Syriac Patriarch Warns of Despair Among Displaced Iraqi Catholics

Crux ^ | 7/28/16 | Doreen Abi Raad

[marshmallow]

In a wide-ranging interview for CRUX, the spiritual leader of the world's 200,000 Syriac Catholics describes the growing despair of the Iraqi refugees, the war in Syria, Bashar Assad, and the causes of Islamic fundamentalism.

LEBANON - The displaced Syriac Catholics of the Iraqi areas of Nineveh and Mosul are fast losing hope that they will ever return home, according to their spiritual leader, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan.

Some 100,000 Iraqi Christians were forced to flee to the Kurdistan region in the north in the summer of 2014, where they are languishing in expectation of a return that never comes.

In an interview with Crux, the Patriarch - spiritual shepherd to some 200,000 Syriac Catholics worldwide - shared something of the despair of his people at what they regard as the foot-dragging of the western nations. “The people don’t believe anymore in the promises being made,” he says. “They want something real.”

Patriarch Younan is no stranger to suffering himself. He was the son of displaced parents who fled from Mardin in South-East Turkey during the genocide of 1915, taking refuge in Syria, where he was later born in Hassakeh.

Prior to being elected patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in January 2009, he served for 14 years as the first bishop of the New Jersey-based Diocese of Our Lady of Deliverance for Syriac Catholics in the United States and Canada.

Younan also talks about his recent meeting with Syrian president Bashar Assad, who struck him as sincere in wanting Christians to remain. Younan said “what was done to Syria was clearly unjust, a kind of Machiavellian politics exercised against Syria and the Syrian people” and says he believes Assad’s secular regime was the best alternative for the region.

The Patriarch also spoke about his warm relations with.....

[Mrs. Don-o]

bfl

[Zionist Conspirator]

I know that “Syriac” is the correct term (referring to the liturgical language), but I wish they’d just go back to the older “Syrian” name that used to be used in English. It’s a lot less clumsy.

[MasterGunner01]

No one in Obama’s administration will answer WHY we are importing Muslim killers from the Middle East and leaving the victims of these Muslim killers in place to be slaughtered. We could bring in Copts, Orthodox, Catholics, other Christians, Jews, or other non-Muslim minorities. But, NO, they are left as fodder for the Muslim killers.

[maryz]

Didn’t Obama say a while back that there was no persecution of Christians in the Middle East — only persecution of Muslims?

[MasterGunner01]

Funny too that Obomination is also persecuting Christians in this country. May be his Muslim upbringing and that of his Muslim brain, Valerie Jarrett. [She's Iranian born, speaks Farsi, and is a Muslim.]