August 15 | 
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A time when the world cannot turn the other cheek
The world’s attention was grabbed by the loss of innocent lives in Gaza this summer as global interest in the Holy Land prompted blanket media coverage of the increase in violence and the subsequent humanitarian crisis there. Only last week, however, did one brave SCO comment writer dare to cast the net of Christian persecution wider and call for prays and intervention in other countries in the region where the so-called Arab spring had become a winter of discontent. How tragic that the broader dangers and concerns Hugh McLoughlin pinpointed have come home to roost so dramatically in Iraq.
Pope Francis issued his most impassioned condemnation of violence in the region to date, and made a plea for peace, after the reports of genocide in Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in Iraq, and surrounding areas were made.
“You cannot make war in the name of God!” the Holy Father said.
Tragically, in addition to those slaughtered by Islamic extremists, Christian refugees are now said to be dying in overcrowded refugee camps.
The Holy Father has, through the Papal nuncio to Great Britain, called on us all to pray for Iraq’s Christians, send aid and lobby our politicians to take action.
“These are our own flesh and blood both in humanity and faith,” Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen says. “They deserve our support and we should give it.”
On Tuesday the Vatican also called on Muslim leaders to denounce unambiguously the persecution of Christians and Yazidis in Iraq.
“The dramatic situation of the Christians, the Yazidis, and other minority religious and ethnic communities in Iraq demands that religious leaders, and above all Muslim religious leaders, people engaged in inter-religious dialogue and all people of good will take a clear and courageous stance,” The Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue said. “All must be unanimous in their unambiguous condemnation of these crimes and denounce the invoking of religion to justify them.
“Otherwise, what credibility will religions, their followers and their leaders, have? What credibility could the inter-religious dialogue [which has been] patiently pursued in recent years have?”
To those who believe that Christianity is being marginalised in the UK, it will come as no surprise to see the Christian faith and Christian people being violently put down in other parts of the world. It does not, however, make it right or acceptable.
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