PHILADELPHIA — The Knights of Columbus unveiled a major expansion of their campaign to aid the Middle East’s embattled Christians, calling on its members to recall the same spirit that inspired them to assist Mexico’s persecuted Catholics and refugees during the Cristero War in the 1920s.

Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Catholic fraternal organization, announced the Knights’ new, massive push to raise money for the Christian Refugee Relief Fund at a Tuesday news conference during the 2015 Supreme Convention in Philadelphia. The campaign will raise as much funds as possible to support the Middle East’s churches and Christians weathering the persecution and unrest that has gripped much of the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, following the takeover of much of those countries’ territory by Islamic State militants.

Anderson made clear to reporters that he wanted Knights to respond with the same heroic sacrifice that their members and councils made when the 1926 Supreme Convention, also held that year in Philadelphia, asked them to come to the aid of Mexico’s Catholics, “who were being persecuted and killed there by their government.”

At the time, the Mexican government was engaged in a vicious persecution of Mexico’s Catholics. A revolution broke out against the government, from 1926 to 1929, called the Cristero War, or La Cristida, which at one time had 50,000 Catholics mobilized in armed rebellion.

“We raised awareness about the issue and financially helped many refugees who fled north. We were able to do much good for many people,” he said. “Today, we are compelled as an organization to speak up for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East.”

Anderson mentioned that Pope Francis has called for “concrete action” to stop the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and added that Francis communicated his personal thanks to the Knights for the $3 million they have raised already.

“More of everything is needed by those who have, literally, nothing,” Anderson said.

The plan for the Knights consists of two parts: action at the national level, partnered with action at the local level.

Overall, 15,000 local Knights councils are raising awareness, educating people and fundraising at the local level. The national organization will support by providing olive-wood crosses crafted in Bethlehem, Palestine, which councils may sell at parish fundraisers, in addition to their other efforts.

A national television ad campaign will be ongoing. The Knights have also produced a new site called ChristiansatRisk.org, which provides current information on the crisis and how to donate. They are also promoting social-media activism using the hashtag #ChristiansatRisk to generate awareness about the threats to the Middle East’s Christians.

Anderson explained that the Knights will continue to identify key regional partners and assist them in providing general needs, housing, health care, food and education. The national organization will cover all of the administrative costs involved in the program.

“One hundred percent of the money raised will go directly to aiding those in need and to raising awareness on their behalf, so that even more people can assist them,” he added.

 

The Knights’ Mexican Legacy

The money raised from the 1926 convention’s appeal to support the Church in Mexico and Catholic refugees fleeing the persecution and violence exceeded more than $1 million. Adjusted for inflation in today’s currency, it would be approximately $13.5 million.

According to Matthew Redinger, author of American Catholics and the Mexican Revolution, 1924-1936 and a vice provost at Montana State University-Billings, the Knights’ 1926 national convention and the response to the call for the Mexican fund demonstrated how the annual convention could be a powerful vehicle for mobilizing the entire organization, all the way down to the local council level. 

“It was a tremendously significant amount at the time, and the initiative drew significant attention and donations from councils all over the country,” Redinger said.

At the time, the Knights faced a frustrating situation, as Catholics saw both an ongoing persecution of the Church in Mexico and a U.S. government that seemed to do little to intervene and end the conflict.

Redinger said the Knights’ leadership had to navigate difficult waters in responding to the crisis in Mexico. Some of the membership were calling for the supreme council to pass a resolution calling for a U.S. declaration of war on Mexico or direct military aid to the Cristeros. Others wanted the Knights to fund the Cristeros directly and were deeply critical of the supreme council for backing “the majority that advocated care for the refugees and doing everything possible politically, short of war.”

Redinger said that the Knights’ most effective response during this period was the Mexican fund, which helped construct a seminary in New Mexico that trained new priests for Mexico and supported U.S. Catholic dioceses at the Mexican border that were bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis caused by the Mexican government’s Catholic persecution and the fighting with the Cristero rebels.

Still, the Knights’ humanitarian response was nevertheless greeted with anti-Catholic uproar, Redinger said, “particularly with congressmen from the South,” who accused it of financially backing the rebellion.

However, Redinger said the U.S. Catholic hierarchy wrote a pastoral letter on the crisis in Mexico, in which they were “crystal clear that the money [sent by U.S. Catholics] could not be used to support the Cristeros.” The Knights abided by this directive, although some members privately dissented.

At the same time, the Knights also faced a deeply hostile anti-Catholic environment and had to “walk a very difficult diplomatic tightrope” with the Calvin Coolidge administration.

“The supreme council was caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said, adding, “Their most effective response was financial.”

 

A Great Need Today

Christians in the Middle East region who have suffered violence or persecution are facing both short-term and long-term needs. Michael La Civita, communications director for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), told the Register that besides food, water and clothing needs, many Christian refugees suffer from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder and need emotional and spiritual care.

La Civita said they also need economic support, as utter desperation puts many of them in danger of human traffickers.

“We know religious women are working with Catholic women who have been forced into prostitution,” he said.  

“The crisis is not over, and the long-term needs have not been addressed yet,” he said. “But Americans are very generous, and we’ve all seen an increase in the interest, care and solicitation for their Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East.”

Two Catholic archbishops, representing the most at-risk communities of Christians in Syria and Iraq, spoke at the Knights’ media conference Tuesday in Philadelphia to explain how vital the assistance is to their communities.

Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart, the Melkite archbishop of Aleppo, said the generosity that has thus far poured out from the Knights “has for me been a kind of a light, which has helped me see through the darkness of the tunnel.”

“We have seen people killed, slaughtered, women violated, priests and bishops kidnapped, houses destroyed, churches and convents invaded. … I do not want to make a list; it would take me too much time,” he said. “But what I say is that we will resist, and we will resist with the help of God and those who help us.”

He pleaded with the Knights and the Catholic community to help Christians to stay in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

He explained that they could not simply leave — as some in the West have advocated they do — since they have a 2,000-year history of proclaiming the Gospel in a holy land “irrigated with the blood of 20 million martyrs for the sake of the Lord.”

“We must do whatever possible to maintain this presence and say loudly that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that Jesus Christ has risen and that Jesus Christ is the only hope for humanity.”

 

Kurdistan Refugees

Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, echoed the Melkite archbishop’s words, explaining that the assistance they have received has allowed the Church to put all of the refugees from ISIS’ persecution into permanent dwellings.

More than 125,000 Christians fled Mosul and the Nineveh Plain for Kurdistan in the wake of ISIS’ takeover in June 2014, when Christians were told that they could convert, die or leave, taking none of their possessions, and many were forced to live in tents, classrooms and unfinished buildings for months due to the lack of accommodations. Archbishop Warda said the assistance of Catholics in the U.S. helped their Church get displaced Christians into permanent housing within six months.

“I cannot trust politics to solve the problem, but I trust you. … As a Church, we have to stand with our people where they are and respond to their daily needs: to help them help themselves,” he said.

Archbishop Warda explained that the local Church has to pay $300,000 monthly in rent to sustain these families and praised the generosity of the Knights and other Catholic organizations that have helped them provide decent housing for the displaced Christians. He added that they have also been able to build eight schools and two medical clinics through their support.

“Love, faith and hope are what marks Christians,” he said. “We have seen and experienced the love of God that is seen through all the charity and love that’s been given to us to stay there.”

Peter Jesserer Smith is the Register’s Washington correspondent.