The Catholic archbishop has been killed. Priests have been riddled with bullets upon leaving their churches. Ordinary Christians, trying to live a quiet life, have been subject to harassment, threats and violence. Iraq in the aftermath of the American invasion has been particularly dangerous, but antiChristian violence stretches across the Islamic world.
"Christians are slaughtered in Iraq, in their homes and churches, and the so-called 'free' world is watching in complete indifference, interested only in responding in a way that is politically correct and economically opportune, but in reality is hypocritical," said Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan after these latest killings.
Indeed, the international community issued the usual boilerplate condemnations, most of them refusing to identify those responsible. The same statements could have been used had the Rotarians decided to massacre the Salvation Army. In the Church, too, there is often a reluctance to support vigorously Christians under attack, and to call things by name.
Really?!
And why, Fr. Ray, do you imagine that might be?
The blood on the altar makes it clear. No amount of goodwill, no amount of dialogue, no amount of circumlocutory evasions, no amount of supine prostrations – nothing will dissuade the jihadists. So let us not abnegate ourselves over the dead bodies of our fallen brethren in Christ.
Let us speak frankly of those who want to kill us.
Yes, please. Let's.
The jihadists respect neither man nor God, not even their own. They have killed their fellow Muslims and bombed mosques.
Because, really, the main point here is that it is only people who misunderstand Islam, true Islam, the Religion-of-Peace Islam, who become bombers in the name of Allah.
Yes, please. Won't SOMEone please "speak frankly" about those who want to kill us. And why.
Indeed, I agree. Let's "call things by name". Their proper name.
Close to 60 Catholics were killed. In their cathedral. At Mass. It has now come to this, where Christians are killed at prayer by Muslim fanatics.
Christians have been in Iraq from the earliest centuries, long before there was an Iraq or, one might note, there was Islam. Jihadists have launched a campaign with genocidal intent, aimed at driving out every last Christian from what they consider to be an Islamic land. It is now clear that the only place such jihadists envision for Christians in Iraq is the grave.
Maybe I can start with a question. Who, Fr. Ray, are these "Jihadists" you keep mentioning?
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5 comments:
Maybe, just maybe, it might have something to do with different historically Christian countries putting Iraq under an embargo so strict that chlorine tablets to disinfect drinking water could not be imported, which killed 500,000 children, and that these self-proclaimed arbiters of justice deposed their evil dictator, but did NOT, as they were obliged to under international law, maintain public order after the invasion.
Barging into people's homes and getting people killed in the process are not good manners in my books.
When the Holy Father receives and blesses Tony Blair, who bears responsibility for the fiasco (read Rory Stewart) and claims to be a Catholic, then it should not come as too much of a surprise when Iraq's Catholics are swept into the maelstrom of blood and violence.
Some Christians get it: http://www.crosswalk.com/1352420/
jean-f.
Ah yes. the classic liberal response. To blame the victim. Maybe you could go find a nice rape victim to tell it to.
Those poor darlings. It's because they've suffered so...
I do enjoy the sight of the Islams - while brandishing signs saying how they're going to slaughter us all - bleating about the evil Christian crusaders and their poor suffering Islamic terrorist bretheren in prisons. Its our fault they hate us...if you tell yourself often enough, you will be ready to pay the Jizya and turn over your daughters when they're in charge.
It calls to mind a conversation I had once with a young man who had been arrested for using a university library computer to download child pornography.
"Well, I come from a background of poverty."
I always wondered which social worker he'd picked up that little bit of liberal jargon from.
He seemed incapable of seeing that he had done an evil and illegal act and continued to cling to his "background of poverty".
It made my skin crawl and I told him so. He accused me of being insensitive.
And so it goes...
...and as far as I recall, the people barging in are in fact the Muslims.
Do any of you fellow-travellers ever recall that those were Christian lands before they were conquered by the Sword of Mohammed?
I went to seminary with Fr. Ray. Not surprised at all.
Hilary,
With all due respect, what you write is foolish. You take disparate issues that have nothing, but nothing at all, to do with each other, and combine them to form a conclusion that is far out.
Yes, as the signs you mention prove, there are plenty of ignorant and even belligerent people in and from Muslim countries, as there are in any Third World country, or even at football matches in Britain, for that matter.
Yes, people often do not want to accept responsibility for their misdeeds, and will, if they have to, resort to absurd justifications.
Shedding thousands', nay hundreds of thousands', blood is no trifle. Committing war crimes - the invasion of Iraq was a war crime under international law (regardless of its prudence) - is no trifle either; the British got Germans who did so to the gallows.
George Bush's minister of defence was warned by his brass that his plans for the invasion would founder and result in widespread anarchy breaking out. The professional soldiers told him that it would take twice as many soldiers to maintain order after the invasion. There are many in the Middle East, perhaps even most, who believe this was done intentionally, because as long as the Iraqis were killing each other, they obviously wouldn't be killing their guests. Under the laws of war, it's a war crime to not maintain order in a country you've invaded, and Tony Blair went right along with this.
It's one thing to absurdly claim that poverty made you a pervert, quite another to have your blood boil and want revenge when people who recklessly caused thousands of deaths are treated with much respect by religious leaders. Seems to me in times gone past, the Pope "couldn't" receive dodgy heads of state passing through because of maintenance work in the Vatican.
And it may not even only have been about revenge. It seems to me that some fine Christian folk in Germany and elsewhere also got rid of very prosperous religious minorities not that long ago.
To my mind the best indication of how well you have thought this through is that you call them "Islams;" there is no such usage of the word.
Jean-F
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