Church is suffering in Iraq

CATHOLIC leaders in Iraq
have accused Western
nations and global agencies
like the UN of doing
nothing to protect the
Muslim country’s terrified
Christian minority.
“Christians are slaughtered
in their homes and churches,
and the ‘free’ world watches
in complete indifference,
responding only in a politically
correct, economically opportunistic
way,” said Syrian
Catholic Patriarch Ignace
Joseph III.
He was speaking after the
most ferocious assault yet by
Muslim radicals on the community.
The attack on
Catholics attending Sunday
evening Mass in Baghdad left
52 of them dead, including
three young priests, and 75
more injured.
Shortly before this, Iraqi
bishops at a synod in Rome
told of the terrorism and violence
Christians and other
minorities face: kidnappings,
bombings of churches,
schools and other properties,
and threats to Christian businesses,
as well as to their
lives.

Islamic extremists burst into
Our Lady of Salvation Church,
murdering the priests and taking
the congregation hostage.
A grenade was tossed into a
room where 60 parishioners
were huddling for safety.
As Iraqi forces stormed the
church, the Islamists surrounded
themselves with children
and blew themselves
and the children to bits, using
explosives hidden in suicide
vests.
A group linked to al-Qaeda
claimed responsibility for the
atrocity and warned that it
would open on Christians “the
doors of destruction and
rivers of blood.”
A few days after what Pope
Benedict called “a savage
act”, eleven car bombs aimed
at Christian shops and homes
in Baghdad exploded, killing
another 5 members of the
minority.Iraqi Christians say they are
in far greater danger now than
at any time in their long history.
They have been living in terror
since the bombing of their
places of worship began in
2004.In 1987 a census in Iraq
revealed there were 1.4 million
Christians still in the
country. Estimates put the figure
at between 500,000 and
800,000 today.

The coffins of two priests killed in the recent Islamist attack
on Catholics who were taking part in Sunday Mass in the
Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad. Another priest and 49
laypeople died in the assault.

Source: Alive Newspaper