French cardinal in solidarity visit to Mosul Christians

Lyons’ Cardinal Philippe Barbarin led a French church delegation to Kurdistan this week to “express their solidarity in flesh and blood” with Iraqi Christians expelled from Mosul by the Islamic State radicals.

Received in Erbil by Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphaël Sako, the cardinal celebrated Mass in the city’s cathedral and announced his archdiocese would be twinned with that of Mosul, now emptied of Christians after the new “caliphate” in northern Iraq ordered them to convert to Islam, pay a tax or face death.
Bishop Michel Dubost, the French bishops’ official for interreligious dialogue, and Mgr Pascal Gollnisch, head of the Paris-based l’Oeuvre d’Orient charity supporting Middle Eastern Christians, joined Cardinal Barbarin for the visit from 28 July to 1 August.

The delegation also visited Mosul refugees and local Christians in Qaraqosh, a mostly Syriac Catholic city in Nineveh province about 18.6 miles south-east of Mosul and only a few miles from the front line with the Islamic State. Christians cheered as the French delegation arrived at their packed church under Kurdish military escort.

Kurdish Peshmerga troops accompanied the delegation from Erbil, driving in vehicles armed with machine guns in front of and behind the delegation’s cars. Peshmerga militia fought off an Islamist attempt to occupy Qaraqosh in early July.

Speaking before leaving France, Cardinal Barbarin said the delegation wanted to do more than simply send money to fellow Christians in distress. “As Paul said in his Epistle to the Romans, we must weep with those who weep,” he said. As the visit began, France announced it was in close contact with Iraqi authorities to help the Christian refugees. “We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil,” said the foreign and interior ministries.

Mgr Gollnisch, whose charity has an annual budget of €10 ­million (£7.9m) to support Churches across the Middle East, said, “If possible, we want to see regular visits to the East by representatives of the French Church.”

On the weekend before the dele­gation left, rallies and Masses were held in Paris and Lyons in support of Iraq’s Christians.

The capital’s grand rabbi, a leading local Muslim politician and several MPs  joined the rally outside Notre Dame Cathedral, where many participants wore the Arabic letter “N” for Nazarene – daubed on the doors of Mosul Christians by Islamic State (IS) terrorists – and a Chaldean priest recited the Our Father in Aramaic. In Qaraqosh, Cardinal Barbarin told the crowd about the rallies. They broke into applause when he said many French wore the “N” symbol in solidarity. “I will say the Our Father in your language every day until your return to Mosul,” he told them.

The Bishop of Clifton, Declan Lang, chairman of international affairs for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the IS insurgents’ ultimatums to the Christian population of Mosul  as “crimes against humanity”.

In London, hundreds of Christians, including Iraqi Christians, as well as Muslims, gathered in Parliament Square last Saturday and marched to  Whitehall to demand that the UK Government end its silence over the expulsion of the Mosul Christians. In Washington DC, several hundred protesters gathered in front of the White House to demand that US President Barack Obama take action to help those terrorised by the Islamists.