(Vatican Radio) In many societies today, the utterance of a simple phrase, “I am a Christian”, is a crime punishable by death. So widespread is this persecution that Pope Francis called it a “third world war, waged piecemeal … a form of genocide”.
The Holy Father spoke primarily of those many who are dying for the Faith today. Yet many more Christians live in constant danger. According to reliable estimates, more than 200 million Christians in 60 countries around the world face some form of restriction on their faith.
Persecution is happening today on a massive scale, and the perpetrators are from everywhere on the globe. They draw their motivation from a wide range of ideologies, from materialistic, from a wide range of ideologies, from materialistic communism to radical Islam. They charge Christians with crimes such as sedition and blasphemy. Persecution is taking place in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, India, China, Nigeria, Sudan, North Korea, and many other lands. It is happening in plain sight. Sometimes the persecutors brazenly post video footage of the execution of Christians on social media.
Yet it is hardly remarked upon in major media outlets. It is barely noticed by diplomats and heads of state. It is, in fact, treated as a political liability. Christian martyrs, it has been said, are too religious to excite the interest of the American left and too foreign to rouse the interest of the right. And so martyrs are abandoned to their fight, left to suffer alone. We see the truth in the observation of the poet W.H. Auden: “even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course / Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot.”
The above text is from the preface of Cardinal Wuerl’s recent book, To the Martyrs: A Christian Reflection on the Supreme Witness (Steubenville, Ohio, Emmaus Road, 2015, 135 pages, US $22.95) with introduction by Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl is Archbishop of Washington, DC in the United States. The Archdiocese of Washington is home to over 620,000 Catholics living in Washington and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Residents of the most isolated and war-ravaged parts of Syria are desperately awaiting the arrival of promised food aid and other emergency supplies. The Syrian government agreed yesterday to allow humanitarian deliveries to some of the most isolated areas. Tens of thousands of people are said to be facing the imminent threat of death by starvation.
Caritas Internationalis has launched an international campaign with its regional partners in the Middle East to pressure the international community to act decisively to bring the nearly five-year-old civil war in Syria to an end.
The General Secretary of Caritas Internationalis, Michel Roy, told us there is real danger of losing sight of the terrible human toll of the conflict.
Listen to Susy Hodges’ interview with Michel Roy:
Caritas Internationalis, together with its colleagues, all agree that Syria is at the heart of a geo-political struggle in which the Syrian people “count for nothing.”
“When we met last September we agreed to ask the international community to seek peace,” Roy said. “The problem is that the international community will talk about peace but will not include Assad in its talks. This means, according to Roy, that “we go on with the war.”
Caritas Internationalis therefore decided to launch a campaign for peace in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East so as to exert pressure on the governments there and around to the world to make sincere, inclusive efforts at a workable peace process. The objective is to overcome international indifference toward the Syrian people. “After five years,” says Roy, “war in Syria has become normal.”
Roy also reminds listeners that what we cannot forget is that “Daesh” (the so-called Islamic State) was born in Syria and is the same movement that killed so many innocent civilians in the Paris massacre.
Citing Fr Timothy Radcliffe, Roy states that to end the war we need to allow all Syrians to sit down together. Peace is not going to come from those who have strong financial or geo-political interests in the process, like the US, Russia, arms manufacturers and oil executives.
“Daesh [Islamic State] is comprised of educated people,” Roy says. Such people, he notes, were educated in Europe, worked with Saddam Hussein, and were educated in America. Even if it makes the international community uncomfortable, they need to be included in talks in order to bring an end to the Syrian war.
(from Vatican Radio)…