Iraqi Bishops in Rome: Don’t Forget Us

ROME, JAN. 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- There is a “deafening silence” in the international community about the

plight of Iraqi Christians, attest prelates from the wartorn country.

The bishops, in Rome for their five-yearly meeting with the Pope, spoke with Vatican Radio about the

situation their flocks are facing back home and they appealed to the world not to forget.

Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk and Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Babylon spoke about

the deafening silence regarding the situation of Iraqi Christians and lamented that they were powerless to stop

the mass exodus of Christians from the country.

Before 2003, there were 800,000 Christians in an Iraqi population of 25 million. But in the last five years, the

conditions of life and anti-Christian violence have forced half of the Christian population to leave their homes.

The Iraqi bishops said their outcry over the situation has only been reported by the media in the last few

months. Now, they said, public opinion and the international community are responding to create security and

thousands of Iraqis are returning.

Lending a hand

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka of Baghdad said the situation is such that one

presumes there is “a plan to make Christians leave the Middle East.”

And Archbishop Sako said he wanted to ask the Holy Father about preparing a special synod for the Church in

Iraq: “We have great need of the Pope’s help. Thanks to his continual pleas the international media have

begun to talk about the Iraqi cause.”

“We are not in a position,” he continued, “to plan and project the future of Iraq. The Holy See could certainly

give us a hand and support.

“We must give answers to [Iraqi Christians] that will keep fear from winning out. We need others. In Iraq

there needs to be a democracy that is adapted to a country that has never had one. We have been waiting for it

for 35 years.”

“Democracy requires education and cannot be forced,” Bishop Warduni added.

Leaving a mess

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul contended that after the arrival of American

troops, the country’s problems “increased a hundredfold.”