This is a topic that deserves to be revisited every now and then. It's one thing for the press to give token coverage of the murder of Christians in the Middle East. That's nice and all, but note that they really don't go into the broader context of what is going on, which is basically enslavement and genocide.
I'm bringing it up now for two reasons. First, there is the somewhat well-publicized condemnation of Pope Benedict's call for Christians to be protected.
Al-Azhar, the chief centre of Sunni Muslim learning, suspended on Thursday its ties with the Vatican, accusing the pope of attacking Islam, but the Holy See says it wants to continue its bi-annual meetings with the Egypt-based institute.
"The freeze was prompted by the repeated attacks on Islam by Pope Benedict XVI of the Vatican. The Pope has reiterated that Muslims oppress non-Muslims who are living with them in the Middle East," said an Al-Azhar statement carried by the official Mena news agency.
An advisor to Al-Azhar grand imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb criticised remarks by the pontiff as interference in internal affairs.
"The pope has repeatedly alleged that non-Muslims are being persecuted in Muslim countries in the Middle East region, which is far from the truth and is an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Islamic countries," Sheikh Mahmud Azab said in remarks carried by MENA.
Yeah, clearly we should all just stand back and let these folks be butchered. We wouldn't want to be "interfering" with any of that. Hey, as long as nobody burns a Koran, everything should be ok. Killing scores of people should be acceptable, but the minute somebody burns a copy of a book, all hell has to break loose because we just can't be having any of that. Then we have to get Ban Ki-Moon on the phone.
Of course, it's not like this "dialogue freeze" or whatever the hell they call it is some kind of big freaking loss. These kinds of discussions don't even meet the criteria of inter-religious dialogue. It's not like some crew of prelates is going into these situations with a serious argument for the divinity of Christ. These kinds of talks are diplomatic negotiations and should be treated that way.
The second prompt for this post is the lesser-known story regarding the resignation of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. The Maronites are largely based in Lebanon, home to some of the world's worst terrorist scum.
Sfeir who has been very critical of the political situation said on December 20 :”Hezbollah appears intent on seizing power in Lebanon” and warned against the party’s attempt to unilaterally rule the country saying justice was more important than stability.
“The way Hezbollah is acting and their talk about becoming a significant force leads us to believe that if the party continues to pursue its plan it could seize power. The dangers of such a step, if it takes place, lie in the fact that Lebanon cannot be ruled by one party,” Sfeir said in a
interview with MTV television.
Sfieir who is also concerned over the situation of Christians in Lebanon and the entire Middle East said during an interview with CNN on January 5th that all the Lebanese people are worried and not only the Christian Lebanese.
Sfeir described the situation of the Christians in the Middle east as tragic and specially in Iraq.
Sfeir told CNN that the situation for Christians in Lebanon has completely changed because in the past, they represented the majority of the population and occupied a special position in Lebanon, but demographics have since changed.
He said Christian families are satisfied with three to four children, while Muslim families could have 10 to 15 children.
“This is why Muslims have now greatly outnumbered the Christians, especially since Christians and some Muslims have emigrated,” the patriarch said.
Asked whether he believes Lebanon would ever have president who is not Christian, Sfeir replied: “I don’t know, maybe if matters developed further and the Christians became a minority.”
He added that this issue is up to the Lebanese themselves and maybe, if the Muslims continue to outnumber the Christians in Lebanon, some new demands may be raised for such a change.
In a nutshell, it is only a matter of time. The light of Christianity will be extinguished in the Middle East, and the secular world will rejoice. After all, holocausts of this sort are great tragedies worthy of world-wide intervention, except when Christians are targeted.
2 comments:
But the last two Popes are on the pacifist lean....as they got older. If there were an intervention with arms in Lebanon, Benedict would whine against whom? Against Western forces as soon as they did something in the nature of actually winning or Involving collateral damage. No thanks. The Pope did it several years ago when Israel hit back hard against the scud barrage from Hezbollah.....when all along the Pope should have been criticizing the month after month delivery of scuds from Syria. Popin' should be harder than sporadically criticizing the West during armed conflict. And the West will not take security advice from the Popes after the security debacle of the sex abuse period. You don't listen to a carpenter on chemical engineering problems.
Sure, but you might listen to the Vicar of Christ on moral problems. I'm not the Pope, but if he's calling for the protection of Christians against violence, I'm not so dense as to think he's talking about hunger strikes.
Pope Benedict is mostly likely to "whine" (as you put it) against any disproportional action taken to defend Christians. Israel is good at that. Of course, the Christians are ultimately the group that will suffer regardless of who assumes power in the region. We are usually the "collateral damage" of which you speak. You'll just have to forgive the Holy Father for thinking that life is sacred.
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