[UPDATE 8/1: Just learned that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has marked August 1 as a day of prayer and adoration for the persecuted Christians of Iraq and Syria. Here is a link to livestreamed liturgies and other events organized for today. And Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Rafael Sako calls for Christians across the world to join together to pray for peace in Iraq on August 6.]

Today, Elizabeth Scalia posted  a rich, harrowing meditation that imagined the experience of Mosul's Christians, who have been treated with unimaginable brutality by militants from the Islamic State (IS) and forced into exile with nothing but the clothes on their back. Scalia begins her reflection this way:

 

To be ripped from our neighborhood, the ancient land we have shared, so companionably for so long, is a tragedy that must transform each of us. I have been forever changed by the experience of being marched away at gunpoint, empty-handed, my past wrested from me. They gave me two choices, leave or die. And you, too, are changed for having to quietly watch me go, or die yourselves. It is not how old neighbors should part.

Why do they do this? Because they can. Because the “great men” and peace-prize-winning princes of the age will not stop them. Because they have been given uniforms and arms, and the sense of strength and prestige that goes with them, and these things are like a salve to their weakness, a balm to their spiritual wounds of inadequacy. Yet, I believe that somewhere deep inside they know this is all an illusion of might, a falsity that feeds their sickness.

Perhaps that is what makes them so dangerous. Give a security guard with a dejected soul a uniform and he begins to believe he is a police officer. Give weapons and a dubious cause to a people who have felt disrespected and thwarted in their creative ambitions, and they will quickly seek to affirm themselves with a demonstration of their new powers. Having felt like nobodies for too long, they must become somebodies, and this they do by dismantling the personhood of others, by obliterating their pasts.

We do not know for sure what stirs the hearts and minds of the Islamic State fighters, who have ruthlessly cleansed Mosul of its ancient Christian community, ending the celebration of Sunday mass in this place after 1,600 years.

But we can judge their actions. With the systematic brutality of Nazi stormtroopers, IS has robbed the Christians of Mosul of their property, livelihood, cash, and identity papers. Those too poor or too old to flee have been forced to give up their fiath, as well, acquiecing to the militants' demands that they convert to Islam or face execution.   

Yesterday, Michael La Civita, a spokesman for  Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), which has worked with the Church in this region for almost a century, told me that those exiled from Mosul faced a multitude of difficulties. The Islamic State has used its new powers to cut off  the water and power for some communities that are now harboring the exiles. And it would be difficult for people fleeing the militants to be processed as refugees because many now have no identity papers.  Further, he warned that other Christian villages on the Nineveh Plain could be attacked by IS fighters at any time, multiplying the number of displaced Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities pinned between IS and Kurdistan. 

"Does Washington even care?” asked  Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA, in a speech from the floor of the House this week. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, stepped up on July 29 to announce a bipartisan effort to  prod the Obama admnistration and others to provide critical emergency relief and visas for Christians exiled from their homeland on the Ninevah Plain.   

Please consider contacting your representatives to demand that humanitarian assistance be offered through trusted non-governmmental organizations that can reach displaced Iraqi Christians, and also  donating to Catholic Near East Welfare Asociation here, or Aid to the Church in Need here. 

And in the meantime, let's pray for our brothers and sisters branded as "Nazarenes" by the Islamic State and forced into exile, and let us be inspired by their remarkable  faith.   As Charlotte Hays reported in a story posted in the Register website  today, Iraqi Christians should be honored not ignored by U.S. Catholics.  As Charlotte reported, these men and women,  when confronted with the Arabic letter "N" -- for "Nazarene" -- spray apinted on their homes,  took it as  a “badge of honor.”  Faced with similar conditions, would we do the same? 

Their witness stirs our conscience, too. We Americans want the world to take care of its own problems, but now Mosul's Christians, along with many other embattled religious minorities, remind us that we can not wish away evil.