The Pope's deep concern over
anti-Christian persecutions
by ORAZIO LA ROCCA
Translated from
Jan. 8, 2010
Coptic Bishop Anba Kirollos of the diocese of Nag Hammadi believes he was the real target of the drive-by killing, but they missed him because he left the church by the back door after the Mass.
VATICAN CITY - "The Pope is very concerned with what happened in Egypt. He is saddened and anguished, he prays for the victims, and for all those who are persecuted for their faith in other parts of the world," sources close to Benedict XVI tell
La Repubblica.
Prayer is Benedict XVI's only 'weapon' in facing a new anti-Christian wave in the Middle East, culminating in the drive-by killing of Copts leaving Christmas Midnight Mass on January 7
[date of the Nativity for Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar in dating the moveable feasts].
Clinging to St. Paul's 'hope against hope', the Pope's prayer is that "God may open the hearts of all men to peace, and that every form of violence and injustice may be avoided everywhere".
The sources noted that yesterday, the Pope touched on the sensitive issue of inter-religious dialog and religious freedom in the Muslim countries, in his address to the new ambasssdor from Turkey. Kenan Gursoy.
Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican newspaper, told
La Repubblica: "These tragic incidents bring great sorrow and uneasiness to Christians in ancient communities that date back to apostolic times, as the Copts of Egypt, the Chaldeans of Iraq, and so many other small communities in the Middle East who have been persecuted by extremism and violence in various forms - which often also strike at followers of other religions, and even Muslims themselves."
Vian points out that his newspaper reported the Egyptian attack on Page 1 of the newspaper under the headline "Six Christians and a Muslim killed in Egypt ambush".
"The Holy See always pays great attention to these events," he continues. "The Pope has never failed to deplore such episodes, as he did in his New Year's Day Angelus message when he made a special appeal to all armed groups to lay down their arms."
The climate of "hate and aversion (against Christians) in Upper Egypt has become even worse lately," says Fr. Rafic Greiche, information officer for the Catholics in Nag Hammadi, the village near Luxor that was the site of the Christmas Day killings.
"We Catholics, like all the other Christians," he says, "are deeply concerned. The attacks always arise from a mixture of religious hatred with opportunistic pretexts".
Last Easter, he recalls, a Christian was murdered in Hegaza in exactly the same way. "The killings two nights ago are just the latest stage in a long trail of violence and abuse that is oppressing almost all the Christian communities in the Near East to the Far East (China)".
"We are increasingly concerned for the persecuted Christians and for the missionaries who work with these suffering communities", says Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees the Church's missionaries. "As the Pope says, we must keep on praying".
According to Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, editor of AsiaNews, "Such violence is the poisonous fruit of a fundamentalism which is increasingly hateful towards the Christian faith - not just in Egypt, but in other places like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq (where half the Christian population has fled to Syria or Jordan)." AsiaNews is the news agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.
In addition, he says, "We must not under-estimate the anti-Christian persecution going on in Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, and India - especially in Orissa and five other states where the law prohibits Hindus from converting to any other religion.
Paradoxically, there appears to be 'less' anti-Christian persecution in China, where there have been no reports of non-Catholics committing offenses against ordinary Christians. From AsiaNews and UCAN reports, the Chinese persecution appears limited to the arbitrary actions of some local officials - unorchestrated and without orders from the central government - who have vented their hostility on bishops of the 'underground' Church who are arrested for no legitimate cause, imprisoned indefinitely, or kept under house arrest. There do not seem to be any reports of regular priests or Catholic laymen subjected to the same.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/01/2010 17:30]