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| Pope Francis (Photo credit: Zenit) |
The gesture of Pope Francis towards the Iraqi
priest ministering to thousands of persecuted Christians who had taken refuge
in Ankawa brought tears to my eyes when I read about it. I thought it was so fatherly, the action
speaking more profoundly than any words can convey. For the refugees, the pope personally
reaching out to them was a boost to their severely tested faith in the midst of
persecution.
The priest, by the name of Fr. Behnam Benoka, wrote to the Holy Father, narrating to him
first hand, the difficulties they are experiencing in the refugee center where
several thousands of Christians are living in makeshift tents amid dire
conditions.
According to CNA News, more than 70,000
Christians who have fled from the Islamic State are in Erbil, the capital of
Iraqi Kurdistan, which is within 50 miles of territory held by the Islamic
State.
Like a typical father that he is, the Holy Father
called up Fr. Benoka to assure him of the pontiff’s spiritual closeness amidst
their suffering and his prayers for their safety.
The pope’s call came as a spiritual boost to the
refugees at a time when they needed it most.
CNA reported that the people were “very happy” to
know that the pope called up and talked to Fr. Benoka about their situation in
the refugee center.
Pope Francis earlier has called on the United
Nations for an international humanitarian intervention on the situation in
Iraq. He also sent Cardinal Fernando Filoni as his personal envoy to Iraq to
assess the situation and also as a show of his solidarity with the people
there.
In the face of evil
What
do we do when evil stares us in the face? Dietrich Bonhoeffer has something to
say about it: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not
hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”
When the ISIS went on rampage and sowed terror among the
Christian population and other minorities in Northern Iraq last month, the
world simply looked and blinked.
It took a while before the leaders of nations realized that
the forces of evil had been unleashed through ISIS who were bent on exterminating
Christians and other minorities.
In a letter published
by Vatican Radio, Iraq’s ancient Chaldean Catholic Church Patriarch Louis Raphaël
I Sako chided the international
community for its inaction amid the ongoing persecution of Christians and other
minorities in Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi Patriarch
sadly noted that a month has already lapsed but no concrete action has been
done by the community of nations to help the persecuted Christians and other
minorities suffering at the hands of militants in Iraq and Syria.
“The
curtains have been drawn on the painful events,” Patriarch Sako lamented,
“and 120,000 Christians are uprooted from their historical homeland
because the Political Islam does
not want them there, and the world is silent, standing still, either because it
approves or because it is incapable of acting.”
He
said because of the world’s inaction in the face of such atrocities inflicted
upon the Christians, the ISIS are encouraged “to move forward with its
ferocious war against culture and diversity
and threatening the intellectual and social
security.” The Iraqi patriarch warned that if not stopped, the ISIS’ atrocities
may spilled out of Iraq to neighboring regions.
In
fact, Lebanese Patriarchal Vicar for the
Maronite Church, Archbishop Paul Sayah also
voiced out the same fear.
In an earlier interview
by the Vatican Radio, the archbishop said “I think everybody
should wake up, otherwise, I think this fire will not limit itself to the
region.”
“The way things are going in this part of the world is
telling extremist Muslims that they can have their way and that moderation is
not (accepted). We want the international community to stop arming those
people, to stop buying the oil they’re selling, to stop training their
militants. We want them - starting with Europe - not to allow them to
recruit people. It’s incredible that those people should be recruiting
British and French and Americans and Europeans into their ranks.”
Thankfully, the United Nations is set to intervene on the
worsening situation. The Vatican has been calling on the UN to do just that
since the beginning of ISIS’ rampage. On Sept. 1 the UN Human Rights Council held
a special session which was attended by Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, the
Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations. The UN body passed a
resolution condemning the human rights abuses and “requested the Office of the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to dispatch a mission to Iraq.”
For the rest of us, we too can do our part even how little to
show our solidarity and concern with our Christian brothers and sisters who
suffer persecution. Prayer is the best weapon in the face of evil. Prayers
coupled with sacrifices, even how little or may appear insignificant, matter a
lot when these come straight from the heart.
