Pope insists Middle East ‘must keep its Christians’

On Monday Pope Francis expanded the agenda of a consistory on the causes of saints – including that of Goa native and evangeliser of Sri Lanka, Blessed Joseph Vaz – to include discussion of the ongoing Middle East crisis.

“We cannot resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians, who have professed the name of Jesus there for over 2,000 years,” the Pope told cardinals and patriarchs with responsibility for the region. “We would like to give all the help possible to Christian communities to support them in remaining there.”

In Iraq and Syria, the Pope said, “We are witnessing a phenomenon of terrorism on an unimaginable scale … It seems that an awareness of the value of human life has been lost; it is as if people do not count and can be sacrificed to other interests. And unfortunately all this encounters indifference on the part of many.” “This unjust situation requires, aside from our constant prayer, an adequate response on the part of the international community.”

The centrepiece of the discussion that followed was an address by the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who presented a summary of the early October meeting of apostolic nuncios to the countries of the region. On the question of the use of force to protect Christians and other victims of persecution, Cardinal Parolin said: “In this regard, it was stressed repeatedly that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor – always, however, in a manner consistent with international law, as the Holy Father has also affirmed.”

Speaking of the threat posed by the self-styled Islamic State, Cardinal Parolin said, “Attention must be paid to the sources that sustain [its] terrorist activities through more-or-less clear political support, through illegal commerce in oil and the supply of weapons and technology.”

A basic regional problem, he said, was “a lack of separation between religion and State, between the religious sphere and the civil sphere – a tie that makes life difficult for non-Muslim minorities and in particular for the Christian minority.” It was important, he said, to “help nurture the notion of the distinction of these two spheres in the Muslim world”. “The United Nations and the structures that exist for [addressing] similar emergencies must act to prevent possible new genocides and to assist the numerous refugees,” Cardinal Parolin insisted.