Continued Persecution of Christians in the Moslem World

Mark Noonan

The sad story:

Various Iraqi bishops have issued a joint message denouncing the continual wave of Islamic violence against Christians in the country, which has left five people dead in the past week. The bishops are demanding that the government take concrete steps to stop the slaughter.

In an interview with the Fides News Agency, Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Casmouusa of Mosul called for authorities to “fully assume responsibility for protecting the Christian presence in Mosul. International intervention is necessary to force the central and local governments to act immediately.”

The fifth and most recent victim, a 57-year-old Christian orthodox man, was found dead two days ago.

This surge in violence moved the bishops to call for greater intervention by the local government. Archbishop Casmouusa provided Fides with a copy of the message which he signed together with Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Gregorios Saliba, and Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Emile Nona. The message denounced the violence against “our Christian sons and daughters in the city of Mosul,” with the killing of innocent and peaceful people, thus revealing “a premeditated plan to pressure the Christian Churches to carry out a particular agenda.”

It happens wherever there is an open, Christian community in the Moslem world – and there will be no peace between Islam and the West until it stops.

It is hoped that it will stop of its own accord – that as democratic government spreads around the Moslem world it will take away the ability of rabble rousers to work up anti-Christian pogroms (they would also do anti-Jewish pogroms, if they hadn’t already forced out all the Jews decades ago). First and foremost, Moslem leaders must emerge who will cease to consider Christians to be a pollution.

Of course, there is the fear – the Moslem leaders know that they’d lose a great deal of their adherents if a free choice was given, and such would have to be given, if Christians are to enjoy true tolerance in Islam. But if this change does not happen, then there will be war between Islam and the West, and eventually one or the other will have to succumb.