insistently invite you and plead with the Holy Father to give even more attention to the living stones of the Holy Land. … We are in Galilee since immemorial times. Now we are in Israel. We want to stay where we are, we need your friendship more than your money.


#2. ARCHBISHOP BOUTROS MARAYATI OF ALEPPO OF THE ARMENIANS, SYRIA.

For the past hundred years, emigration or violent deportation have continued to occur from the East. … Are we waiting for the day where the world as a spectator amidst the indifference of the Western Churches will sit back and watch the ‘Death of the Christians of the East?’ Despite the crises and difficulties that face our Christian life and our ecumenical relations, we still ‘believe, hoping against every hope’.


#1. HIS BEATITUDE GREGOIRE III LAHAM B.S., PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH OF THE GREEK-MELKITES, SYRIA.

The Christian presence in the Arab world is threatened by the cycles of war afflicting the region, the cradle of Christianity. The main reason is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the fundamentalist movements, Hamas and Hezbollah are consequences of this conflict as well of internal dissension, slowness in development, the rise of hatred, the loss of hope in the young who constitute sixty percent of the population in Arab countries. The emigration of Christians is among the most dangerous effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: emigration which will make Arab society a society of only one colour, Muslim, faced with a European society identified as Christian. Should this happen, should the East be emptied of its Christians, this would mean that any occasion would be propitious for a new clash of cultures, of civilisations and even of religions, a destructive clash between the Muslim Arab East and the Christian West.

Lisa Graas is an experienced apologist for the Catholic Faith, a Passionist Oblate Associate and has served as a group leader for Catholics with mental illness. She is a lifelong Kentuckian and mother of four. Follow Lisa Graas on Twitter and visit her blog at LisaGraas.com.

Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com

URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/10/20/15-shocking-quotes-from-catholic-bishops-about-muslim-aggression-in-the-middle-east-1/