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Iraqi Christian: “We have actually been weakened by the stance taken by the Vatican”

Jun 12, 2018 10:00 am By Robert Spencer

Aziz Emmanuel al-Zebari is right. Last September, the Pope met in the Vatican with Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has been linked to the financing of jihad terror. During the meeting, al-Issa thanked the Pope for his “fair positions” on what he called the “false claims that link extremism and violence to Islam.” Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, has also thanked Francis for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”

Pope Francis has proclaimed that “authentic Islam and the proper understanding of the Koran reject every form of violence,” doing his bit to ensure that as many Christians as possible would remain ignorant and complacent about the jihad threat that his precious “dialogue” does nothing to mitigate.

Pope Francis is a disgrace to the Catholic Church, to Judeo-Christian civilization, and to the free world.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Iraqi Christian hits Pope’s ‘submissive’ policy on tolerance for Islam, other religions,” by Hollie McKay, Fox News, May 30, 2018:

ERBIL, Iraq – Iraq’s Christian community, still struggling to pick up the pieces of a genocidal ISIS campaign to wipe them from their ancestral homeland, are speaking up against Pope Francis and the Vatican for not doing enough to support their struggle for survival.

“We have actually been weakened by the stance taken by the Vatican,” Aziz Emmanuel al-Zebari, 68, a Chaldean political candidate, community leader and professor at the Catholic University of Erbil (CUE), told Fox News in a recent interview. “The Vatican is teaching the community to be submissive. That won’t help us get our rights.”

In the view of Zebari and other Christians, the Pope’s repeated emphasis on a greater tolerance for and understanding of Islam has left the deeply persecuted Chaldean minority feeling insecure and vulnerable. It has also sparked internal divide between those who follow the Pope’s guidance and others – like Zebari – who insist their survival rests on being much more outspoken.

Zebari referred to the Pope’s approach as “naïve and short-sighted.” For those like the Chaldean community leader – who are far from the comforts of Rome and remain in the line of fire – their lives are marked by a continual sense of the unknown.

“There can’t dialogue when one party is down and the other party has the upper hand,” Zebari lamented. “There is no equal ground here.”

Zebari said Chaldeans “have paid a high price for being Christian, and we cannot prevail without protection. When I am displaced, when my family is threatened with sexual violence and I’m then told just to pray and be tolerant…”

The Chaldeans belong to the Eastern Catholic Church that, while technically independent of Rome, recognizes and looks to the Pope as the authority. The Chaldeans, along with the Assyrians and Syriacs, make up the three major Christian groups in Iraq.

Since the sudden rise of ISIS in 2014, in which it quickly gained control of huge swaths of Christian lands across Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, the Pope routinely took the posture of speaking staunchly in defense of Islam and religious tolerance all around.

In May 2016, when the ISIS invasion was at its bloody pinnacle, the Pope asked that everyone pray God would “convert the hearts” of the deadly perpetrators, and stressed that it was wrong to identify Islam with violence. Pope Francis has instead blamed social injustice and worship of money as being among the leading causes of terrorism.

He has condemned those who support anti-immigration policies, urged Christians to take in Muslim refugees, and housed Muslim refugees in the Vatican to send a message of inclusiveness. He also campaigned repeatedly for religious tolerance and “inter-faith” dialogue.

But earlier this year, Iraqi Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil spoke more directly to problems within Islam. He spoke in a speech at Georgetown University about the “fundamental crisis within Islam itself,” and warned that if the crisis were not acknowledged, addressed and fixed, “there can be no future for Christians in the Middle East.” He encouraged “courageous voices from Islamic leaders” to continue highlighting the need for change.

A spokesperson for CUE and the Archbishop, in response to the published comments, told Fox News that “Mr. Zebari does not speak for the Chaldean Catholic Church or for the Catholic University of Erbil, but only in his private capacity as an individual.”

“While he is entitled to his opinion, the Chaldean Catholic Church is grateful to Pope Francis for his many statements and signs of support for our persecuted people,” the representative noted. “Most recently, these include announcing that our Patriarch will be made a Cardinal, and leading prayer for Christians in the Middle East in Bari on July 7.”

Nonetheless, there are believed to be less than 200,000 Christians left in Iraq – down from 1.4 million 30 years ago, according to Iraqi census data. Most now live in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north, and in the ISIS-battered areas of the Nineveh Plains on the outskirts of Mosul….

“We don’t expect any support from the Vatican,” Zebari said. “We are in a hopeless situation.”…

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Filed Under: Catholic Church, dhimmitude, dialogue, Featured, Iraq, Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: Aziz Emmanuel al-Zebari, Pope Francis


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Comments

  1. Dum Spiro says

    Jun 12, 2018 at 10:17 am

    Maybe Pope Francis means that Catholicism/Christianity is the “true, peaceful Islam” (from which Islam split in a heresy)? Saint John of Damascus explains the heresy: http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/st-john-of-damascus-on-islam/

    • Voytek Gagalka says

      Jun 12, 2018 at 5:06 pm

      The (Roman) Catholic Church ALWAYS considered Eastern Christian Church as heretical. They encouraged Crusade not only against Mohammedans but predominantly (particularly in Eastern Europe: Teutonic Knights) against “schismatic” part of Christianity. Why, you think, they did not lift the finger to help the Byzantine Empire (which was of Eastern Church) when it was attacked and conquered by Turks?

      • gravenimage says

        Jun 13, 2018 at 12:26 am

        Actually, those who took part in the “Fourth Crusade” attack on Byzantium were threatened wit excommunication.

        And some in the West *did* help at Constantinople–but there were not enough of them.

        Part of what Islam did was fragment those they threatened–surely you don’t want to continue this now?

