EU urged to help Middle East refugees return home

Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Raï has urged the European Union to fight for the right of Christian refugees to return to their homes in Syria and Iraq, writes Tom Heneghan.

The Patriarch of the Lebanon-based Eastern rite Catholic Church told a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels that the region’s dwindling Christian minority had through dialogue with Muslims helped develop the more moderate Islam that long held sway in the Middle East until radical Islamists emerged.

“The rise of Islamist fundamentalism and the growth of terrorist organisations risks stamping out the Muslim moderation that Christians and Muslims patiently built up over 1,400 years of living together,” he said. “Christians were the guarantors of this moderation,” he said. “One must absolutely not cede this region to fundamentalists and leave terrorist organisations an open field.”