As has been pointed out at this blog and other places, the Christian population of Iraq is just about gone. Never to return, the Christians who have inhabited Iraq and most of the Middle East since time long ago will be so much print in history books.
You will hear many reasons why this is so, but it is vitally important to remember:
This is Islam.
From AINA March 19 by Ed West
Time is Running Out for Iraq's Christians, Says
Archbishop
Iraq's ancient Christian community has run out of time and will disappear soon, a senior Iraqi churchman has said.
Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil made his alarming prediction at a press conference for the launch of the Aid to the Church in Need report on oppressed Christians abroad, Persecuted and Forgotten?
Speaking in Westminster yesterday, alongside Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Archbishop Warda said that there were fewer than 200,000 Christians left in Iraq and "the time for waiting" was running out.
Declaring that figure to be "optimistic", he said: "From what we have seen so far our people have lost patience. The past is terrifying, the present is not promising. All is left is the very limited choice of emigration, to Jordan and Turkey."
He cited Mosul, one of the most dangerous cities in the world to be a Christian, where hundreds were driven out in October 2009, saying: "In 2003 there were 4,000 Chaldean families, 1,000 Christians from other churches, and 11 active Chaldean churches. Now six churches have been closed, and if it goes this way, it won't be this long before certain areas of Iraq are evacuated.
"We have freedom of worship, but not freedom of religion, that is not allowed, in any Islamic state."
But, I thought Islam was a tolerant, peaceful religion with the dignity of human rights held in high esteem. Wait, what?
(.)...although Christians were safer in the Kurdish-controlled regions of northern Iraq, they still lacked economic security and were so impoverished some had resorted to prostitution. Some 5,000 Christian families had fled to the Kurdish-controlled region and yet, he said, the Iraqi Government cared so little for them that they had demanded European governments paid for their resettlement.
"It was a strange statement," he said of the Government's demand: "They are not some group who have emigrated from Europe. They do not come from Europe!"
Yet some believe they should go back to where they did not come from. What are they, Islamophobes?
Read it all
You will hear many reasons why this is so, but it is vitally important to remember:
This is Islam.
From AINA March 19 by Ed West
Time is Running Out for Iraq's Christians, Says
Archbishop
Iraq's ancient Christian community has run out of time and will disappear soon, a senior Iraqi churchman has said.
Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil made his alarming prediction at a press conference for the launch of the Aid to the Church in Need report on oppressed Christians abroad, Persecuted and Forgotten?
Speaking in Westminster yesterday, alongside Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Archbishop Warda said that there were fewer than 200,000 Christians left in Iraq and "the time for waiting" was running out.
Declaring that figure to be "optimistic", he said: "From what we have seen so far our people have lost patience. The past is terrifying, the present is not promising. All is left is the very limited choice of emigration, to Jordan and Turkey."
He cited Mosul, one of the most dangerous cities in the world to be a Christian, where hundreds were driven out in October 2009, saying: "In 2003 there were 4,000 Chaldean families, 1,000 Christians from other churches, and 11 active Chaldean churches. Now six churches have been closed, and if it goes this way, it won't be this long before certain areas of Iraq are evacuated.
"We have freedom of worship, but not freedom of religion, that is not allowed, in any Islamic state."
But, I thought Islam was a tolerant, peaceful religion with the dignity of human rights held in high esteem. Wait, what?
(.)...although Christians were safer in the Kurdish-controlled regions of northern Iraq, they still lacked economic security and were so impoverished some had resorted to prostitution. Some 5,000 Christian families had fled to the Kurdish-controlled region and yet, he said, the Iraqi Government cared so little for them that they had demanded European governments paid for their resettlement.
"It was a strange statement," he said of the Government's demand: "They are not some group who have emigrated from Europe. They do not come from Europe!"
Yet some believe they should go back to where they did not come from. What are they, Islamophobes?
Read it all
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