        • Joe says

          Jun 13, 2018 at 5:08 am

          Everyone in the 4th Crusade was excommunicated before they reach Constantinople.

    • Carol the 1st says

      Jun 13, 2018 at 9:57 pm

      @Dum Spiro…A most interesting article with references to Saracens, Mamed (Muhammed surely), stone of Venus in Khabathan, etc. I feel like I’ve just gotten a real glimpse into the precursors of Islam.

  2. Susan B is getting really mad@# says

    Jun 12, 2018 at 10:26 am

    Many claim he is the Antichrist, however I tend to see him as just an anti-Christian globalist who has sold his soul to the devil. Pope Benedict XVI is the real Pope and who knows what these evil minions of Satan have done to him.

    • Tim Fuller says

      Jun 12, 2018 at 12:46 pm

      He is more likely to be the False Prophet to an Islamic Antichrist.

  3. Lydia Church says

    Jun 12, 2018 at 3:47 pm

    This came to mind again:

    Pope Francis made his first visit outside Rome Monday to Lampedusa where he criticised what he called the “globalisation of indifference”.

    “Christopher Hein, director of the Italian Council for Refugees, told the Catholic newspaper Avvenire the pope’s visit was “an extremely important gesture” that would help keep attention on the migrant issue.”

    Pope Francis visits migrant island of Lampedusa-article online via News Wires.

    Oh, it was a gesture alright! A very meaningful one at that, symbolic of sinister intent…
    The opening ceremony of… let the stampede begin!
    We are still witnessing the onslaught…

    • Lydia Church says

      Jun 12, 2018 at 3:48 pm

      Note that this took place in July, 2013.

  4. Kepha says

    Jun 12, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    Once, I heard a Jewish acquaintance castigate the Mizrahi and Sefardi people of Israel, accusing them of being the backbone of the Israeli right, primitive, and an obstacle to peace. Even then, in those innocent pre-9/11 times, I observed that those people probably knew a thing or two about living as subject people under Islamic rule; and that might have had something to do with their political choices now that they were part of a nation that had its own military forces. Emmanuel el-Zebari’s testimony seems to be something of the same sort.

    As a Christian myself, I am all for love and compassion. Those were the reasons why God the Word took on our human nature, dwelt among us, became acquainted with all of our weaknesses and sufferings apart from sin, and offered himself on the cross as atonement for our sins. It is why he rose from the dead and left his witness with his disciples, along with the commission to preach to every nation. It is also why he has preserved the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. I’m all for compassionate witness to our Muslim neighbors. We’ve been caught flat-footed by an unprecedented openness to the Gospel among Muslims, and are profoundly humbled and grateful for this.

    However, we must not forget the older Christian communions of the Bible Lands. They are under appalling pressure, and for the international community and the man who pretends to speak for the universal flock of Christ to ignore that suffering, and hide in the comfortable organized and willful ignorance of the era of theological liberalism to pretend that Islam is somehow akin to Christianity, and that there are somehow commonalities rather than a dreadful denial of the heart of the Gospel–and Islam’s denial of the Gospel, I am convinced, is the key to its savagery.

    • JM says

      Jun 12, 2018 at 7:42 pm

      Excellent post, Kepha.

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 13, 2018 at 12:31 am

      Fine post.

    • Carol says

      Jun 13, 2018 at 10:28 am

      I agree, excellent post and very true.

  5. Vicky says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 9:28 am

    The Vatican is propagating the subjugation and genocide of Christians. It is the enemy of God.

  6. Fed up says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 9:34 am

    This Pope is a diaster. The chaos and confusion he has sown is beyond belief. Pandering to Islam is just the tip of the iceberg.

  7. Ray Jarman says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 2:51 pm

    The American State Department and especially USAID have placed a huge blight on themselves. In October, 2017, USAID was directed by the White House and Vice President Pence in particular to fund the Christian, Syriacs and Yazidis directly viz. through the United Nations and their NGOs who were providing ninety percent of the funding to the muslims. Now the Vice President is getting personally involved and with SECSTATE Mike Pompeo the funding will be directed entirely to the various Christian communities. If I had my way, USAID would cease to exist tomorrow and none of their employees would be permitted to be absorbed by the State Department. I have seen first hand in Nigeria and Zimbabwe the tax money of hard working Americans be directly given to the corrupt leaders of both countries as well as to NGOs within these nations who spent it on their own lavish life style.

    Mr. Spencer spoke of the Kurds in the Kurdish controlled northern regions as having taken in a lot of the Christians who were displaced by ISIS and I wish he would write an in depth article about how the Kurds have been the one bright spot in Iraq. I witnessed first hand in 2007 the welcoming of Christians from the Shia controlled area of Iraq near Barsa and ancient Ur that had been persecuted. Many of the doctors in the hospitals in Irbil and Kerkuk are Christian and even some Jews. It is not uncommon to see Christians in the new hotels throughout the Kurdish region.

  8. Mark Berlinger says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 6:59 pm

    Bishop Bergoglio, that great defender of Islam, is a disgrace to Judeo-Christianity and to the supporters of free expression and Western Civilization.

    Thank God for all counter-Jihadists. I am proudly one of them.

  9. Caroll says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 8:14 pm

    I am going to send this article to the catholic bishop of my own town.

  10. E. Maria says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 8:57 pm

    This Pope (who is he, really?) is the worst thing that has happened to the Catholic church. He’s like Obama, going around asking for forgiveness to the wrong people and standing with Islam. Does he not know that he will be held accountable to the Almighty Judge Himself for not telling the Truth! Bergoglio speaks with forked tongue and is on the wrong side of history!

  11. E. Maria says

    Jun 13, 2018 at 9:00 pm

    Now we can Truly say, “the Pope is not Catholic.”

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