Holy See Strives to Support Iraq’s Christians
by EDWARD PENTIN
Register Correspondent
VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II and the Holy See will be paying close attention to the situation in Iraq when the country’s people go to the polls Jan. 30 in their first election since the ousting of dictator Saddam Hussein.
In an interview with the Register Jan. 21, Archbishop
Giovanni Lajolo, secretary for the Holy See’s relations with states, said the Pope “wants to be
constantly informed about the situation” and that the secretary of state’s
office of the Holy See is following “very closely all that affects the
difficult daily life of Christians in
The Holy Father, whose concern for the Iraqi faithful was said to be one of his major reasons for opposing the war, spoke in December of his “great apprehension” over the situation in the country.
Christians are also facing growing danger, and tens of thousands are reported to have fled the country after a spate of bombings targeted churches. Two religious and an archbishop were kidnapped in recent weeks.
An Iraqi Chaldean monk,
Father Waheed Gabriele Tooma,
recently spoke of his concern that Christians are seen as belonging to the same
religion as coalition forces and therefore are considered an enemy in
“Only in the last months, after the attack on the
Christian churches, more than 50,000 Iraqi Christians have emigrated
to
Christians were generally left alone by the Hussein
regime, but have since become a target as religious and political groups jostle
for power. On Dec. 7, two attacks destroyed the Armenian-Catholic
Those incidents were part of a series of attacks
against churches that began in early August, when four churches in
Brave Nuns
In
The nuns’ house in the Iraqi city is located in an
area between “the Americans, on one side, and the terrorists on the other,”
which means constant danger that impedes them from leaving the convent for
days, even to go to
Despite the problems, the sisters are not thinking of leaving, saying, “We are here, in this neighborhood, our neighborhood, and we will stay to witness to Christ crucified but risen from the dead.”
The congregation has seven communities in Iraq, in which some 40 religious work in education and run residences for young people, children’s homes and health centers such as St. Raphael’s Hospital in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, in the Dora monastery south of
However, the archbishop later said he did not think
his abduction was “something anti-Christian” but rather an attempt “to get the
Americans out of the country.” When asked what the international community
could be doing to assist Iraqis, the archbishop replied: “It can put pressure
on the
The archbishop’s release praised the “instrumental” intervention of the Holy Father. “One of my captors said, obviously deeply impressed that the Pope had appealed for my release, ‘The Pope himself asked us to set you free,’” Archbishop Casmoussa said.
Archbishop Lajolo
The Holy See continues to take the threats against Iraqi Christians seriously. For Archbishop Lajolo, “the continued suffering of many Christians and the serious threats made anonymously against the bishops of the Church are indeed a cause of great concern: They are completely unjustified because Christians, just like Muslims, are victims of the current sad situation.”
On a practical level, the archbishop explained that the Holy See is trying to help the faithful through contacts with the Iraqi government in Baghdad and with Muslim religious authorities, both Iraqi and from other countries.
“Above all, the Holy See is present in Iraq through the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Fernando Filoni, who never left the country, not even during the military campaign,” Archbishop Lajolo said. “Through him, the Holy See remains in close and constant contact with the local Catholic communities, in order to assure them of the spiritual closeness of the Holy Father and also, as much as possible, to offer concrete help and assistance.”
When asked about his hopes for the future of Iraqi Christians, the archbishop said: “We must never abandon faith. In the words of our Lord, ‘I am with you always until the end of the world.’ We trust that, with the new political order in Iraq, the just freedom due also to the Christian communities will be recognized.”
The archbishop added that these communities of Iraqi Christians have a vital role to play as, since the apostolic times, “they have contributed to the culture and development of the country, especially through their educational and charitable activities.”
Edward Pentin writes
from Rome.
(Zenit contributed
to this report.)
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- January 30-February 5, 2005