Engaging Faith

Christians in the Middle East and North Africa are facing a crisis. Forced to leave their ancestral homes and abandon their churches or face death, the situation is truly harrowing. Pope Francis prayed for an end to Christian persecution in the Middle East after Christians were forced to flee the village of Mosul in Iraq following threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a jihadist militant group. Mosul’s Christians (who had been in the Mosul for 1700 years) and had numbered over 30,000 dwindled to just a few thousands. Besides ISIS, other minority groups such as Yazidis, Shabaks, and Shiite Turkmen have killed a significant number of Christians in extrajudicial executions. They also destroyed churches and Christian symbols. Christians have faced persecutions in the Middle East for centuries. After the seventh century Arab Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, the Christian population dwindled there until Christians comprised only ten percent of the Islamic Empire. Internally, the Great Schism of 1054 that caused a divide between the Eastern churches and the Western or Roman Church played a factor in limiting the number of Roman Catholics in the Middle East. However, many Roman Catholics did participate in the Crusades and some remained in the Middle East as a minority after the Crusades ended. Then, in the thirteenth century, the Maronite Church (the largest Christian Church in Lebanon today) came back into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some members more Eastern Churches returned to communion with the Roman Church; for example, Greek Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Coptic Catholics, and the Chaldean Catholic Church. In modern times, Chaldean Catholics have made up the largest Christian community in Iraq. The number of Christians in the Middle East began to decline in the twentieth century. Why? Obviously, there has been a rise of more aggressive forms of Islam rather than forms that coexisted peacefully with Christians. Also, in the Holy Land, ten percent of the population was Christian prior to the foundation of the State of Israel. As Jews immigrated to the area, Christians emigrated away. Emigration and a declining birth rate have caused the number of Christians to fall to two to three percent of the population in Israel. Unfortunately, whatever freedom allowed Christian communities in the past has come back to haunt them. That Christians were allowed by previous regimes such as those of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Mohamed Morsi and his predecessors in Egypt to coexist peacefully may have become justifications for Islamic groups to consider Christians their enemies. These regimes were associated with Western imperialism. Christians are also facing attacks from militant Islamic groups in other parts of the world, particularly South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria. Sadly, if nothing is done soon, Christians may disappear from the very lands that Jesus walked, the birthplace of the faith. The United States and European governments have not yet done much to advocate on Christians’ behalf: Time Magazine correspondent Roland Flamini wrote: “Christians see themselves as between a rock and a hard place. Arab fundamentalists increasingly see them as pawns of the West, while the West actually ignores their plight.” Pope Francis preached to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square: “Violence isn't overcome with violence. Violence is conquered with peace. Our brothers and sisters are persecuted, they are chased away." Further Information Daniel Estrin, “Christian Exodus from Middle East Shadows Papal Visit to the Holy Land,” Huffington Post. Roland Flamini, “Forced Exodus: Christians in the Middle East,” World Affairs, November/December 2013. Alissa J. Rubin, “ISIS Forces Last Iraqi Christians to Flee Mosul,” The New York Times, July 18, 2014.

The media has been buzzing with information about young people crossing the border in Texas primarily and in Arizona. There is much political dialogue about what to do and of course, who is to blame. Here are some basic points for information and clarification: 1. Children are seeking only to immigrate to the United States. In addition to the United States, children are seeking asylum in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (USA Today) 2. Parents send their children to the United States by themselves. A good percentage of the children who are coming to the United States for asylum already have family, often parents, in the U.S. who immigrated years ago when the U.S. had more lenient policies for immigrants from their countries. The children have not seen their loved ones in years. 3. Children want to come to this country for better opportunities. The Department for Homeland Security has analyzed the reasons why children have been making the journey to the US. While Guatemalan children from rural areas may be seeking economic opportunities, most Honduran and Salvadoran children come from such violent regions in their countries (as well as poverty) that they think that they are less likely to die on the dangerous route to the U.S., even by themselves. Gang violence is out of control in Honduras, El Salvador, and urban Guatemala. Young children encounter gangs at school and the neighborhood and even those kids who are completely uninterested in these groups are exhorted and threatened. Sixty percent of the children who arrive at the border have been beaten, robbed, or threatened by gang members. Thirty percent of the girls have experienced threats of sexual violence or actual experiences of that violence, including rape. The homicide rate in Honduras is the highest in the world for countries who are not at war. 4. Nobody but politicians are saying much less doing anything about this. The United States government is working with the governments of the Central American countries to counter the message promoted by human smugglers that minors arriving at the U.S. border will be able to stay. The Mexican government discourages people from traveling through Mexico to the border because migrants are often victims of violent crimes such as kidnapping, robbery, and rape, as well as victims to the harsh weather conditions .Bishops from the Central American countries as well as this country have committed themselves to keeping migrants as safe as possible and to support efforts in their countries of origin to discourage young people from leaving. The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration has called people to think of solidarity at a global level. The Pope has asked that the children be welcomed and protected and that people deal with their fear and the indifference of a “throwaway culture” Ave Maira Press Mini-Unit on Immigration To study the Migration issue in more depth, please see the Ave Maria Press free mini-unit on the subject. It accompanies the video Dying to Live: A Migrant's Journey. For additional information: David Agren, “Bishops from five countries ask society to confront migration issues,” July 11, 2014, Catholic News Service, www.catholicnews.com. Department for Homeland Security, Map of “Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) by Location of Origin for CY 2014: Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala,” 27 May 2014. Josephine McKenna, “Pope Francis: End the ‘racist and xenophobic’ approach to migrants along U.S.-Mexico border,” July 15, 2014, National Catholic Reporter, ncronline.org. Bob Ortega, “Questions surround surge in migrant kids left at the border,” USA Today, June 10, 2014, www.usatoday.com.

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